Swiri
Tags: neo noir, murder, flashback, action, romantic, revenge

Plot synopsis:
An elite group of North Korean soldiers are put through a brutal training regime. Under the auspices of their commander, Park Mu-young (Choi Min-sik), they will be sent into South Korea as sleeper agents, to be reactivated at some later date. The most promising of the group is Lee Bang-hee, a female sniper who systematically kills several key South Korean government figures over the next few years.Meanwhile, South Korea is searching for Bang-hee. The agent in charge of her case, Yu Jong-won (Han Suk-kyu) has nightmares about her murdering both him and his partner, Lee Jang-gil (Song Kang-ho). Yu is also currently engaged to a young woman, Yi Myung-hyun (Kim Yoon-jin), a former alcoholic and the owner of a fish and aquarium supply store. They are happy together, but Yu is worried that he cannot tell Myung-hyun about the real nature of his job due to his security clearance.Yu and Lee are contacted by an arms dealer who claims to have information about their quarry, but he is shot dead by Bang-hee before he can give them any information. After digging a bit deeper, they determine that he had been contacted by the assassin at some point, in the effort to acquire something. That something turns out to be CTX, a binary liquid explosive developed by the South Korean government. In its ground state, CTX is indistinguishable from water, but when placed under the right temperature conditions for long enough, a single liter of it can explode with enough force to level a fifteen-story building. The agents begin to suspect its intended use by the assassins, when Kim, a scientist working at a lab connected to CTX, is assassinated by Bang-hee.Park and his agents ambush a military convoy with several liters of CTX, killing all the soldiers and making off with the dangerous liquid before the agents could arrive in time to warn them. Later, Park calls Yu and issues an ultimatum: he has concealed several CTX bombs around Seoul, and will give him just enough time to find each one before setting them off. It is revealed that Park and Yu have a history: Park once hijacked an airplane and killed many civilians, but managed to escape by disguising himself as one of the (injured) flight crew.The first of the CTX bombs is found on top of a department store, but Park lied about the time factor. The bomb explodes just as the bomb disposal team discover its exact location, resulting in dozens of deaths. Yu is devastated, as is Myung-hyun, who has begun drinking again.Yu realizes that there may be a security leak, and suspects Lee - who, ironically enough, suspects the same thing and bugged Yu's car, phone, and Myung-hyun's fish store to see if he could learn anything. They set a trap - into which Park and Bang-hee step - but the situation quickly escalates into a firefight resulting in police and civilian casualties. Several of the agents are killed. Others, including Park, escape. Myung-hyun/Bang-hee sustains an injury, which she tries to hide from Yu. Yu tails her to the fish store where he sees her dressing her wounds without her knowledge, and struggles to take in the true identity of his girlfriend.After Yu does a quick background check of Myung-hyun, he uncovers her residency at Halla Hospital due to Innate Immunodeficiency Syndrome. Yu takes a trip to the hospital on Cheju Island to investigate Myung-hyun's background.Meanwhile, Park confronts Myung-hyun/Bang-hee about her allegiance to the plan. She admits failure at truly becoming Myung-hyun because she is still just Bang-hee inside who cannot kill her fiance, Yu. She tries to kill herself but Park wrestles the gun from her hands twice.At the hospital on Cheju Island, Yu meets the real Myung-hyun, a fragile patient of the hospital, who recognizes a picture of Bang-hee. She tells him they became the best of friends two years ago but she was devastated after they lost touch when Bang-hee went to Japan to have plastic surgery to remove a scar.The terrorists demand seven million dollars and a 747 at the airport or they'll detonate one of the other nine CTXs. This later turns out to be a ruse to divert attention from the real attack target.Myung-hyun's true identity as Bang-hee is confirmed later by Lee when electronic surveillance devices are discovered in fish decorating Yu's office. Yu himself had suggested bringing in the fish, and his girlfriend had supplied them. Lee confronts her in her shop, and is shot by Park. Yu suddenly appears with officers, who engage in a firefight with Park and his agents. Park and Myung-hyun escape, while a dying Lee hands a soccer match ticket to Yu.The terrorists aim to detonate a CTX bomb directly over the Royal Box at a football stadium in the midst of a friendly match played by a North and South Korean team. The agents were misled into believing the next CTX target was at the airport, while Yu realizes the ticket held by his dead partner means the bomb is actually at the stadium. He defies