Oops, I nearly forgot about the box office this week. Sorry about that.

As I predicted, TERMINATOR SALVATION did ridiculously well in Korea last weekend, must as TERMINATOR 3 did a few years ago, making 9.3 billion won ($7.4 million) over Fri-Mon, and a total of 11.1 billion won ($8.8 million) if you include Thursday when it opened. That over 1.4 million admissions (1.7 million including Thursday), easily making it the biggest opening of the year so far in Korea.

Expect a huge drop-off for TERMINATOR next weekend (it was a pretty mediocre film, and there is some big competition looming), but an impressive opening nonetheless.

The top Korean film of the weekend was MY GIRLFRIEND IS AN AGENT (7 Geup Gongmuwon) in third, earning another 1.8 billion won to bring its five-week total to 23.2 billion won ($18.4 million).

In fourth was CASTAWAY ON THE MOON (Gimssi Pyoryugi), earning 1 billion won to bring its total to 3.7 billion won.

Other Korean films in the top 10 were THIRST (Bakjwi) in seventh, INSADONG SCANDAL in eighth and Hong Sang-soo’s LIKE YOU KNOW IT ALL (Jal Aljido Mot Hamyeonsa) in ninth.

I saw LIKE YOU KNOW IT ALL last weekend and quite liked it. Not as much fun as WOMAN ON THE BEACH, but similar in tone. Maybe a little “deeper.” Maybe a little too long. But fun and full of some amusing perspectives on film festivals and artists. It is playing with English subtitles at the CGV Yongsan in Seoul and is totally worth checking out.


(Stats courtesy of KOFIC, as always)

I have no idea how well Bong Joon-ho’s new film MOTHER (Madeo) will do (although as I write this, it handily has the biggest advance sales on the Internet), but it opens Thursday this week. And it too is playing with English subtitles at Yongsan. Funny, the film had great reviews at Cannes pretty much across the board, but apparently the jury members for the section it was in all hated it.

Oh, the Korean title is Madeo. Does that sound like “Mother” to you? Or more like “Murder”? Probably just a coincidence, but the thought amused me.