Shiri

Move over La Femme Nikita, Dark Angel, and Sydney on Alias. Here comes Hee, North Korea's deadliest assassin, in this outrageously violent 1999 South Korean film that sunk Titanic at the box office in its native country. Like Hee, this film is ruthlessly efficient, hitting the ground running in its opening scene, which is set in a training camp where graduation comes with killing your fellow classmates. The rest of the film concerns the best efforts of two agents to track down Hee before she strikes again. Like John Woo, director Kang Je-Gyu has more than mayhem on his mind, as he puts a human face on the bullet-ridden action, particularly in a subplot involving one of the agents and his fiancee that yields one of the film's most shocking surprises. Recommended. [Note: in addition to anamorphic widescreen and Dolby Digital 5.1 sound, the DVD features an extensive 54-minute "making of" and the music video "When I Dream."] (K. Lee Benson)