orders and rushes to the stadium, where Park, Myung-hyun, and other terrorists mingle with the crowd. They find a total ban on all liquids, but enter easily as the CTX and weapons were already planted in the stadium beforehand.Myung-hyun retrieves a hidden Steyr AUG from a restroom cubicle, while Park and his agents tail several patrolling South Korean SWAT officers who later adjourn to the restrooms. There, the policemen are killed and their bodies quickly dragged away. Myung-hyun advances into the grandstand with her rifle, while Park and three other men, now disguised as South Korean SWAT officers in uniforms stolen from the dead policemen, enter the stadium control room, killing everyone there and forcing the remaining staff to switch on the stadium lights to trigger the CTX. Yu arrives at the stadium, and is tipped off about the lights. A violent confrontation in the control room results in the death of all four terrorists, and the lights are switched off in the nick of time. Myung-hyun notices this, and fires at the VIPs, but misses her target. Chasing after the entourage, she kills several more SWAT officers along the way before being confronted by a large group of officers led by Yu. As she makes a last ditch attempt to complete her mission, she is shot dead by Yu.Yu is interrogated by his superiors about is involvement in the terrorist plans and knowledge of his girlfriend's true identity. Yu calls her a Hydra of modern times, Hyun and Hee are separate.Yu later learns that Myung-hyun was pregnant with his child, and had left detailed instructions on how to catch her on his answering machine before leaving for the stadium. When she was with him, she says, she was neither Hyun or Hee.Heartbroken, Yu returns to Cheju Island to visit the real Myung-hyun, giving her a pair of Kissingurami mating fish like Bang-hee/Myung-hyun gave him on their one year anniversary. She shares a few stories about how fragile she saw Bang-hee to be and lets Yu listen to a gentle love song that was her friend's favorite.

Review: Sure the movie dosen't have an incredible impact in its action scenes but the underlying themes and the awesome acting and chemistry between the main actors make this film a must-see.If you enjoyed this movie, Also see: Joint Security Area, Friend, 2009 Lost Memories.
Knowing a bit about the North/South Korean history would help understand the movie.
Also knowing a bit about South Korean perception of the North Korea would also help understand the movie better as well.
I thought that the love story in the movie, although it is a type that is very very often used (the tragic type) especially in Korean films, worked well.
Meanwhile Ryu and Lee realise that there is a mole inside their agency that keeps Hee one step ahead of them.Other reviewers have said that this film is a good addition to the `heroic bloodshed' genre of Hong Kong cinema, with it's gory bloodshed and bullet ballets.
The rest of the cast are good  even the comedy odd-ball is good value, compared to the occasional Hollywood comedy character that can be grating.I haven't seen too many Korean films but this was a particularly good thriller with intense action.
From the beginning until the end the action is unstoppable .The flick talks upon a counter-terrorism outfit that has to fight against a murderous terrorist group who creates terror by means of an explosive liquid with the aim to blow up a soccer stadium and getting the unification Korea .The movie has a John Woo style , there are amount of shoot-outs, frenetic action and running men while they are shooting .The film blends action-packed , rip-roaring , a love story , betrayal , drama , violence and is quite entertaining .The movie will appeal to action lovers and Hong Kong films buffs , it's very spectacular , it's an exciting film for adrenaline lovers .Rating : 7/10 , good ..
The intro is one of the most violent I've ever seen, more action and death in the first 30 seconds than most other movies combined.In summation, if you're a fan of Hong Kong action genre, this takes it to a whole new level.As for the Shiri, there are plenty of them in the film.
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.
This Korean spy thriller centers on an assassin from North Korea (Kim Yoon-jin from Lost) and a team of special forces (the leader is Choi Min-sik from Oldboy) that hijacks an shipment of a new type of explosive.
If all the South Korean soldiers were THAT incompetent, North Korea would've flattened them long ago...That's the sort of silliness that pervades the action in Swiri.
While the Woo-style HK blood opera is silly, as well, at least it's realistically silly (i.e., the hero wins against dozens of mooks because he is agile and avoids confronting too many at a time)."Swiri" is a decent movie, with the best bits in the beginning in North Korea.
something fresh and uniquely stylish, the way Hong Kong action films were in their heyday.Shiri didn't even come close.It had a pretty good "action movie" story.
