Directed by: Kang Je-gyu Starring: Han Suk-kyu (한석규), Kim Yun-jin (김윤진), Choi Min-sik (최민식), Song Kang-ho (송강호) Release date: February 13th, 1999
Shiri received the highest budget ever for a Korean movie at the time (8.5 mil) and not only became the first domestic film ever to top a Hollywood film at the box office, but it smashed through the previous record set by Titanic (1997) for highest ticket sales ever. It truly marked the beginning of a new era for Korean film, as investors and filmmakers alike were given a huge boost of confidence to grow the local film scene. This is a monumental film in South Korean film history that steered the course for a budding new movie industry that would eventually grow into the world renowned powerhouse of moviemaking that we know and love today.
Shiri is a unique film for many reasons, but holds a special place in my heart for being the movie that brought Korean cinema into my life and honestly changed it forever (for the good I think). I have loved films all my life and while working at Hollywood Video part-time during high school, I was able to watch anything and everything. But I increasingly found myself bored with local offerings besides that of the auteurs like Scorsese, Tarantino, Lynch, Spike Lee, and began to migrate towards the foreign film section in search of something fresh.
Shiri came to me one day in 2002 when the lone VHS copy on the new release wall intrigued me with its cover featuring a sexy female holding a gun and wearing a dress (it turns out to have nothing to do with the movie). After reading the synopsis on the back (as we did in those days) and looking at the various awards it had received I thought there might be some real substance to this actioner and gave it a go. As the credits rolled, I sat stunned as my mind raced a million miles an hour. What had I just seen? I wanted more. I wanted to know immediately what other film offerings there were but I also wanted to know more about the country itself. This became the beginning of my years long journey through Korean film.
Two of South Korea’s best secret agents and close like brothers, Yu Joong-won (Han Suk-kyu) and Lee Jang-gil (Song Kang-ho), have been tracking an elusive North Korean female assassin named Bang-hee who has taken out a number of key scientists, politicians and military officials over a six year period before she vanished one day after painting the words “good bye” on her final target in blood. Agents Yu and Lee are left haunted and bewildered by her disappearance but work to move on with their lives. While Yu sets his eyes on marriage with a woman he’s fallen in love with over the past year, a fish shop owner named Myung-hyun (Kim Yun-jin), Jang-gil looks for new criminals to chase.
Meanwhile, as a nation divided, the two Korea’s plan to hold a friendly soccer match in preparation for their unified 2002 World Cup cup team and as a chance to boost relations between the countries. But when an illicit arms dealer is assassinated after reaching out to the South’s secret agency, North Korean assassin Bang-hee is suspected to have come out of hiding despite her identity being compromised. And after the killing of a top scientist connected to a secret government weapon called CTX, a new kind of high-powered liquid explosive that can go undetected like water, agents Yu and Lee fear the worst and suspect that the North has begun moving to intercept the weapon. Both agents put love and life on the line to uncover the truth behind the North’s plans and to find out why they would risk peace on the peninsula.
Compared to other action films, Shiri is unique in how it sandwiches its action and melodrama together. Typically, action movies market to the masculine audiences they aim to please by throwing one or two sexy models in the mix as sub characters that provide some eye-candy and sexual tension to break up the monotony of clashes between the macho heroes and villains. But almost like two completely different films, Shiri is part high-octane actioner and part sentimental melodrama.
Han Suk-kyu (White Night, Christmas in August) and Song Kan-ho (A Taxi Driver, The Throne) are not mere secret agents donning suits and ear piece as they track their targets. Rather, both actors get decked out in full S.W.A.T. gear as they lead tactical units through warehouse and shipyard raids as they hunt the female assassin Byung-hee. High-stakes and intense shootouts reminiscent of a John Woo bullet ballet come fast and furious in Shiri. One exhilarating sequence has the agents and other law enforcement chasing criminals through a downtown center with high powered assault rifles that looks to be inspired by Michael Mann’s Heat.
Some of the shootouts and stunt work do look a bit crude by today’s standards. A shaky camera is often used to mask some of the effects and sets from looking flimsy, and miniatures used in one of the bigger explosions comes across as very dated today. But being made for fractions of the budget afforded to well-known Hollywood productions of the time, Shiri matches up with the best of them.
I was blown away by the tragic love story between between agent Yu (Han Suk-kyu) and fish shop owner Myung-hyun (Kim Yunjin). The sentimentality front and center of each scene they share caught me off guard after Shiri began so violently and full of action. There is a considerable amount of downtime spent with the couple that humanizes them in ways not often scene in action films. One early scene has them laying in bed together talking about various species of fish like the “kissingurami,” they contemplate what fish looks like when they laugh or cry. Underscored by the soft ballad “When I Dream” by Carol Kidd, the romance is palpable.
There is real chemistry between the two leads and all the characters in Shiri are humanized so well through the way they were written. I get chills in almost every scene that actress Kim Yunjin appears in. One scene in particular that has her contemplate suicide after having relapsed with her alcohol addiction as she faces the reality of the role she must play out remains one of the best single scenes of acting I’ve ever seen. Kim won best new actress at the Grand Bell awards for Shiri, and went on to star in all six seasons of the hit American TV series Lost (2004-2010) and has remained a prominent actress within the Korean film and TV industry.
And Han Suk-kyu brings the tenderness from Christmas in August (1998) for quiet contemplative moments that make the more intense gun-drawn moments so much more tense and emotional. He also has an incredible face-to-face with the now legendary actor Choi Min-sik (I Saw the Devil, Heart Blackened) in the finale where Choi’s character attempts to justify his team’s terror plot that shakes me to my core. Choi Min-sik firmly establishes himself as a force to be reckoned with and brings an intensity to his role in that hits like a lightning bolt. Looking back nearly twenty years later, this single scene in Shiri couldn’t have been a better way to announce his arrival as the acting titan he is. For those that weren’t listening in 1999, Mr. Choi made sure in 2004 when he shook the world with his performance in Park Chan-wook’s 2003 dark masterpiece Oldboy.
Korean film would not be where it is today without the success of Shiri in 1999. If the film had flopped or been poorly made, the rise of Korean cinema could have easily been set back a number of years and it may have developed into something completely unrecognizable from what we see today. Instead, Shiri ended up paving the way for bigger and often risky investments in subsequent years that nurtured the talents of acclaimed filmmakers like Bong Joon-ho (PARASITE), Park Chan-wook (The Handmaiden) and Kim Jee-woon (A Bittersweet Life). Shiri was the turning point in the Korean film industry and holds up to this day as a proud stepping stone in what turned out to be a priceless contribution to the world cinema landscape.
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