Shiri

Dom Robinson reviews

ShiriDistributed by
Tartan Video

• Cert:
• Cat.no: TVD 3430
• Running time: 121 minutes
• Year: 1999
• Pressing: 2003
• Region(s): 0, PAL
• Chapters: 16 plus extras
• Sound: Dolby Digital 5.1
• Languages: Korean
• Subtitles: English
• Widescreen: 1.85:1
• 16:9-Enhanced: Yes
• Macrovision: No
• Disc Format: DVD 9
• Price: £19.99
• Extras: Trailer, Filmographies, Mark Wyatt Film Notes, Original Music VideoAsia Extreme Trailer Reel, Making of documentary
  

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  Director:

  Je-gyu Kang

  (Days of Roses, Ji sang man ga, Rules of the Game, Shiri, Well Let’s Look at the Sky Sometimes, Who Saw the Dragon Claws?)

Producers:

Moo Rim-Byun and Kwan-hak Lee

Screenplay:

Je-gyu Kang

Original Score :

Dong-Jun Lee

Cast :

JongWon Ryu: Han Suk-kyu
Mu-young Park: Choi Min-sik
Bang-hee Lee: Kim Yun-Jin
Jang-gil Lee: Song Kang-ho
Dae-Ho Jung: Kim Derek

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In Shiri, the governments of North and South Korea want to settle their differences,but in this film made four years ago, there’s resonances with world events thathave gone since then as terrorists decide to stick a big spanner in the works.That said, the plot does feel like a combination of Nikita, Die Hardwith a Vengeance and has an overall tone of a Michael Bay and JerryBruckheimer co-production at the start with soldiers running around in conditionsof rain, darkness and slo-mo.

That’s because the prime ‘weapon’ the North Korean terrorists have is theirlone, female assassin, Hee (Kim Yun-Jin). She’s put through a rigouroustraining programme at the start in which we see her going up against – andmutilating and decapitating – other human beings (where do they get thevolunteers?), blasting away with a gun at dummy heads placed at the back ofa group of like-minded soldiers, where she must fire almost constantly andnever get it wrong, and in the nastiest of the lot, a “Who can put their guntogether first?” competition, in which the winner gets to shoot the loser deadwith their result.

But once we’ve seen a few still shots of her handiwork over the years, it’stime to see the main event. The South Korean government have perfected a newkind of liquid bomb, which, in its basic state, just happens to colourless,odourless and everything else-less so it can remain undetectable. It’s alsoincredibly volatile and can go off at the slightest whim, even without thedetonator. As one government bod puts it,“There’s no way to predict when, where or how it wil go off.”

Of course, this doesn’t stop Hee and her cronies bumping off those scientistswho were bribed for information before stealing it for themselves so theycan plant it all over Seoul. They’re clearly a bit more intelligent than theaverage terrorist – no wussy suicide bombing for them, they make sure they’reout of the way when the good guys arrive.

And these are mainly Ryu and Lee who run around like a couple of Jack Bauerstrying to sort the baddies out before the film’s end. Ryu’s also about to getmarried to a fish saleswoman who also drinks like a fish and looks not toodissimilar to our favourite female assassin… Is there a connection?Either way, they’re both quite cute.

However, since the baddies are getting to the important places before theseagents can, and since it’s meant to be a hush-hush operation, does that meanthere’s a mole inside the government?

On the action front, there’s a fair bit to enjoy here but nothing you haven’tseen before in a Hollywood epic and at times the dialogue can sound like it’sbeen lifted from a late 90s Jean-Claude Van Damme movie and it makes me wonderthat if it had been placed in his hands – and no doubt he’d want to double upwith himself again for the roles of both agents – whether I’d still be watchingtill the end? We’ve also seen, way too often, the scenario of theterrorist-cum-maintenance-man who just happens to be “looking for the men’sroom” and expecting gullible workers to buy it.

Oh, and for those wondering, a Shiri is a Korean aboriginal fish, livingin crystal streams. Though they’re separated with the country divided, someday they’ll reunite in the same streams.

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The 1.85:1 widescreen frame is well-used, at times getting too close to itssubjects that you feel a 2.35:1 ratio would’ve been better for a broaderlandscape. There’s no problems with it though other than it can look a bitsoft at times.

For the sound, it’s functional but not a great deal to write home about.Even in Dolby Digital 5.1 there’s precious little rear-only action, so theopportunity has been missed to make things really stand out.

On the extras front, there’s the following:

• Trailers: a 90-second American theatrical trailer (1.85:1letterbox) and a 2½-minute Korean theatrical trailer (1.85:1 anamorphic),all with music-only accompanying the bullet ballets. However, this is farfrom a John Woo epic.
• Filmographies: brief ones appear for the director and main stars
• Music Video (5 mins): This features a collection of scenes from the film -for “When I Dream”, the main theme from the film and the favouritesong of one of the characters.
• Mark Wyatt Film Notes : 5 pages of info summarising the film.
• Asia Extreme Trailer Reel : Further trailers for The Happinessof the Katakuris, Sympathy for Mr Vengeance, A Snake of June, Nowhere to Hideand Dark Water.
• The Making of Shiri (60 mins):Presented in 4:3, with letterboxed film clips, I get the point that it’sgiving an insight into the movie and includes interview snippets but… and it’sa big but, it’s only partially subtitled so you won’t get everything that goeson. It also includes two alternate edits for a confrontation scene anda few minutes of bloopers.

There are subtitles in English only, plus the option to remove them which isgood as a video would have to have them burned into the print, just 16chapters which isn’t enough for a 2-hour movie, and a short piece of themusic on the main menu.

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FILM CONTENT
PICTURE QUALITY
SOUND QUALITY
EXTRAS


OVERALLReview copyright © Dominic Robinson, 2003.