300 continued its reign of terror this week, accounting for over 38% of all tickets sold and easily taking the No. 1 spot. The $3 million it took in over the weekend brings its 10-day total to around $12.7 million.

The second place film, PERFUME was a big surprise to me. I had barely heard of the movie before, although I have been quite enamored of its poster for the past few weeks…. Hrm, apparently the ignorance was mine. I bit of Googling revealed this was quite a big movie. The $65 million period movie has made over $120 million around the world. Mostly in Europe, though. Just $2.22 million in the United States since its release at the very end of 2006. In only three days in Korea, however, PERFUME pulled in around $2.1 million.

Jim Carrey’s THE NUMBER 23 made about $1.3 million, good enough for third. Better than I might have guessed, considering the movie’s reviews and how Carrey’s films have rarely done well in Korea.

Jennifer Aniston’s THE BREAK-UP opened quite tepidly in fourth.

Much more interesting is the No. 6 debut of MUG TRAVEL. Is this Korea’s first computer 3D animated feature film? I think it is. Clips from MUG TRAVEL have been scattered around the Internet for quite some time now, and I cannot recall how many years I have seen segments at trade fairs. According to the movie website, MUG TRAVEL is the story of little Bebe, who gets a magical pendant one Christmas, then travels to magical lands in a big magic mug. Or something like that. The movie also features a bear named Backkom, but I do not know his relationship with Bebe. It looks well rendered, but I don’t know about the story. I might check it out this weekend if it is still around. I am rather curious about it.


You can check out stills here. And clips of animation here. From the website, it looks like its creators, Aaron Lim and RG Animation, will be making more.

This Week Title…………………………………. Release Date Screens Nationwide Weekend Attendance (Seoul only) Total Attendance
1. 300 3.14 318 191,900 1,912,500
2. Perfume: The Story of a Murderer 3.22 232 85,200 317,600
3. The Number 23 3.22 170 62,400 203,800
4. The Break-up 3.22 150 46,000 132,000
5. Lyrics and Music 2.28 131 35,400 984,900
6. Soo 3.22 244 25,500 136,600
7. Mug Travel 3.22 37 14,200 50,400
8. The Illusionist 3.08 179 13,400 565,800
9. Big Bang 3.14 237 10,600 332,300
10. The Painted Veil 3.14 84 6,800 113,000

(Source: Film2.0)