The film needed to be 20 minutes shorter.It's not the worst action movie I've seen, but I definitely don't understand how it received all the hype that it has..
Throughout the story, director Je-gyu Kang uses a fish backdrop (you will have to see the movie to understand) and a unification soccer game between both South and North Korea, to keep the audience guessing as to their symbolic reference.
The action scenes are all ineptly directed, guys with automatic weapons can't hit anybody but the people they are shooting at can pick off the riflemen with handguns, and the grand finale centers around a potential big explosion that has to be stopped before the digital counter ticks away the seconds and gets to zero.
even though it may look like a typical hollywood style shoot-out, there is something that elevates the movie from just being a regular action flick.
A surprisingly good thriller, "Swiri" follows Hollywood formula down to a science while providing an interesting twist on the increased tensions between North Korea and South Korea.
It plays like a Korean Jerry Bruckheimer movie--slick production values, no brains and lots of things that go boom real good.
Ah yes, I've heard many claim that this is a run-of-the-mill actioner on the same lines as "The Rock."  Yes, the two contain many similarities; a liquid explosive that's bound to go off in a large city (Seoul, South Korea,) betrayals, cinematic techniques to make you think otherwise then what's occuring, etc.
This movie is more than an action flick, it highlights the relationship between North and South Korea.
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.
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.
Think again.Swiri is an American action movie wrapped in a nice little Korean package.
Replace Fox-Hound with the North Korean 8th Special Forces, the research facility with South Korea, Metal Gear Rex with CTX, START III summit with Seoul, and Solid Snake with Ryu and Lee, and there you have it: 'Shiri'.
With that in mind, I just might make my own action-movie and test out this theory.The similarities between the game and the movie haven't ended yet - the relationships between the good-guys and the bad-guys are pretty similar, and there is always one character whose affection for certain types of animals is an important element of the story (Sniper Wolf and her huskies in Metal Gear Solid, Emma and her parrot in Metal Gear Solid, and of course, Hyun and her fish in Shiri').
Then there are the romantic subplots which take precious time away from the bad-dudes getting their butts kicked, but are crucial to the story, and finally, when the action has stopped and the dust has settled, there is the long and action-free conclusion.'Metal Gear Solid' is an awesome game, so therefore, 'Shiri' must be an awesome movie.
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.
Yunjin Kim (Sun from TV's Lost) stars as tropical fish seller Myung-hyun Lee, who, unbeknownst to her counter-terrorist fiancé Jong Won Yu (Suk-kyu Han), is actually undercover assassin Hee, member of a special forces group that has hijacked some high-tech explosives as part of a desperate plot to re-unify North and South Korea.The quote on the front of my DVD claims that Shiri is 'a mix of Nikita and Die Hard', which, to be blunt, is a crock of s**t.
What we actually get with Shiri is a fairly mundane bad guys versus good guys thriller in which lots of people get killed (although who is shooting at who and why is often hard to keep track of), with an overload of shaky camera-work and some nonsense about tropical fish thrown in for those icthyophile action fans in the audience.Funniest part: when a cornered female terrorist kills herself by swallowing a small explosive that blows her head apart.
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.
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.
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 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..
The true success story of the unique high quality South Korean cinema owes a lot to this movie.The movie doesn't seem to be that original at first sight as it is clearly inspired by Hollywood and Hongkong action cinema and in particular by movies made by John Woo or John McTiernan.
The movie features solid but not outstanding action scenes, a few crime investigation elements, a romantic love story and a tension filled showdown in the key of movies like "Sudden Death".
The film does have a few lengths and in the beginning one gets a little bit confused about who is who but overall this is not only an entertaining action-thriller but also a philosophical drama that gives you some food for thoughts and ends as a true tearjerker.
This is where successful South Korean mainstream cinema started and even though I have seen way better movies from that country, this quality film makes you understand why this country has made the best movies world wide of the last decade..
Most of these things have been covered in other reviews, so I'll try to find my own little niche.One of the first big-budget films made in Korea, this movie set records at the Korean box office.
