A delightful jeu d’esprit combining a yearning romance, gentle action (of the pickpocketing kind), and cinematic dazzle, Sparrow surprises and beguiles. A band of four elegantly proficient Hong Kong pickpockets, led by the inestimable Simon Yam, encounter an irresistible, dangerously seductive woman (Kelly Lin). She leads them on a tangled caper whose ultimate purpose is as formally elegant as it is emotionally resonant. Each pickpocket in turn is tangled in a piece of her web, before she reveals to them the real reason behind her game-playing. Johnnie To simultaneously reduces and enriches his palette with this tour de force of choreography, close-ups and set pieces. The violence characteristic of his classic genre films is reduced here to one drop of crimson blood. But the sexual tension implicit in his work, on the other hand, blossoms ever so subtly in a romantically re-imagined generic framework. The inspiration is French, to be sure, but more Demy than Melville. Virtually a musical without songs, the film’s characters seem prepared to burst out into melody at any moment. Champagne sparkle with a tender heart.