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Shiri
Samuel Goldwyn Films

Shiri reviews
Critic Score
Metascore: 50 Metascore out of 100
User Score  
9.3 out of 10
based on 18 reviews
Read critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
based on 9 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie

MPAA 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.


GENRE(S): Suspense/Thriller  
WRITTEN BY: Kang Je-Gyu  
DIRECTED BY: Kang Je-Gyu  
RELEASE DATE: DVD: April 9, 2002 
Video: April 9, 2002 
Theatrical: February 8, 2002 
RUNNING TIME: 124 minutes, Color 
ORIGIN: South Korea 
LANGUAGE(S): Korean (with English subtitles) 

Original title "Swiri"

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.
Read Full Review
80
The Onion (A.V. Club) Keith Phipps
An oddly effective mixture of technical prowess, well-executed cliché, and unexpected political poignancy.
Read Full Review
75
Philadelphia Inquirer Steven Rea
Compelling, kinetic, fast and furious.
Read Full Review
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.
Read Full Review
75
Chicago Tribune Michael Wilmington
A beautifully tooled action thriller about love and terrorism.
Read Full Review
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.
Read Full Review
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.
Read Full Review
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.
Read Full Review
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.
Read Full Review
50
San Francisco Chronicle Carla Meyer
Suffers most from being overlong.
Read Full Review
40
Chicago Reader Ted Shen
Shamelessly derivative and politically expedient.
Read Full Review
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.
Read Full Review
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.
Read Full Review
40
Village Voice J. Hoberman
High-powered and gory.
Read Full Review
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.
Read Full Review
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.
Read Full Review

What Our Users Said

Vote Now!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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