Movie violence is bad because it's too mild.

I'm not talking about the over-the-top gore of horror films. They're fantasy, therefore supposed to be ooky. When I walk the streets at night, I'm not worried about zombies coming out of nowhere to gnaw at my intestines. What I fear is a real-life weapon. Actually I don't fear the gun itself, for guns alone don't kill. I fear the stupid muddha behind the trigger, 'cause he probably doesn't know how much power he's holding.

On "realistic" movies about cops and robbers, guns do very little. A hole in the shirt, fake blood squirting from a concelaled condom, and that's all. People get snuffed in slow-motion, when in real life they piss and shit themselves while dying. And sometimes death is extremely slow. When one gets shot in the gut, he can take up to 10 HOURS to die. But movie guns? Feh. Small potatoes. Do you really think that the good cop can be shot with a Magnum .44., a hand-cannon that packs so much heat it can rip your arm clean off the elbow, and get away with just a FLESH WOUND? C'mon!

If we really want to put a stop on real-life violence, a good start would be to show the REAL consequences of gunning down someone. So your kid thinks that holding a guy sideways is cool? Aww, cutey. Show him how the exit wound of a .38 really looks like and kiddo won't even touch a slingshot anymore, unless he's born with psychopathic tendencies.

Take, for example, the scene from Shiri where a cop is shot on the kneecap with a high-powered weapon. If this were an Ah-nuld flick, the shootee would reappear hours later with a bandage and a mild limp. In Shiri, the leg of the cop does what any self-respecting leg would after being shot square on the kneecap: it falls off the socket and paints the wall with blood sprays. Yeah, ouch. Welcome to the real world, buddy!

Alas, the success of Shiri comes from the fact that its heart is based on the very real situation on the divided Koreas. Teleport City's Keith Allison did a great job depicting the movie's political backstory on a wondeful, if spoiler-ridden review at Teleport City, so I won't tell it all over again.

If something must be said about Shiri it's that, even if it makes a lot of concessions to the American action formula (people being saved at the nick of time being the most usual sin), you're never sure who to root for. In one side, we have top markswoman Hee (played by different actresses, and telling more than that may spoil one of the surprises) and the leader of the terrorists, Park (Choi Min-Sik). On the other side, we have the agents of South Korea's anti-terrorist force, Ryu (Han Suk-Kyu) and Lee (Song Kang-Ho). Technically, Hee and Park are the villains. But that's not as easy is seems, as the lines of right and wrong (I'm not talking good and evil here) are extremely blurred.

Lee and Ryu live in the prosperous South Korea, where they have McDonald's, Coca Cola and a decorative fish in every office (pay attention to the fish motif, it's an important part of the mystery; even the Shiri of the title is a fish). Their mission is to maintain the status quo as it is, with each Korea minding its own beeswax. But Park is from North Korea, where starving families feed on the corpses of their dead children, so he's more than right when he says he want a revolution.

The terrorists want the unification of the Koreas. To achieve that, they must PREVENT the unification. Confused? Actually, it makes sense. The unification is at the hands of greedy politicians, who are stalling the process by spending more time (and the contributor's money) making diplomatic visits to each other, sipping Champagne and eating belugas while their people die. Case in point: their great idea to kickstart the unification is thru a soccer match. SOCCER, dammit! As brazilian chronist Nelson Rodrigues once said, "soccer is the opium of the multitudes". So true. Politicians are merely giving bread and circus to the people instead of actually doing something to feed the hungry. So, Park's plan is pretty simple: he's going to blow up the stadium where all presidents and ministers are gathered, and reboot the unification with a good old revolution, this time without leechy leaders on the way to throw spanners in the works. Yes, if Park succeeds, a lot of innocents will die. That makes it hard to support his methods, cause killing people is wrong, always was and always will be. But what hurts us more is knowing that his act could actually solve North Korea's problems once and for all.

There's something really wrong with the world when we can see the logic behind terrorism and mass murder. We're living in sad times. Very sad, indeed.

Now the bad, and I don't know where to begin. Well, first there is the off-puttingly grisly intro with the North Korean rebel training camp. Scenes like this make the film much too jarring and don't set a proper tone (see the prison camp sequence from Bullet In The Head for another example thereof.) I guess it's to establish the dedication and true vicious nature of the main "bad" characters, but they never live up to their ruthless reputations showcased by the exceedingly long & gruesome beginning to the film.

