Victoria Pratt, Sandrine Holt, Jennifer Dale (7/98 Once A Thief)
Excerpt from New York Magazine 7/98: Victoria Pratt | Once a Thief
Guilty Pleasures: On the Movie Channel, a pair of John Woo revenge tragedies offer up an irresistible mix of kick-boxing, melodrama -- and, oddly, dance.
By John Leonard
In the case of John Woo, from whom this week we get a premium-cable piggyback of Once a Thief: The Director's Cut and Once a Thief: Family Business (Saturday, July 18; 7:05 to 10 p.m.; the Movie Channel), I've gone all the way to Botswana and Norman Rush's novel Mating (1991).
....
Mac (Ivan Sergei), orphaned as usual at an early age, and Li Ann (Sandrine Holt), sold as usual into child prostitution by her mother, are both adopted into the triadic Hong Kong family of Godfather Tang (Robert Ito), who treats them like his own son (Michael Wong) -- that is, as criminal accomplices in everything from dealing weapons to stealing Rembrandts.
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In Part II, Family Business, Godfather Ito himself shows up in Vancouver to kill Ivan and Sandrine, who will instead save him from kidnappers belonging to a local crime family run by Valley Girl teenybopper Vicky Pratt -- a scary amalgam of Alicia Silverstone, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and Patty McCormack in The Bad Seed. Meanwhile, Nicholas is mixed up with yet a third crime family in surprising Vancouver -- the traditionally Italian Orsinis. And Jennifer Dale, their campy "director" at the "shadowy government agency" that will remind you of The Pretender and La Femme Nikita, is playing deep games with all their ditzy heads.
© New York Magazine
Excerpt from Ocala Star-Banner 7/18/98: Victoria Pratt
Two from Woo on the Movie Channel
Kevin McDonough 7/18/98
Like a million other crime dramas, this concerns two ex-thieves, Mac Ramsey (Ivan Sergei) and Li Ann Tsei (Sandrine Holt) dragooned into a super-secret crime-fighting force that might be on the side of the good guys.
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The action and obvious dialogue continues is John Woo's "Once a Thief: Family Business" (9 p.m., The Movie Channel, TV-14), in which the dynamic threesome take on a crime godfather and his beautiful daughter (Vicky Pratt).
© Ocala Star-Banner
Excerpt from The Capital 7/18/98: Victoria Pratt
TV THIS WEEKEND
John Woo's Once a Thief: Family Business (1998), TMC Saturday at 9
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The kids break away from their crime-boss dad and join up with a shadowy international crime-fighting unit. Their father believes they are dead. They tangle with an airhead crime boss (Vicky Pratt), and unwittingly bring their father (Robert Ito) into the picture.
© The Capital
Excerpt from Studio USA, on Sunset Strip 1999: Victoria Pratt
Victoria Pratt as Sarge
She also starred in the action series John Woo's Once a Thief that aired on Showtime following its Canadian run, and guest-starred in the two-part opener of Xena: Warrior Princess last season.
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She also co-hosted Personal Edge, a fitness show that aired in Canada, before landing her first dramatic role in John Woo's Once a Thief only two days after signing with an agent in Toronto. Victoria was cast as young mob boss Jackie Janszik, who emerged as one of the series leads shortly after the launch of the show. Broadcast initially in Canada, the action hour was subsequently licensed to Showtime, which aired Victoria's first two episodes as the television movie The Jackie Janszik Files.
© Studios USA
Owen Sound Sun Times 12/31/99: Victoria Pratt, on Jonathon Jackson Media
Chesley native goes Hollywood
The end of the television show John Woo’s Once A Thief opened more doors for Chesley native Vicky Pratt. Pratt, one of the stars of the action show about former thieves recruited to be government secret agents, has since landed plum roles in an Aaron Spelling television pilot and as an Amazon queen in Xena: Warrior Princess.
© Owen Sound Sun Times
Excerpt from SciFi.com Chat 2/28/00: Victoria Pratt
SciFi.com Chat with Victoria Pratt of Cleopatra 2525
Moderator: : Hi Vicky You probly don't remember me I wrote you a few times, send you questions for a Whoosh article. I was wondering You played a variety of characters..so far valley girl mob boss on Once a Thief to now a futuristic freedon fighter..of all your roles, which was your fav?
VictoriaPratt: Of course I remember you Larissa. How's goin gf? It's so hard to pick a favorite You bring each character to life I think Once A Thief was my sentimental fav My first series...John Woo..And I was in my hometown working But Sarge is a really cool and interesting charater and I can't wait to go back to NZ to work on her more
© SciFi.com
Excerpt from TV Guide Chat 4/00: Victoria Pratt
Peyton's Transcript of the TV Guide April 2000 Chat with Vicky Pratt
Question: I loved you in Once a Thief! Whatever happened to that show?
