The Story : Ryu and Lee are elite South Korean agents. Ryu opts to be alone, dedicating his life to his work, while Lee is engaged to Hyun, and keeps his life as an agent a secret from his finance. Both men must be alert as an assassin seems to be popping up around every corner, leading the men to suspect a leak in the agency. It couldn't come at a worse time. The North and South Korean governments have reached a calm in their normally volatile opposition, and it looks like the two may be making the first steps towards unification as they arrange a special soccer match between their teams, with the two presidents in attendance.

While not able to identify the leak in the agency, they do know that the assassin is a known figure, a female agent called Hee and the sect thwarting the unification is a renegade group from the North Korean Special Forces. This rogue unit highjacks a top secret explosive called CTX which is untraceable and ten times more powerful than any known explosive. So, the two agents are in a race against time to discover who is the double agent and find Hee and her fellow terrorists before they use the explosive to harm anyone, especially destroy the chances of the two governments finally trying to come to peace with each other.

The Film: Shiri is an important film in Asian cinematic history. It proved to the Korean film industry that they could make an expensive film (for them equivalent to $3 mil US- the Asian dollar stretches, so it looks like a $30-40 mil US film) and see huge profit (around four times its budget domestically). Plus, its risky plot, which was gone over with a magnifying glass by the Korean govt., was fair to both sides of a notoriously divided country.

While important and even entertaining, Shiri is just not my kind of action movie. Its a new-fangled, slick, what I call a "shiny, pretty action movie". Shiri is a film for people (well, mainly guys) who like to see men running around in military SWAT gear with laser guided scopes and assault rifles while sparky hails of bullets go off and digital counters on bombs tick down. To be fair, people seem to love Shiri and films like this, The Rock comes to mind, so it may just be me. There are Tom Clancy people and there are Joe R Lansdale people. I'm just not a building go boom, look at the gadgets and guns kind of action fan. Also, in aping a US style, no doubt Shiri would be far more impressive if it came out 5-10 years ago before slick American action productions like Mission Impossible became a well worn genre.

I guess what doesn't do it for me, is while Shiri's political plotline, North Vs. South Korea, is very neat and it struggles to include a love story amongst the techno terrorism, it just never has the emotional depth or characterizations to back it up and let me forgive the illogical "shiny, pretty action". In La Femme Nikita I felt invested in the characters enough that it just improved the action. Directors like John Woo and Sergio Leone direct action scenes with such tension and physical grace that they have just as much depth as the dramatic scenes. In Shiri, I didn't feel it... Directed with "wham-bam" editing and shaky moving steadicam, like in Michael Mann's Heat, I couldn't help but groan in a grand shoot-out and chase, when an army of SWAT soldiers are chasing the bad guys, mere feet behind them, shooting like crazy and hitting nothing. This was compounded by the fact that in the same scene, a line of fifteen cops are chasing the bad guy, one officer in the middle stops, takes a shot and finally nicks the bad guy, yet the eight guys in front of him, within almost arms reach of the baddie, couldn't hit the villain? Chow Yun Fat shooting a thousand bullets? Like I said, I can believe that. But, in Shiri, law enforcement not stopping a soccer game, knowing the stadium was rigged to be blown to smithereens by terrorists and filled with hundreds of people and the Korean presidents? Well, that was mind-numbingly awkward.

I can say two very positive things about Shiri- It packs a whole lot of movie and plot into its running time, and the pacing is brisk and never dull (including a wordless 6 min opening montage showing the brutal, violent training of the North Korean Special Forces team). And, by the finale, that emotional investment in the situation got much better and I did find myself interested in how it would conclude... But, the characters seem a bit too contrived. The buddy cop duo, Lee and Ryu, were for the most part relatively interchangeable, not much different, other than Ryu has a girlfriend and stays awake at the theater. The main bad guy, while in the end giving a nice speech effectively humanizing the terrorist's cause, overall was an atypical villain, spouting such laughable lines as, "We buried our youth in the tombs of history." As far as the double agent bit, well, it was so obvious who was the spy, the character should have been walking around with a T-Shirt saying "DOUBLE AGENT ^" on it, so there was no suspense in that part of the plot.

But, like I said, Shiri was a huge hit, and people seem to love it and are able to look past what I see as ridiculous action clichés and bad plotting. I felt it was all over the place, with loose derivative strands of romance, political thriller, techno action , double agent suspicion, and buddy cops all threaded together, but apparently for others it was a successful combination. So, I guess if you are the sort of new wave, The Rock, Purple Storm, The First Option kind of action fan, you'll probably find Shiri a welcome film in your collection.

The DVD: Columbia Tristar Home Video. Dual Layered. Previously available in a 2-Disc SE from Bitwin DVD Korea, I will compare Columbia's to the Bitwin throughout this review... The Columbia is uncut and includes (woven back into the film) a violent scene that was originally edited out by the director and was an extra on the Bitwin.

Picture- Widescreen anamorphic - 1.85:1. Columbia's picture quality is a notch above the Bitwin, which was too bright and had considerable grain. Columbia's transfer has far deeper contrast, better blacks, and less grain, thus improving the sharpness and color overall. While there is still the occasional softness, dirt spot, or minor light bleed, for an Asian import the image is pleasing, especially when compared to the previous releases.

Sound- Dolby Digital 5.1 Original Korean, as well as 5.1 French and English dubs, with optional English, French, Portuguese, and Spanish subtitles. Once again a very nice, dynamic soundtrack, action and dialogue coming through strong with okay 'ka-pow' 'BOOM' surround. The only difference between Columbia and Bitwin in terms of sound, are Bitwins additional DTS and Dolby Stereo options.

Extras- Considerably less than the 2-Disc Bitwin, however Colombia offers extras that are English friendly, something sadly lacking in the Bitwin.--- 28 Chapters--- Trailers for Shiri, Crimson Rivers and Tailor of Panama--- Music Video "When I Dream"--- And by far, the most welcome extra, the one hour "Making of Shiri" documentary, now with English subtitles. Basically this behind the scenes doc covers all aspects of the production, financing, acting, stunts, post production, filming- it is packed with nice little bits for everything you may be curious about. It is nicely packaged with every moment of the production being filmed- actors training, having paintball wars to get used to shooting, the large chunk of the budget going to gun props from Hollywood, actors hurt during filming, and a great intimate moments where one female actress shows her deeply emotional acting during a key scene.

Conclusion: So, I'm not going to say owners of the Bitwin should dump it for the Columbia. Each version has its own benefits and setbacks. As a consumer, you can decide if you want better picture and fewer extras?, lots of extras that aren't English friendly?, or if you have to have a DTS track and not just a good 5.1?, and how much you would like to spend/wider availabitly? For people that dont own it at all I personally would steer them towards the Columbia= lower price + better transfer + English friendly .