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NUMBERS
Box Office: $29,156
details...
CAST & CREW
Han Suk-Kyu, Choi Min-Sik, Kang-ho Song
Directed by Je-Kyu Kang
more...
SYNOPSIS
In 1992, Hee was trained by a secret North Korean terrorist organization to be a deadly assassin. Six years later, her extreme accuracy has taken the lives of many in South Korea, and Ryu--a special agent of OP, Korea's top secret intelligence agency--along with his cohort Lee, have devoted years to capturing slippery Hee to no avail. more...
MPAA RATING
R, for strong violence and some language
RUNTIME
1 hour, 53 minutes
RELEASE DATES
Theatrical: Feb 8, 2002
Video: Apr 9, 2002
RELEASE COMPANY
IDP Distribution
GENRE
Foreign Films, Korean, Action, Suspense, Assassination, Espionage, Secret Agents
OFFICIAL SITE
• The Official Shiri Site
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TIDBITS
NEWS ARTICLES
SUBMIT/EDIT ARTICLE
SUBMIT USER REVIEW
FORUM
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 "Ends up offering nothing more than the latest Schwarzenegger or Stallone flick would."
-- Jeffrey M. Anderson, SAN FRANCISCO EXAMINER
 "For all the realpolitik underpinnings, this is less John le Carre than a tech noir "Die Hard" in downtown Seoul."
-- Sean Axmaker, SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER
"By the final scenes, I
couldn’t take my eyes off the thing."
-- David Cornelius, AMAZING COLOSSAL WEBSITE
"Shiri is an action film that delivers on the promise of excitement, but it also has a strong dramatic and emotional pull that gradually sneaks up on the audience."
-- Michael Dequina, MR. BROWN'S MOVIES
"Like many Western action films, this thriller is too loud and thoroughly overbearing, but its heartfelt concern about North Korea's recent past and South Korea's future adds a much needed moral weight."
-- Ken Fox, TV GUIDE'S MOVIE GUIDE
"Nothing more than a run-of-the-mill action flick."
-- Jamie Gillies, APOLLO GUIDE
"Innocuous enough to make even Jean-Claude Van Damme look good."
-- Harvey S. Karten, COMPUSERVE
"...one of the more influential works of the 'Korean New Wave'."
-- Anthony Leong, MEDIACIRCUS
"Though Shiri's eruptions of violence, mayhem and gunplay are every bit as kinetic and dazzling as anything generated in Hong Kong or Hollywood, the film's primary focus is always on its characters."
-- Wade Major, BOXOFFICE MAGAZINE
"Polished Korean political-action film is just as good -- and bad -- as Hollywood action epics. Is this progress?"
-- James Rocchi, NETFLIX
"Starts as an intense political and psychological thriller but is sabotaged by ticking time bombs and other Hollywood-action cliches."
-- Joshua Tanzer, OFFOFFOFF
"It's obvious [Je-Gyu is] trying for poetry; what he gets instead has all the lyricism of a limerick scrawled in a public restroom."
-- Glenn Whipp, LOS ANGELES DAILY NEWS
Click to read the article.
-- BBCI FILMS
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"A good-looking but ultimately pointless political thriller with plenty of action and almost no substance."
-- Daniel Eagan, FILM JOURNAL INTERNATIONAL
"Proves mainly that South Korean filmmakers can make undemanding action movies with all the alacrity of their Hollywood counterparts."
-- Bryant Frazer, BRYANT FRAZER'S DEEP FOCUS
"Thoroughly awful."
-- Phil Hall, FILM THREAT
"The plot has a number of holes, and at times it's simply baffling."
-- Andy Klein, NEW TIMES
"A huge box-office hit in Korea, Shiri is a must for genre fans."
-- Moira MacDonald, SEATTLE TIMES
"An excellent romp that boasts both a heart and a mind."
-- Nic O, IOFILM.CO.UK
"Little more than an assemblage of cliches drawn from Hollywood
and Hong Kong that, in the end, is almost risible."
-- Frank Swietek, ONE GUY'S OPINION
"An action/thriller of the finest kind, evoking memories of Day of the Jackal, The French Connection, and Heat."
-- Tor Thorsen, REEL.COM
"Starts out a little like La Femme Nikita, but after a while, director Kang Je-Gyu's would-be bullet ballet goes way into overkill."
-- E! ONLINE
-- Click to read the article.
-- Mike D'Angelo, MAN WHO VIEWED TOO MUCH
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FRESH 67%
Avg. Rating: 6.2/10 |
"Sometimes makes less sense than the Bruckheimeresque American action flicks it emulates."
-- Jonathan Foreman, NEW YORK POST
"Features explosive effects and flashy action best viewed on a large screen."
-- Eric Harrison, HOUSTON CHRONICLE
"Will certainly appeal to Asian cult cinema fans and Asiaphiles interested to see what all the fuss is about."
-- Richard James Havis, HOLLYWOOD REPORTER
"The script was reportedly rewritten a dozen times -- either 11 times too many or else too few."
-- J. Hoberman, VILLAGE VOICE
"Suffers from all the excesses of the genre."
-- Stephen Hunter, WASHINGTON POST
"There's a neat twist, subtly rendered, that could have wrapped things up at 80 minutes, but Kang tacks on three or four more endings."
-- Carla Meyer, SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE
"The film actually gets to tackle some larger questions than one normally finds in the average fireball drama."
-- Michael O'Sullivan, WASHINGTON POST
"Compelling, kinetic, fast and furious."
-- Steven Rea, PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER
"There is a fine psychological thriller about divided loyalties and ambiguous identities buried with all the rubble and the maimed bodies, and Mr. Han and Ms. Kim play their slightly absurd roles with brisk sincerity"
-- A.O. Scott, NEW YORK TIMES
"A superior political thriller in which jolting action strikes a balance with serious reflection and genuine emotion."
-- Kevin Thomas, LOS ANGELES TIMES
"It's a post-Cold War action yarn with a nose for Hong Kong-style melodrama, and a loopy cop drama with undeniable entertainment value."
-- Chris Vognar, DALLAS MORNING NEWS
"A beautifully tooled action thriller about love and terrorism in Korea."
-- Michael Wilmington, CHICAGO TRIBUNE
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Click to read the article.
-- FILM THREAT
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* Who are the Approved Tomatometer Critics?
* Mouse over a tomato icon for a publication's original rating. Original rating not available for every publication.
* In fairness to critics whose last name begins with a letter at the end of the alphabet, certain pages are sorted in reverse order, z-a.
* Certain "Shiri" article data provided by the Movie Review Query Engine.
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lepetitchat78
| If I could be anywhere: "Back in Cuba, sitting Indian style on the Malecon. Mojito in one hand, handsome revolutionary in the other." |
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