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Shiri

EMAILPRINTSamuel Goldwyn Films

Shiri reviews
50
9.3 User Score:

Mixed or average reviews

Based on 18 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?

Based on 9 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie >

Movie Info

Genre(s): Suspense/Thriller

Written by: Kang Je-Gyu

Directed by: Kang Je-Gyu

Release Date:
Theatrical: February 8, 2002
DVD: April 9, 2002

Running Time: 124 minutes, Color

Origin: South Korea

Summary

RATING: R for strong violence and some language

Starring Choi Min-sik, Han Seok-kyu, Song Kang-ho, Kim Yu-jin, and Lee Bang-hee

Spies from North and South Korea are pitted against each other amid the backdrop of reunification plans.

What The Critics Said

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

90

Los Angeles Times Kevin Thomas

In recent years, South Korean cinema has fully flowered, producing both uncompromising highly personal films and crisp, intelligent genre movies, with Shiri the most spectacular example of the latter to date.

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80

The Onion (A.V. Club) Keith Phipps

An oddly effective mixture of technical prowess, well-executed cliché, and unexpected political poignancy.

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75

Philadelphia Inquirer Steven Rea

Compelling, kinetic, fast and furious.

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75

Seattle Post-Intelligencer Sean Axmaker

This is an unmistakably Asian variant on the action movie, a sleek, slick, entertaining espionage thriller in the John Woo mold.

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75

Chicago Tribune Michael Wilmington

A beautifully tooled action thriller about love and terrorism.

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63

New York Post Jonathan Foreman

The girl you see stabbing and shooting prisoners and fellow trainees makes the killer from "La Femme Nikita" look like a wuss.

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60

The New York Times Dana Stevens

Mr. Kang is a gifted choreographer of bloody chaos, but he has enough range and imagination to strew a few interludes of haunting tenderness amid the shell casings and ketchup packs.

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50

TV Guide Ken Fox

The all-too-vivid simulation of terrorist attacks, including a prolonged scene of a building collapse in which people are seen plummeting to their deaths and crushed under falling concrete, may strike a very different chord with post-9/11 American audiences.

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50

Washington Post Michael O'Sullivan

The film actually gets to tackle some larger questions than one normally finds in the average fireball drama.

50

Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern

The action looks impressive, even when nothing much is happening beyond local explosions or shattering glass, and the drama turns, affectingly, on a mysterious female sniper with a partitioned soul.

50

New York Daily News Elizabeth Weitzman

Americans, for better or worse, have already seen plenty of budget-busting action flicks with half-baked political pretensions.

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50

San Francisco Chronicle Carla Meyer

Suffers most from being overlong.

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40

Chicago Reader Ted Shen

Shamelessly derivative and politically expedient.

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40

LA Weekly Paul Malcolm

Though the two-hour film can go slack with excess explication, Shiri compensates with an overheated drive that forces the myopia of current events toward a broader field of vision.

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40

Washington Post Stephen Hunter

Suffers from all the excesses of the genre: gunfights that go on and on and on, a plot that is almost incomprehensible.

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40

Village Voice J. Hoberman

High-powered and gory.

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40

New Times (L.A.) Andy Klein

Thankfully, the final, long action set piece, which owes a debt to "The Manchurian Candidate" among others, is free of such problems. Shiri manages to go out on its most exciting sequence. There are worse ways to go.

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20

Film Threat Phil Hall

A thoroughly awful Korean production which vainly attempts to recast the slam-bang conventions of American action-adventure flicks into the sticky world of contemporary Korean politics.

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What Our Users Said

The average user rating for this movie is 9.3 (out of 10) based on 9 User Votes

Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Scott gave it a 10:
This was one of my favorite movies I ever saw...period. This movie came out around when Titanic came out, ie before 9/11. So it's not their fault that they have a scene like that. It only makes sense. And while Titanic's romantic tragedy was about this lowlife who shouldn't have even ended up on the ship stealing a man's wife and then dying (people should be applauding), Shiri's was just tear-jerking like none other. An excellent mix of action (quite a fan of war movies myself) as well as suspense and romance. A+

Scarlett C. gave it a 10:
It's the best Korean movie I have even seen. The gun fights and the music are fantastic. I am blown away by the romance part at the end, which I can't stop my tears. It's a both exciting and touching movie.

Evan S. gave it a 9:
This is an amazing action movie! Even American audiences will be blown away by its amazing gun fights and awesome acting. I didn't know what was going to happen by the end.

Michael F. gave it a 9:
I was blown away by this movie. I have 1 complait that is whenever there were scenes of action the camera got a bit too shaky, even though it looked good. A complicated story and constant action scenes are nicely blended in. The movie is extremely violent, but if you can take it, then rent it!!!

Jae J. gave it a 10:
i just got four word for all you movie lovers. Watch this awesome film.

Brian M. gave it a 9:
Shiri was better than I expected, this film was probably the best foreign film that I have seen, even one of the best action films I have seen.

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