For those of us who have been wondering how, even in the fanciful world of action movies, the leading characters end up with super human combat capabilities, Shiri offers an answer in its opening montage. But more than that, Shiri is a reminder of what's been going on in Korean films for the past decade.
The Hollywoodization of product values has been oft-noted. It's true, though much of Shiri looks more like a Hong Kong production than Hollywood film -- except for the rapid editing which during action sequences that is intended to create a state of excitement at the expense of coherence and genuine tension. But what's truly interesting is the way the themes and treatments are Korean.
The re-unification of the two Koreas looms large in Shiri, as it does in so many films from the peninsula. And the emotional content of the film's relationships -- the time and import given to them -- exceeds Hollywood, and plays more seriously than Hong Kong.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0192657/
