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| SHIRI Starring - Han Seok-Kyu - Choi Min-Sik - Yun Ju-Sang - Park Eun-Suk. Directed by - Kang Je-Kyu. After World War II Korea was divided into two nations, communist North and democratic South. The Korean War started by North Korea in 1950 devastated all of Korea. Now the two nations are still under the state of suspended war. The tension runs high at this very moment. Shiri opens in 1992 as we see members of the North Korean army brutally murder South Korean P.O.W’s in exercises designed to enhance their skills. One student ‘Hee’ stands out from the rest, showing no compassion or emotion when it comes to fulfilling her orders. She is soon promoted to the North Korean 8th Special Forces. 1996 – Hee is suspected of the assassination of some very important South Koreans and an operation is launched to capture her. Unfortunately a South Korean OP officer is murdered as Hee evades capture. Hee disappears due to her identity being disclosed. 1998 – Lim an illegal arms dealer contacts the South Korean OP and arranges a meeting with them to disclose some information about a very important client. Before the meeting can happen Lim is murdered in such a way there could be only one person suspected in the case. After well over a year in hiding is Hee back and if so what is her connection to Lim? Two members of the South Korean OP ‘Ryo’ and ‘Lee’ are appointed to the case to find out what is going on and if Hee is involved to finish her at the first opportunity. Shiri is a thriller based on the political unease in Korea, had I known that this was the case I probably never would have watched this. I am probably being very narrow-minded saying this but I am simply not interested in politics however they affect my life. Anyway Shiri is an average film with some good performances all round but no one character really stood out for me. I found it hard to relate to the three main characters Ryo, Lee and Hyun as they are not given sufficient time to develop, the director has spent more time focusing on the plot twists rather than developing any really strong character relationships, which more or less left me with no kind of feeling towards them when anything untoward happened. The plot is well scripted but at times is also fairly predictable and there wasn’t anything here you won’t have seen in 101 American suspense thrillers before it. The director is only really pushed for any creative camera work on a couple of occasions and makes a mess of it. The action scenes are shot from a semi realistic point of view with plenty of shaky hand cam shots and quick cuts but these left me feeling dizzy and quite sick. Art for arts sake springs to mind. Shiri ultimately didn’t do anything for me, it is a border line title that bordered on me either falling asleep or just turning it off entirely, for the purposes of this review I endured something I would normally never bother with. It felt as though too many corners were cut in the filming and production of this title. 5*****stars |
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