Actuakers One of my all time favorites.

TrueHello Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

Arianna Moses Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

Deanna There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

Prashast Singh Movie: Swiri (15): Action - KoreanPositives:The basic concept of CTX is extremely impressive.The lead actors Suk-Kyu Han, Song Kang-ho and Choi Min-sik steal the show with their powerful performances while Hwang Jung-min too impresses in a cameo.The background score and sound effects are very impressive.The action scenes are well choreographed and also entertaining.The film has good production values.A lot of plot twists and thrills are pretty impressive.The climax is excellent.Negatives:Yunjin Kim's performance is just fine, and for the most part it's not very impressive.Even though the action scenes are decent, they are not filmed very well. Too much of shaky cinematography during a few action blocks spoils the impact slightly.Editing is another major negative as the film could've easily done away with some 10 minutes. The romance subplots only add to the length. It was difficult to finish this film in once only due to the editing.Repeat value: Can't saySWIRI is an entertaining action film with some decent plot twists and overall entertainment, and further worth seeing if you love action films. But that factor too can act slightly negative since the action scenes are just fine and don't really hold a repeat value, though a few action blocks are done excellently too, at the same time.

Derek Childs (totalovrdose) Although the South Korean Action thriller Shiri was released over a decade ago, the film has lost none of its poignancy, influence, or adrenaline charged suspense. Despite been hailed as the movie that defeated Titanic at the South Korean box office, occasionally this fact appears difficult to fathom, in that Titanic is a film that continuously makes coherent sense, while Shiri suffers from a number of anomalies and issues within its plot. During one scene, a convoy makes its way out from a tunnel. A couple of shots later, the tunnel has strangely disappeared, and I personally have my doubts that such a phenomenon frequently occurs in reality. During another scene, a recording device miraculously makes its way from one location to another, without so much as an explanation. These are two of several instances that don't entirely make sense, though if you put these small addendum's aside, Shiri is a feature that, although it isn't excellent, proves to be two hours of good entertainment.What this feature does best is amplify the tension, the final confrontation been so nail-bitingly suspenseful, you will quite literally hold your breath. The violence is continuously prominent, with a considerable amount of blood spurting out from bodily wounds, the level of causalities often appearing rather astronomical. Action scenes often involve massive shoot-outs, rather than physical confrontations, although when these occur they are very American in nature, and contain no stylized fighting. The camera work during these instances is very frenetic, and it can occasionally be difficult to ascertain what the audience is supposed to be focused upon. On more than one occasion, a small enemy insertion team is capable of defeating a wealth of South Korean soldiers who simply drop like flies, though I suspect real combatants would have greater capability than those displayed here, who seem humiliatingly incompetent in order for the story to continue.The film begins with a secret North Korean assassination unit, who are been ruthlessly trained to weed out the weak and find only the most proficiently capable. The most well respected of them all is Lee Bang-hee, an outstanding sniper, who is later responsible for the deaths of many high ranking politicians and intellectuals after covertly entering South Korea.Jong-won Yu (Suk-kyu Han) the agent in charge of the investigation into Bang-hee, alongside his partner, Jang-gil Lee (Kang-ho Song), both of whom work for South Korea's intelligence service, find themselves closing in on her. But the situation begins to outrageously take a turn for the worse, when North Korea's 8th Special Forces steals a mountainous load of CTX, a liquid chemical explosive, the combined amount having the capacity to wipe Seoul off the face of the planet.Continuously one step ahead of those vying to apprehend them, Yu begins to suspect that a mole is buried inside the intelligence service, however when the only other two people who know of the investigation are his partner and his boss, the list of suspects is slim. As trust begins to waver between the partnership and the situation intensifies, a series of questions begin to push the plot forward: How are the North Korean Special Forces involved with Bang-hee? Are the North Koreans, who are petitioning for peace, aware of what is happening? And will the intelligence service work everything out in time? But, with every step that agent Yu takes towards his goal of apprehending his target, the more he distances himself from his fiancé, Myung-hyun Lee (Yunjin Kim), a beautiful young woman with an avid fascination for fish.Fish themselves have a crucial element to play in the film, metaphorically articulating the differences between the South and the North, whilst also representing love, the Kissing Gourami, a species that cannot live without their paramour, that kiss their partner as often as they fight, reflecting the relationship that Myung-hyun and Yu have. The romance is efficaciously incorporated into the plot, which seamlessly moves from an action scene, to a melodramatic one, though additional information would have been beneficial in further establishing much of their history.Frequently entertaining, and beneficially aided by the accompanying score (which has a slight similarity to Armageddon), Shiri does occasionally suffer from predictability, and those familiar to films of this genre may determine the directionality of the plot before it officially unfolds. The film's conclusion seems to have been deliberately exaggerated for increased emotional affect, though a number of alternate possibilities could have ended the feature in an equally entertaining fashion.Despite a few aforementioned issues, Shiri is a sometimes funny, sometimes sad, but frequently action packed thriller, that deserves to be viewed.

