General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20266 min read

A World Without Thieves (天下无贼)

A World Without Thieves (天下无贼) is a 2004 Chinese action crime drama directed by Feng Xiaogang, adapted from Zhao Benfu's short story of the same name, in which two professional pickpockets protect a naive migrant worker's savings from a rival theft gang on a long-distance train.¹ It stars Andy Lau as Wang Bo, Rene Liu as Wang Li, Ge You as the gang leader Uncle Bill (黎叔), and Wang Baoqiang as the worker Sha Gen.² The film was a major commercial success, earning about 120 million yuan in mainland China and becoming the first of Feng's films to pass 100 million yuan at the box office.³^•⁴

Key fact	Detail
Director / screenwriters	Feng Xiaogang; screenplay by Wang Gang, Lin Lisheng, Zhang Jialu, and Feng Xiaogang¹^•⁵
Source	Short story Tianxia wu zei by Zhao Benfu¹
Release	Mainland China 6 December 2004; Hong Kong 9 December 2004¹
Budget / box office	33 million yuan production budget; about 120 million yuan mainland gross, third among 2004 domestic films⁴^•³^•⁶
Principal cast	Andy Lau, Rene Liu, Ge You, Wang Baoqiang, Li Bingbing⁵
Filming	Gansu and Beijing, 22 April to 18 June 2004¹
Music	Wang Liguang; theme song "Zhidao Bu Zhidao" sung by Rene Liu⁷^•¹

Spoilers

Plot

Wang Bo (Andy Lau) and Wang Li (Rene Liu) are a couple who work as pickpockets and swindlers. After tricking a wealthy businessman out of his BMW and selling it in western China, Wang Li discovers she is pregnant and wants to leave the criminal life, though shame over their profession makes her doubt whether the two of them can be good parents; Wang Bo knows nothing of this, and the two quarrel repeatedly on the journey.¹

On the return train they meet Sha Gen (Wang Baoqiang), a migrant worker carrying the 60,000 yuan he earned through years of labor, intending to build a house and marry in his home village.¹^•⁸ Sha Gen believes human nature is fundamentally good and refuses to accept that thieves exist; he insists on carrying the cash openly.⁸ Moved by his innocence, Wang Li decides to protect him and his money, fulfilling his dream of a world without thieves.¹ A skilled theft gang led by Uncle Bill (Ge You) boards the train intending to take the money, and Wang Bo and Wang Li fight a running battle of wits and skill against them through the carriages.⁸

Production

The film was adapted from Zhao Benfu's short story and was in preparation for about three years.⁸ Shooting took place in Gansu and Beijing between 22 April and 18 June 2004.¹ The production cost 33 million yuan, and the film was made by Huayi Brothers with partners including Media Asia.⁴^•⁷ Zhang Li served as director of photography, Wang Liguang composed the music, and Liu Miaomiao edited.⁷

Feng cast the Hong Kong star Andy Lau and the Taiwan-born Rene Liu in the leading roles, pairing them with the mainland actors Ge You and Li Bingbing, a combination intended to widen the film's appeal in Hong Kong and Taiwan markets.⁴ Feng described the film's genre in deliberately mixed terms: it has romance and humor and action set pieces, but in his view it is above all a story of a prodigal's return, a repeated confrontation between good and evil in human nature, and a journey in which a dormant conscience is awakened at the cost of blood.⁹

Release and box office

The film premiered at midnight screenings across mainland China on 6 December 2004, taking roughly 500,000 to 600,000 yuan nationwide in those first showings, close to the 800,000 yuan midnight record set by Zhang Yimou's Hero; Beijing's midnight take of 100,000 yuan exceeded the 150,000-yuan figure often cited for House of Flying Daggers only in relative terms, and Beijing occupancy exceeded 80 percent.¹⁰ The distributor ran a Hollywood-style saturation release, and the total advertising budget for television, newspapers, the internet, and other media exceeded 15 million yuan (about US$1.8 million).¹¹

Within two weeks the mainland gross reached 80 million yuan, and it stood near 90 million yuan even while competing directly with Kung Fu Hustle; the final mainland total was about 120 million yuan, ranking third among domestic films released in 2004.¹²^•³^•⁶ The Birmingham thesis records that the 120 million yuan gross outdid The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, which took 87 million yuan in China.³

Style and significance

A turning point in Feng's career. Scholars Yin Hong and Tang Jianying describe the film as Feng's first to break out of the Chinese "New Year celebration film" (hesuipian) mold and adopt the features of a Hollywood genre picture: stronger action, extensive computer-generated effects, dramatic conflict driving a continuous chain of climaxes, and a star pairing designed for cross-regional appeal.⁴ It was also the first Feng film to leave the city for the landscapes of northwest China, with most of the action aboard a train crossing starkly beautiful terrain, and the first in which he used special effects to heighten the visual illusion.¹¹ A Huayi Brothers prospectus divides Feng's career into two phases at this film: before it, comedies confined largely to the New Year season with box office of 30 to 50 million yuan and mainly domestic sales; after it, more varied and ambitious subjects, releases outside the holiday slot, box office in the hundreds of millions, and expanding overseas sales.¹³

The film set a record for product placement in a Chinese film, with at least 12 brands involved, following Feng's established practice of featuring sponsors such as Motorola, China Mobile, and BMW.¹⁴^•¹⁵ Its line "What is scarcest in the twenty-first century? Talent!" became one of the film's most quoted lines.¹⁶

The same scholarship notes limits: compared with the Coen brothers' or Guy Ritchie's crime films, the picture stays close to mainstream Hollywood convention and carries values shaped by Chinese circumstances, which in Yin and Tang's view kept it from circulating internationally as a commercial film.⁴ At the 2006 Hundred Flowers Awards, voted by the public, the film lost out despite its box office, a contrast commentators read as a gap between commercial success and popular esteem for the big domestic productions of the period.¹⁷

Awards

The film recorded 7 wins and 10 nominations per 1905.com's tally; IMDb lists 12 wins and 23 nominations across festivals.¹^•¹⁸ At the 2005 Golden Horse Awards it won Best Adapted Screenplay for Feng Xiaogang and was nominated for Best Feature Film.¹⁸ Rene Liu won Best Actress from the Golden Bauhinia Awards, the Golden Kite Awards, and the China Film Media Awards, and Li Bingbing won the Beijing Student Film Festival audience award for favorite actress.¹⁸ The film also won the Huabiao Film Award for Outstanding Co-Produced Film in 2005.¹⁸

References

Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Individual films by title and year › Crime, thriller, and mystery films (individual works) › 2000–2004 films › Released 2003 to 2004

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026

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