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Shiri:SE (import, 2 Disc)
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, and 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.
The Film : Shiri is a film I have been well aware of, but managed to remain blissfully oblivious about the plot and what kind of action film it is. However, I noticed the buzz for it, and knew it was: the most expensive film in Korean cinemas history, that it beat Titanic at the Korean box office, and that it was the first Korean film to debut in Japanese cinemas at #1. So, I was able to anticipate it greatly, yet I remained fresh. Now, having seen it...
I don't get it.
Shiri is just not my kind of action movie. Its a new-fangled, slick, what I call a "shiny, pretty action movie". I get excited when a guy strikes a Northern eagle claw pose or when I see Franco Nero dragging a gatling gun in a coffin, and 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.
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 in the same scene, a line of fifteen cops are chasing the bad guy, and 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.
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.
The DVD : Bitwin DVD, Korea, 2 disc Special Edition, Region 0. The entire second disc is devoted to extras. Comes with insert booklet, foldout case and slipcase cover. Picture : Widescreen Anamorphic. Shows sings of white specs and considerable grain, and I felt the composition was a little flat and bright. The sharpness is fair, a little soft at times (due to the brightness), and the colors are strong, so overall it is a okay image with a few passable flaws. Sound : Three dynamic audio tracks. Original Korean language with optional white Korean, Japanese, and English subtitles that were pretty much flaw free (I remember "verydangerous" being one flub). You get three choices all of which are good- Dolby Digital Stereo, Dolby Digital 5.1, and a DTS track. I felt the music (mainly a generic synch/drum machine techno and orchestra score) was a little strong, but the dialogue is clear, and the fx is presented great, sharp surround, especially on the high range 5.1 and DTS options. (Check out a Korean version of 'Mack the Knife" softly playing in the background of one the scenes.)
Extras : A whopping 44 Chapter Stops--- Cast and Director Profiles, in Korean on disc one, but in English on disc two--- What Shiri Symbolizes? (in Korean , but its something to do with the films fish motif)--- A Directors Cut Scene. Presented in fullscreen, this shows comparisons between a scene in the film showing its original violent nature, and the edited down version the director chose to put in the film.--- NG Scenes. 4 mins of Bloopers and Outtakes. --- Interviews: Cast and Crew ( 3 mins, in Korean), FX and Stunts (8 mins, in Korean), and Music and dub recording (3 mins, in Korean)--- Brief Behind the Scenes featurettes: Audience and Cast, News, and Production--- By far the most interesting, despite no subs, is a 44 min Making Of documentary with interviews and tons of behind the scenes footage.--- Music Video "When I Dream"--- Trailers: Original Theatrical, Japanese theatrical, and a Japanese tv spot--- Gun index for 7 of the weapons (in Korean)--- Digital Audio Experience, which as far as I could tell was just those little DTS and Dolby trailers you see before movies and DVDs.
*NOTE: For those upset with the lacking English extras. In April 2002 Columbia/Tristar released Shiri with decidedly fewer extras, but at least in English, and with a less grainy picture quality.
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