Next comes the disappointment I felt whenever I realized I knew who the main super-secret bad-guy was only about 1/2 hour into the flick. I was hoping the plot wasn't so transparent, but those hopes were promptly dashed, diminishing the payoff greatly. The goofy light-sensitive explosive was such B-grade hokum that I doubt American TV-movies would even stoop to such farce. More logistical problems erupt when a fish is sliced open to reveal a transmitter that is almost the size of the fish itself. How does that work? And my biggest pet peeve, though by no means the sole example in Asian cinema: Why can legions of governmentally-trained SWAT units with body armor and automatic weaponry not manage to take out 1 renegade revolutionary armed with a semi-automatic pistol?

And that's not even going into the inter-personal relationships of the lead character and how they smell of cliché and poorly concocted lethargy. After all of this degradation you might think I wouldn't recommend this film, but strangely enough I would. Though I maintain my belief in the film's massively overrated reputation, some might be able to look past the film's "foibles" and find an enjoyable flick.

The plot: Lee Bang-Hee, a female assassin from North Korea, has been preying on politicians in South Korea for years. Ryu, a South Korean secret agent, is obsessed with finding her. Ryu has a life outside of work: he plans to marry his girlfriend Hyun, who owns a fish shop. Hyun gives Ryu a pair of Kissingmaru, fish that need one another to survive. Can you see the melodrama coming? Meanwhile, a group of North Korean commandos gets hold of an experimental bomb called CTX, which is liquid-based and more powerful than any other type of explosive. They plan to use the experimental weapon to engender a new war between North and South Korea, one which will hopefully result in a unification of the rival nations.

Before the film's end, Ryu will be shaken by an unpleasant surprise: one that isn't very plausible, but is effective nonetheless. However, this surprise (and the action that leads to and results in its revelation) doesn't come until the second hour of the movie. The first hour is boring, full of static scenes of characters talking about doing something, then doing it: a definite no-no in the screenwriting world. Well, in Hollywood, at least. But anyway, the first half of this movie nearly bored me to tears, and I was wondering where all the accolades of this being "the greatest action movie in years" had come from.

Fortunately, the second half of the film picks up the pace, with Ryu and his associates taking on the North Korean commandos. The violence is brutal; anytime someone's shot or knifed, blood sprays in every direction. One notable scene of gore is in a flashback, as we witness North Korean commando leader Park Mu-Young (portrayed by Min-Sik Choi, who looks like an Asian Gary Oldman) slice off a passenger's face and place it over his own, in loving tribute no doubt of Dr. Hannibal Lecter. Another grisly shot has a female commando gulp down some CTX in defiant suicide; she explodes in gory splendor.

One notable way in which Shiri differs from Hollywood action flicks is in the climax: there's no happy ending, here. Hollywood is always sure to show our heroes ride off into the sunset with their girl, but Shiri stays true to its Asian roots and gives us a more tragic ending, which I must admit succeeded in depressing the hell out of me.

For a larf, try keeping up with how many times "CTX" is said in this movie. I imagine Shiri could be used as the basis for a drinking game, for college kids with too much time on their hands: chug a beer every time you hear "CTX." You'd be wasted halfway through the movie.

What really sets Shiri apart from others of the genre are the characters. The characters and their relationships are central to the story: the relationship between Ryu and Lee, the relationship between Ryu and Hyun, and the relationship between Ryu and Park. These relationships define the characters, draw the viewer closer, and create tension throughout the film. As the plot moves on and the partners suspect a leak, will they be able to trust each other? Can Ryu balance his dangerous job with his love for his girlfriend? Those are just a couple of the questions that will come up during the film. And, you will care because you will appreciate the rare friendship that Ryu and Lee have and the loving relationship that Ryu and Hyun have. You will also come to care about Park's motives and the hardships he has seen that lead him to where he is.

The plotline of the investigation itself is perfectly paced, neither losing the viewer nor boring the viewer. It is a very slick looking film that, while done on a miniscule budget compared to many Hollywood efforts, looks even better than said efforts. The action sequences are not depicted as choreographical showcases, but rather shoot for high tension. As such, they succeed fully, particularly in the last action scene, which will have you on the edge of your seat.

Shiri takes a standard genre and injects a human element into it, which becomes its defining trait and that which makes it rise above all similar efforts. I, myself, will delve into a cliche and call this "essential viewing".