TVG Pratt: You're asking the wrong person! I loved that show too! I had a blast playing Jackie! I was really disappointed when it didn't get picked up! I don't know if Canada was ready for something like that... Not enough Mounties?
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Question: Vicky, (your goofy www.victoriapratt.com webhead here), in preparing for the role of Jackie Janczyk, did you spend alot of hours making faces in the mirror and sneering back and forth at Sandrine or did that just come naturally?
TVG Pratt: Our characters ont eh show were supposed to despise each other...
TVG Pratt: The writers made it very easy to deliver it that way I don't know why I get cast in these hardass roles I'm actually a bit of a wing nut :)
© TV Guide
Excerpt from SciFi.com Chat 11/8/01: Victoria Pratt
Victoria Pratt: SciFi.com Chat
ChatMod: Victoria -- tell us about your career arc :) You became well known in the fitness field shortly after college. How did you become a writer, and from there move into acting?
VictoriaPratt: I started taking acting classes while I was fitness modeling. It took me two years to get the courage to find an agent. I was exceptionalloy fortunate to land a series on my first audition -- John Woo's Once a Thief. The writing is something that I've always done. It's almost a logical step for an actor to want to write. We read so many scripts, and it becomes painfully obvious which ones are really good and which ones are really bad. Reading really bad scripts makes you want to write really good ones.
© SciFi.com
Excerpt from Sci-Fi Talk 12/02: Victoria Pratt | listen
Victoria Pratt: Robert Kennedy was the one who thought that I should at least take acting, so he pushed me to it.
Tony Tellado: That's great.
Victoria: So I took acting classes for two years before I got up the nerve to look up an agent. And my very first audition landed me John Woo's Once a Thief.
Tony: Yeah, yeah.
Victoria: Which turned into a great series opportunity for me.
Tony: Yeah.
Victoria: Yeah, it was great.
© Sci Fi Talk
Excerpt from Ask Men 2003: Victoria Pratt
Victoria Pratt
Around the same time she had a successful first audition for an acting role, and landed a guest spot in the John Woo television series, Once a Thief. She was so good that they quickly made her a regular.
© Ask Men
Excerpt from Stuff Magazine 2/20/03: Victoria Pratt | Pics on Maxim
Victoria’s Secrets
Stuff, 2/20/2003 By Bill Schulz
STUFF: You also costarred in Once a Thief, directed by John Woo. Care to comment on the rumors that he’s secretly Asian?
VICTORIA: Well, he hides it well. You’re a nut.
© Stuff
Times Colonist 12/13/06 | YFile 12/14/06
Fitness writer stretched goals to establish TV acting career
Eric Kohanik, CanWest News Service Published: Wednesday, December 13, 2006
So, how did that career path evolve into acting? "I was doing fitness writing with Oxygen magazine, which is a ladies' fitness magazine," Pratt recalls. "And the editor actually said, 'Hey, you should take acting classes. I think you should just kind of go for it.' So, I took classes for two years before I had the courage to get an agent. And my very first audition, I ended up getting a series."
That series was John Woo's Once A Thief, a Canadian/American co-production that got widespread attention in the U.S. Pratt's other TV credits would include stints in Mutant X, Cleopatra 2525 and Xena: Warrior Princess. Still, acting "was never something I wanted to do as a child," Pratt reveals. "But I think you're kind of born with the desire to entertain, whether or not it's on TV or just when you're hanging out. And that was, I guess, always my personality."
© Times Colonist
Excerpt from The Studio Reviews 8/25/07: Victoria Pratt, Sandrine Holt (Patricia in "The Future Revealed" and Jennifer Dale (Wendy Stone in "Crime of the New Century")
TV: John Woo's Once a Thief
Saturday, August 25, 2007
Yup, it's been a decade since John Woo's Once a Thief was on the air, but thanks to Showcase Action it lives again. Based on the movie of the same name, it's a likable, campy, funny show that combines noir with martial arts to a Tarantino-esque music soundtrack.
Sandrine Holt and Ivan Sergei play Li Ann and Mac, former thieves/lovers who leave a Chinese "Triad" family known as the Tangs. They're partnered up with disgraced cop-and Li Ann's new fiancé-Victor (Nicholas Lea) to form a team that performs white-hat operations for "The Director" (Jennifer Dale) under the aegis of a mysterious, unnamed government agency. Add in the sadistic senior agent Dobrinsky, spoiled society girl Jackie Janczyk and the decidedly odd assassins/cleaners Murphy and Camier and you've got a stylish action comedy drama that's often just plain weird.
© The Studio Reviews