7/10The story was so-so nothing really good, a simple terrorist, good vs bad story, not a really innovative scenario and you are sure to guess the ending after watching the movie for 15 minutes.The pseudo-romance lacks everything,the lovers doesn't look that much in love and the fact that those lovers look more like strangers make this part far from being as appealing as the romance in John Woo's "the killer" 3/10The action scenes were very irrealistic and what is the most awful is when one guy totally uncovered straight in the middle of an opened door kills everyone with his simple automatic pistol and 10 swats with sub machine guns can't hit him at all, ridiculous...I tought the infinite ammo-invulnerable man days were finished but it looks like not in Korea.
5/10To be honest my ratings wouldn't have been so low if the directing was good but sadly after watching this movie I found myself with a big headache, most of the movie is shot like if the cameras were mounted on  jumping kangaroos or less exagerating, I should say that the cameraman was running like hell holding it's camera in his hands...the camera is going in every direction during the action scenes and if some directors can master this kind of film technic Swiri's one definitely does not, it's moving even when it shouldn't.I'm watching lots of asian movies and lot's of kung-fu one so I'm accustomed to frenzied movies but in this one camera movements are badly used.The movie would had his chances without this " non-stop shaking picture" but as it is this movie is just average,I would recommend you to see "2009 Lost memories" instead the scenario is more interesting and the action is better directed and more realistic..
"Shiri" is a by-the-book action/drama about a renegade force which steals a secret explosive to use to blow up the leaders of a divided Korea in an attempt to destabilize the country so that it can effect a unification...or something like that.
According to the VCD package, its combination of "51% action, 49% love" helped SWIRI break Titanic's Korean box office record.With way more emotional depth than the typical actioner, SWIRI has a good visual look and excellent and convincing chemistry between the lead characters.
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?
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.
By the time this film came out (1999) the South Korean movie industry almost became extinct.
With this movie the Koreans do what they do best - take the Hollywood formula and make solid films.
at last,one non american action movie that can been seen.After crouching tiger hidden,shiri has a place on its own,in my heart.Its non stopping action,its great story,the very good actors,a very good director(i have not seen any other film of him),are the ingridients of a movie that you must see at least one time.
Ryu and Lee investigate the killing of Lim. In this process, they know Lee Bang-Hee tried to get CTX, which is new type of liquid bomb, from Lim. However, Park Mu-Young and soldiers of the North Korean 8th special force come to South Korea and they get CTX.Ryu has a girlfriend called Hee Myung-Hyun who has a fish shop.
However, this movie is made in South Korea so I don't know what North Koreans think.I would recommend this as an entertaining film.
"Swiri", co-produced by the Samsung Group, has stirred up the cinema world at a time when South Korea is under pressure to end a controversial quota system that limits the number of days theaters can show foreign films.
The movie, released in February, is an espionage action film, a new genre in the Korean film industry.The movie mixes Hollywood-style espionage action and dazzling special effects with a classic Korean tragic love story between North and South Korean secret agents to attract a wide range of viewers.North and South Korea are still technically at war after the 1950-53 Korean war ended without a peace agreement.
But it is a pretty good suspense thriller with some of the best action scenes I've seen the Koreans manage to muster.But I have to point out something.
If you were expecting a Hollywood big budget action film, you might be horribly disappointed to discover that there's a story in this movie too..
And compare to effects used years ago in the action classics such as Die Hard (only then they were some what new and original!).I would not advise anyone to waste their time and to watch this movie, reading the telephone book for an hour and a half will prove more entertaining and will not give you as bad a headache as this film!.
It was better than any action film that American Hollywood has to offer, but I think I need to see more work from Korea to fully grasp the ability that they have.
Before JSA, there was a cool movie with not so great effects, but looked pretty good for a contemporary Asian gun-actioner.
At core, Swiri is more of a romantic drama than a pure action film, but people unaware of the North-South Korean situation may not fully see the drama.
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..
Having been led to believe that Shiri was a good example of a recent burst of Korean action films I started it with high expectations.
If you love a good action film, this is for you..
The movie has all of the makings of any American made action film:  great sense of tension between heroes and villains, lots of bullets and car chases, and a beautiful lethal lady.
If you love really great action films like Die Hard or the Rock, then I strongly recommend Shiri..
And that's why this film is soooooooooooooo interesting for Koreans, but boring as hell for those of us who simply like good movies..