the audience applauded

Clever, believable, and super fun to watch. It totally has replay value.

It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

Great movie. Not sure what people expected but I found it highly entertaining.

Swiri was the first Hollywood-style big-budget blockbuster to be produced in the "new" Korean film industry.It was created as a deliberate homage to the "high-octane" action film made popular by Hollywood.It stars Han Suk-kyu,Choi Min-sik,Kim Yoon-jin and Song Kang- ho.Also,it also contained a story that draws on strong Korean national sentiment to fuel its drama.It was written and directed by Kang Je-gyu.A dazzling action movie from South Korea, it follows two South Korean government agents, Ryu and Lee, as they pursue a female super-assassin from North Korea. Meanwhile, an elite paramilitary squad from North Korea has stolen a shipment of CTX, an undetectable liquid explosive of enormous power, which they've planted all over the city of Seoul. As their investigations are successively foiled, Ryu and Lee begin to suspect that there is a mole within the ranks of the agency it is believed that it may be one of them.The movie rips along as a smooth fusion of Hong Kong and American action movies that is both hyper-stylish and hyper-realistic.It's a post-Cold War action yarn with a nose for melodrama, and a loopy cop drama with undeniable entertainment value.

This movie is more than an action flick, it highlights the relationship between North and South Korea. If you know anything about their pasts and their present than you can see why this is a movie by Koreans for Koreans. 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. However, once it gets to the actual story then the clues and hints are laid out and you see how everything comes together in the end. You can probably guess the entire ending after some time. The romance is small, about what you expect for an action film. The chemistry is okay. It is really more of a thriller than anything because you're usually puzzled as to how the hero is going to catch the bad guys since he keeps on failing initially.The actors did a fairly good job. 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. Maybe they should get plastic surgery to open their eyes? It was a so-so movie, but because of theme and background I'll put it above the the average, it could be used to do more than simply entertain. It is simply outdated now if you want a really good action film.

Is it possible to make a Bruckheimer movie and not be stupidly loud and ugly?Maybe. At least there are some parts of this that make it seem so. But they are surrounded by parts that are so automatic and banal it seems that different directors were involved. Or there was a sort of Jekyll and Hyde swapping of personalities.For example, there is the required Bruckheimer shot of two guys (sometimes it is a guy and a girl) running away from a car (or house) that they know will explode, then they lunge forward, pretending to be pushed by the shock of the fireball behind that fills the screen. Groan. I hope never to see that again. Ever. Each assassination causes our heroes to get blood splashed on their faces. There's a shootout with fishtanks... yeah, you've seen it before. At least there were no helicopter jumps onto speeding trains. There's an odd, odd choice in soundtrack; the severest action scenes have a sedate fifties action track behind them, obviously copied -- perhaps literally -- from that era.But in between there are some elements that are uniquely styled. There's an opening sequence that is energetic, and essential to introducing us to a kickass female killer. There are some scenes with a "Mr and Mrs Smith" flavor where the mundane domestic love is allowed to breath and seem real. And deep.Two guys directing, I think. Or one guy, two nations.Ted's Evaluation -- 1 of 3: You can find something better to do with this part of your life.

I rented "Shiri" because I was intrigued by its premise. Based on its plot summary, I thought the pro-(an?)-tagonist would be a woman similar to the real North Korean spy who blew up a South Korean airliner in the 80s. She was captured and apparently kept alive in a secret location by the South Korean government as a source of valuable information on North Korea. Unfortunately, I was gravely mistaken.Hyped as "groundbreaking," this film left me wondering, "What ground?" It is more like pavement-breaking, a noisy, unoriginal and tiresome process. Sure, it touches on areas that have been heretofore off-limits to Korean filmmakers (the nature of the contemporary North/South conflict), but it is shameful that this film, wildly popular in South Korea, happened to be the first to do so. I don't find this film to be much more than the work of a Korean director trying to imitate Jerry Bruckheimer. The action scenes are well choreographed and extremely violent, and that works to a certain simple degree. But the important elements are lacking: the drama is suspect, the mystery all-too-obvious, the romantic scenes predictably contrived. One excellent scene, however, occurs at the beginning when the "assassin-ess" is undergoing her training. One of her tasks is to shoot at a line of North Korean soldiers, who stand stoic and apparently unafraid, and miss them by firing between their heads. This is brilliantly original, enough to make the toughest among us wince. But, for the most part, this film makes us wince for other reasons."Have you ever seen starving parents eat the flesh of their own kids?" An admittedly powerful line, it also gruesomely and aptly sums up the film: lots of choice bits, but the whole thing is really a horrible mess. "Shiri" dissolves into an intentionally confusing, predictably violent conclusion. While there are indeed some intelligent observations made about the nature of North/South Korean relations, nothing particularly meaningful, inventive or revolutionary is offered. It's the same old line that the South seeks unification by peaceful means and the North seeks it through violence. Ho hum. As I said, Jerry Bruckheimer."Shiri" is marketed as a sexy film although there is no sex or sexiness in it. It is hailed as groundbreaking but I fail to see any ground being broken. This weak combination of spy/action/adventure/drama/romance is overly hyped, its promoters know that they are disingenuous in recommending this film, its payoff is nonexistent and, if this is any indication of what the Korean film "renaissance" is all about, I want no part of it. As Asian films, Korean ones among them, become more and more popular, I hope that they will become more and more good. Sadly, "Shiri" does not live up to that hope despite much hype, many enthusiastic reviews and, granted, quality cinematography. The story, the plot and the final screenplay all just fall terribly flat. I must give this movie a big thumbs down.