rooprect (Yeah I know the song is "You Really Got Me" but I couldn't think of a witty title)The posters and DVD cover are deceptive. Contrary to the image of a hot chick in a sexy slit dress holding a gun, this is not a sexy femspy flick. In fact you never get a good look at the female assassin until the very end; the story is completely from the point-of- view of two investigative agents trying to catch her, with very little info.So you'd think this is a whodunnit mystery, right? Not really that either. What you get is sortofa action love story with some nice political themes. When I say it's a love story, it's not just a standard boy-meets-girl thing, but it's actually an interesting triangle which is 1 part romance (a detective and a fish store girl) and 1 part "bromance" (detective and his buddy).All of this is set against the backdrop of a terrorist plot to blow up things & kill people, and that itself is set against the backdrop of political unrest between North & South Korea. There's a lot going on, and the 2 hr movie flies by without a boring moment. In fact it could've easily been an epic miniseries with all its interesting subplots, themes & messages.As an uninformed American, I thought it was a pretty good flick. But I feel like in order to get the full power, you'd need to be more familiar with the whole division between N & S Korea, why it happened, and how culturally & economically different the two countries are. Sorta like a non-American would have to learn up on the US Civil War before truly appreciating "Gone with the Wind". But in "Shiri" they do a pretty decent job of covering the backstory so I'm not complaining.The title "Shiri" is not the name of the assassin, as you might imagine, but actually it's the name of a type of fish that supposedly spawns in a different stream before returning to its "homeland". Throughout the movie we get similar metaphors aimed at the reunification of Korea, and indeed the whole plot centers around that idea.So with that in mind, the movie takes an interesting viewpoint showing both sides of the story (good guys & bad guys), and although the audience's sympathy is mostly with the "good guys", the point is that the 2 sides are not so different as you'd think.Symbolism, in particular fish symbolism, is very prominent. In between action scenes, there's a lot to think about. And of course I imagine the original Korean language version packs even more meaning. The subtitles seem a little inadequate sometimes.Like all Korean movies I've seen, this is really violent. But it's actually one of the tamer ones, with most of the violence being gunfire, no gross-out torture scenes or anything. Although we do see someone's head explode in lovely splattervision. Haha, that one was totally unnecessary too... but really awesome just the same!There's not much comedy in this film. It pretty much sticks to the point with minimal diversions."Shiri" is a well-justified use of your time. Imagine "Die Hard" (action) with a dash of "In the Line of Fire" (detective thriller) combined with "Black Sunday" (political intrigue) and a dash of romance & bromance, there you have it.

Dave from Ottawa Security agent Ryu stumbles upon a plot by North Korean fanatics (led by terrorist Park and assassin Hee) to disrupt peace and re-unification efforts by North and South politicians using high tech explosives and the hunt is on to stop them. Much gun play follows, as well as much talk about the politics and sociology of possible Korean re-unification. Given North Korea's history of selling weaponry to anyone with hard currency and South Korea's position as an important diplomatic and military ally of the U.S., such discussions are actually of worldwide interest. Since emerging in the mid-90s as a distinct cinematic power, South Korea has become filmdom's leading edge for cult actioners and this movie shows why. It is fast paced, uberviolent, with a polished look, tightly crafted plot line and strong performances by its ensemble cast.