‘Swiri’ Not Just a Fish Story With Spy Community

“Swiri,” a shoot-’em-up movie about a South Korean spy who falls in love with an enemy spy masquerading as a purveyor of exotic fish, is taking this nation by storm.

Even South Korean intelligence agents are being dispatched to see the blockbuster, which in less than two months has broken the box office attendance record for any domestic film and is on target to overtake “Titanic” as the country’s most popular movie ever.

Amid lengthy scenes of shootouts and spy training, the film pits romantic love against allegiance to country. It strikes a particularly emotional chord on the Korean peninsula, which was arbitrarily split along the 38th parallel after World War II. Having never signed a peace treaty after the Korean War, the two Koreas remain technically at war, and members of many families have been separated, unable to see one another for more than five decades.

The film’s title, “Swiri,” is particularly apropos to the volatile political climate on the peninsula. A swiri, the movie’s code word for a North Korean operation, is a freshwater fish indigenous only to the area bordering the demilitarized zone that separates the two Koreas. Along with birds, the fish are among the few living creatures that can travel freely between the two nations along the short Dong Gang River.

The movie uses another fish as well to symbolize the conflicting emotions of the divided nation. Pairs of exotic, tropical gourami, sold at a shop run by the North Korean spy, appear to be continually kissing. When one dies, its partner is said to follow suit. But some experts maintain that the fish aren’t kissing but staking out their turf.

That complicated relationship reflects the film’s main characters. The movie begins with the North Korean spy, played by Kim Yoon Jin, receiving brutal training alongside soldiers, all clad in fatigues and wearing bandannas that are, of course, red. She sets a picture of her family afire with a cigarette lighter, goes to Japan to change her identity, then moves to Seoul, where she seduces the South Korean spy and later moves in with him.

She gives her agent-lover, played by Han Sok Kyu, a pair of the kissing fish for his office. He later discovers that the fish are embedded with listening devices.

The North Korean appears to fall in love with the South Korean agent, and in the end they have an armed showdown in which they must choose between love of country and love for each other.

North-South espionage remains a timely theme on the peninsula, despite the new “engagement,” or “sunshine,” policy that South Korean President Kim Dae Jung has initiated over the last year to improve relations with the North. But the calmer atmosphere hasn’t stopped activities reminiscent of the Cold War: Over the last seven months, North Korean submarines have been found in South Korean waters, and the North launched a missile over Japan. Last week, fishing boats that allegedly were spy vessels in disguise were chased by Japanese forces back into North Korean waters.

“I wanted to convey the message that something like this could happen in our country,” said the movie’s director, Kang Jae Kyu, 37. “I thought it worthwhile for us to reflect on the situation we were in, even when the sunshine policy is being pursued now.”

The movie’s message isn’t exactly subtle. Consider the dialogue describing the North Korean spy: “She was one body with six different heads, created by the division of the country,” or, “How can you who grew up on hamburger understand that our brothers in the North are starving?”

And yet the film’s primary appeal seems to be what South Koreans describe as its Hollywood-style action, action, action. The film’s adventure scenes stand out here in part because its $2.5-million budget is so much larger than those of most domestic pictures, albeit a tiny fraction of the money spent on most Hollywood films.

Kang, who also wrote the script, said he interviewed many North Korean defectors to get a realistic picture of commando training in the North.

While the film has its cliches--the bombs are always deactivated with scant seconds to spare--it is apparently instructive enough for the South Korean intelligence community to hold special screenings for agents.

“It reflects the Cold War experiences combined with the current rapprochement mood, and it also features a lot of ultramodern techniques in intelligence gathering,” a spokesman for the National Intelligence Service said. “It was useful.”

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Chi Jung Nam of The Times’ Seoul Bureau contributed to this report.