Shiri

Special agents Ryu (Han) and Lee (Song) work to track down North Korean spies who have infiltrated South Korean society; their prime target is a woman (Kim), a crack sniper known to be somewhere in Seoul. Meanwhile a team of ruthless Northern renegades hijack supplies of a volatile new explosive and plant bombs in Seoul, timed to explode on the day a soccer 'friendly' between the two Koreas is due to inaugurate a thaw in diplomatic relations. Kang's film is the all-time box office champion in Korea, thanks in part to an ad campaign which told audiences it was their 'patriotic duty' to see it. What they got for their money was a crudely plotted thriller with sub-par action scenes and a set-piece climax filched from The Manchurian Candidate and Black Sunday crossed with old-fashioned Korean melodrama. The cheesiest twist is the revelation that the woman sniper is living with Ryu as his girlfriend.