A confession that will win me no new friends at kamera, or for which no penance is too long and arduous, is my barely-repressed passion for big, dumb, action extravaganzas. Not cod-philosophical digi-bores like The Matrix or The Phantom Menace (both 1999), or romps around resuscitated genres like The Mummy (1999) or XXX (2002). No, I'm talking about the shameless, 18-certificated, testosterone-fuelled epics that 9/11 and the former action stars' collective fall from box office grace have all but put killed off. I'm talking about skyscrapers becoming expensive Roman candles while Arnie smokes a cigar, planes colliding mid-air, Bruce's dirty vest, boats being turned over, and snipers narrowly missing their bemuscled targets. There are probably retreats for people like me, where we can be slowly weaned off our crippling addiction to ultra-right wing bullet-fests with extra wisecracks on the side - but there no longer seems to be any need. No C-list British actors want to hold high-speed trains to ransom any more, and no off-duty cop wants to crawl through air ducts to save us. The supply has all but dried up. Thankfully here comes Shiri to reinvigorate my love of perspiration-soaked shirts, cheesy dialogue, big guns and even bigger bangs.
Made back in 1998, it has taken a while for this crude but effective film policier to reach our shores. After a recently inserted title card, which gives us a York Notes history of the last fifty years of Korean hostility, we are plunged into the kind of heroic mish-mash that would make Joel Silver weep with pride. Two buddy cops are chasing a deadly female assassin (Yoon-jin) who is paving the way for some disgruntled North Korean military tearaways to get hold of an experimental explosive liquid. It's certainly not Tolstoy. In fact it's not even Ian Fleming. The only culturally significant point one can wean from this against-the-clock pursuit is that Samsung (the film's production company) seem to make everything in South Korea. They even sponsor the secret service's helicopter. Now that is product placement at its wildest extremes.
One hangover from the Don Simpson days is the patriotic, jingoistic score that accompanies the manoeuvres of the malevolent splinter group. Is this an eastern homage that has lost its context in the shift across the Pacific? Simpson and Bruckheimer's celebration of gung-ho fighting forces saw a standard assonance attached to anything vaguely valiant; here it is anachronistic for the villains' to be afforded the same musical treatment. It should be noted, however that the North Koreans are allowed as many moments to justify their positions as the home team. One would have a rougher time finding such ideological fair play in a Stallone movie.
The reason this review harks back to the good old days of senseless violence and one-liners is that Shiri not only shares the values of its Western stablemates, but almost hypnotically replicates them. As if attempting to add as many samples from the greats of genre the film will happily skip across blatant steals from Air Force One (1997), Leon (1994) and The Silence of the Lambs (1990) in a single scene. So confident is the director that, as an audience, we are well versed in the clichés and classic moments of Hollywood actioners, that at times standard plot developments are almost subliminal.
One character's tracking of a terrorist leader and subsequent death by impalement literally takes three shots and two seconds to happen on screen. By the time your brain has computed what has happened we have diverted off down another derivative alleyway. Just like the first foot chase through the malls and back streets of Seoul, Shiri is a hulking great shark of a film that is desperate to keep moving for fear of dying from its overdose of unoriginality. I dare you to find a film released this year with as much bloodshed and verve, and so little pretension or invention.
Reviewed by Bob Carroll
Reader comments about Shiri
cal (Email address withheld) writes:
surely this is supposed to be an arthouse cinema website.
just because some no-brainer action flick has subtitles doesn't mean it is worthy of a review here?
What's next Charlie's Angels and Dumb and Dumberer?
Where are the reviews for Whale Rider or Unknown Pleasures?
C'mon kamera, just because Bob Carroll got his rocks off watching this does not mean it merits space or attention.
Ian Haydn Smith (ihsmith@yahoo.co.uk) writes:
Is it that easy to seperate 'art' from 'entertainment'? The fact that 'Shiri' and other recent Korean and Thai actioners have managed to get a UK release (and in cinemas that more often than not programme 'quality' films) throws up questions about the state of cinema that must surely be within the remit of Kamera. Does this mean that only the more artful Soderbergh films should be reviewed in future? Or that Almodovar is now too mainstream to warrant coverage? And where does Takeshi Kitano fit in?
Mind you, I don't join Bob in his love of perspiration-soaked shirts. I'm prefer a more fresh'n'starched look.
cal (Email address withheld) writes:
Ian, all the directors you offer are good examples of filmmakers who make intelligent entertainments. they may blur the line between art and commerce but their attention even when making films as intellectually unengaging as Ocean 11 or Brother are worth writing on and reading about, because their concerns are to make quality films even if their particular ideas and themes are not explored. Even their most unpretensious works merit discussion.
but Shiri really doesn't I acknowledge your points about the anomaly in its distribution and carroll has some decents points to make about the film incongrinuity in trying to replicate its western influences but that does not change the fact that it is piece of hackery. Unoriginal and mentally unengaging. Let empire and bob carroll spurt in their shorts over body counts and explosions.
let me read reviews about the films that while entertaining have something deeper to say and say it with audacity and skill. whether they are made in la or korea, intelligent films deserve your and your readerships time and energy. twaddle like this deserves it space on the dtv shelves.
you personally always deal with the quality crop of blockbusters with a decent eye. all i'm asking is carroll and some of your other writers are forced (and i mean tied down to a chair) to produce for this website the type of reviews that they have written in the past (in carroll's case the last great wilderness and trouble every day spring to mind) on intelligent, artistic cinema.
leave the likes of wrong turn and shiri for the lad's mag, they recieve far too much coverage.
sorry to get shirty but this is a brilliant website that loses its focus to often.
Add your comments about Shiri [About]
