Shiri (2002)

Highly Overrated But Still Good

It's not great by any means, but it's a pretty good movie that didn't leave me filled with regret for investing time in it.

Great story, amazing characters, superb action, enthralling cinematography. Yes, this is something I am glad I spent money on.

The movie really just wants to entertain people.

After extensive combat training in North Korea an agent by the name of "Bang-hee Lee" (Yoon-jin Kim) infiltrates South Korea and blends in to the general society under the name of "Myung-hyun Lee". She then proceeds to kill key people within the South Korean government and industry. This results in an intensive program to neutralize her and two of the best special agents available "Jong Won Yu" (Suk-kyu Han) and "Mu-young Park" (Min-sik Choi) are assigned to this difficult mission. Yet no matter how hard they try they are always one step behind which leads them to believe that there is a mole within their organization. Meanwhile several more North Korean agents are sent and the stakes become much greater. Now rather than reveal any more of this movie and risk spoiling it for those who haven't seen it I will just say that this was a pretty good South Korean espionage movie with action and intrigue being the two most dominant features. Admittedly, because of the cultural differences it was a little difficult at times for me to figure out what was going on but the ending helped to clarify most of it. Likewise, I thought that some of the action—especially on the part of the North Korean agents—was much too incredible to be believed. Apparently, all of the special agents sent from North Korea are supermen while those in South Korea couldn't shoot straight or hit the broadside of a barn on a good day. Apparently, Hollywood isn't the only place where fantasy and reality are twisted and confused. Be that as it may, other than some of the absurd action scenes, this movie wasn't too bad and I rate it as slightly above average.

This movie is more than an action flick, it highlights the relationship between North and South Korea. If you know anything about their pasts and their present than you can see why this is a movie by Koreans for Koreans. The actions scenes did not impress me, I saw this movie in 2006...after watching such movies as MI3, but it wasn't too shabby for a non-Hollywood pre-new millenia movie.Okay so about the movie itself...I don't like the opening, too dramatic and over the top, I was never a fan of Roman decimation and I will never be a fan of this kind of training method. However, once it gets to the actual story then the clues and hints are laid out and you see how everything comes together in the end. You can probably guess the entire ending after some time. The romance is small, about what you expect for an action film. The chemistry is okay. It is really more of a thriller than anything because you're usually puzzled as to how the hero is going to catch the bad guys since he keeps on failing initially.The actors did a fairly good job. The action sequences are okay, they're shaky at times, I don't like how the South Korean SWAT teams can't hit anything despite perfectly planned traps and outnumbering the bad guys 50:1. Maybe they should get plastic surgery to open their eyes? It was a so-so movie, but because of theme and background I'll put it above the the average, it could be used to do more than simply entertain. It is simply outdated now if you want a really good action film.

In the year 1999 the film that dominated most East Asian film markets was James Cameron's Titanic which would go on to be the highest grossing film of all time. However, in South Korea the film that was number one at the box office was Shiri, an action-packed film that would go on to set South Korean box office records and force the Hollywood juggernaut to take notice that films produced in other countries could compete with the likes of Titanic. In the end 1/7 of South Korea's entire population would go to the theater to watch Shiri and it also received accolades in other Asian countries and helped revitalize the South Korean film industry whose government imposed that South Korean films had to be shown at least 106 days a year so that it could compete with foreign films and it also put on the road to stardom Choi Min-sik and Han Suk-kyu.Shiri opens with scene after scene of the brutal training endured by those who wish to become members of the 8th Division, an elite force of North Korean Commandos. Amongst these individuals is a young woman named Lee Bang-hee who not only surpasses her male counterparts in fighting skills, but who is unmatched in her marksmanship. With her weapon of choice she perfectly severs the spinal cord with one shot and obliterates the heart with the next. Surviving her training, Bang-hee is sent to South Korea and assassinates several important political figures until suddenly disappearing. However, one day she returns and seems to be up to her old tricks again. Two special agents are assigned to her case, Yu Jongwon and Lee Janggil; however, she continues to foil them time after time. While searching for Bang-hee who has recently assassinated an arms dealer and a scientist who were working together under the table, Yu and Lee soon learn that the 8th division led by their old nemesis Park Mu-young is plotting to steal a new weapon called CMX which is ten times stronger than an average bomb, liquid, and virtually undetectable and are unable to stop Park when he successfully does steal the CMX. Park calls the agency and informs them that ten sites in Seoul are set to be destroyed by the 8th Division. If this scenario wasn't bad enough, it is taking place right at the same time the leaders of both South and North Korea are planning to attend a soccer match in which the North and the South play each other.Combining action, romance, and melodrama Shiri is quite an engaging film that can be appreciated on many different levels. Due to its success a number of clones were produced that did not quite live up to the original, but they helped revamp the slumping South Korean film industry to show the world that blockbusters do not only originate in Hollywood.

I'd heard a lot about "Shiri" (aka "Swiri") and how this Korean action film compared favourably (or perhaps even exceeded) recent US action films. So it was with high hopes I sat down to watch this movie.Perhaps it was a result of the hype, but I came away feeling very disappointed in this film. There are some very strong scenes in this film, don't get me wrong - the training sequence at the start, the suddenness of the assassinations, for example - which help add something different to this movie, and the technical aspects of "Shiri" are definitely better than average, but in many ways this film falls short.The big issue for me was the disconnect between the 'realistic' political aspect that provided the motivation for the movie and the over-the-top gun play in the action sequences. At the very start, the training sequence makes the movie look like it will have a more realistic portrayal of violence, but this dissipates in a hail of bullets during the shoot-outs. Apparently the South Korean Special Forces suck, because they put thousands of rounds from MP5s in the direction of their heavily outnumbered North Korean adversaries and continually miss, while the North Koreans just need hand guns (Berettas, possibly) and one shot to gun down large numbers of armoured opponents.I don't mind cartoon-ish violence in live action films, but it has to be kept consistent. The ability of the North Koreans to avoid large numbers of South Korean bullets exceeded my suspension of disbelief and undermined my acceptance of the political motivation. I can handle the plot holes and the bad science, but just can't reconcile the supposed realistic political themes with the absurd action sequences.As for the love story aspect - well, it was something a bit different for this genre of movie (especially the phone message at the very end of the film - that would have been heartbreaking for the characters involved), but not enough to make this film any more than a curiosity for those who want to see what Korean action films are capable of.