Author: Mark (Page 70 of 90)

Lots of interesting things going on at the Korean boxoffice last week. The top film, LE GRAND CHEF, actually increased its weekend haul, rising 15% from last weekend. You do not see that happen very often. After 10 days, CHEF has made about $9 million.

In No. 2 was Ang Lee’s LUST, CAUTION, which I think is pretty good for a 2 1/2 hour sexual thriller. In just three days, LUST made about $1.9 million. In the United States, the film has needed 45 days to make just $3.7 million.

In third, GOING BY THE BOOK has now topped 2 million admissions, which is generally considered a solid outing.

Fuji-TV’s HERO is now up to 224,000 admissions. Not great, but not bad.

Finally, the No. 9 film, SEVEN DAYS, is pretty interesting this week, as the film has not even been released yet. At least not officially. But already it has pulled in 30,000 admissions before it even hits the screens. Not sure how I feel about this. After all, 30,000 admissions will not make a big difference to its overall admissions count, so it is not like the distributor is trying to boost its numbers. But, still, it does look odd.

Anyhow, congratulations to SEVEN DAYS, for being the latest Korean film to get the Hollywood remake treatment. Summit Entertainment apparently is planning on making a $30 million remake in the next year or so.

(Source: KOBIS – Figures represent 97% of nationwide box office)

Btw, what is up with international boxoffice reports that have two films from India leading this past weekend? According to the trades, OM SHANTI OM made about $17 million, while SAAWARIYA came second with $14.4 million.

My problem with these reports? I cannot find a weekend ever when the entire top-10 of the Indian boxoffice earned even $12 million. Ever. And now two films alone have pulled in $30 million? Seems very unlikely. I suspect someone is playing games with their numbers.

Big turnover this week, with half of the top-10 consisting of new entries, led by Jeon Yoon-soo’s LA GRAND CHEF, with about $3.6 million. Based on the comic book by Heo Yeong-man (TAZZA), LA GRAND CHEF is also being made into a TV show, so if you like it, you are sure to get plenty more soon enough.

The next new title this week was HERO, the Fuji-TV film featuring a cameo from Lee Byung-hun. With 271 screens, it had the widest release ever for a Japanese film in Korea, just slightly ahead of THE SINKING OF JAPAN’s 256. Did not come close, however, to matching SINKING’s boxoffice, which pulled in 479,000 in its opening weekend, compared to 128,000 for HERO.

Other new releases did not do much. KINGDOM had just 127,000 admissions, BLACK DAHLIA (released a year late) had 75,000. And Lee Joon-ki’s latest, VIRGIN SNOW, took in just 13,000. Although VIRGIN SNOW did get a 44 screen release — for a while there, it was looking like it would only get 10 screens. But this Japan-Korea coproduction has its eye on the Japan DVD market for the bulk of its revenues.

(Source: KOBIS – Figures represent 97% of nationwide box office)

A disappointing opening for Lee Myung-se’s new film M, making its debut only in third place. That works out to about $1.89 million since its release Thursday night (the KOFIC chart claims it opened on the 26th, but I am certain it was in theaters on Thursday evening). Looks like M will be hard pressed to get to 1 million admissions, let alone the 1.2 million admissions that DUELIST had.

Most of the rest of the top 10 is basically the same as last week. Top film once again is GOING BY THE BOOK, which took in $2.9 million over the weekend to raise its total boxoffice to something over $8 million.

SHADOWS IN THE PALACE took the second spot again, with $1.8 million over the weekend and a total boxoffice of just less than $7 million.

COPYING BEETHOVEN still going strong in sixth after three weeks.

Most shockingly bad opening in quite some time goes to PUNCH LADY, which had just 22,000 admissions (about $150,000) despite appearing on 240 screens. That does not even come close to paying for 240 prints, never mind the production costs and advertising.

(Source: KOBIS – Figures represent 97% of nationwide box office)

Interestingly, KOBIS claims its boxoffice tracking now covers 97 percent of screens in Korea. That is pretty close to complete. Nice to see the KOBIS system finally getting near total compliance.

Korean movies now have 51.1 percent of the year’s boxoffice. Hollywood is down to 43.2 percent. Quite a change in fortunes from July, when Hollywood was outpacing Korea.

Score another one for Jang Jin. The prolific filmmaker has another hit with the No. 1 opening of GOING BY THE BOOK. Actually, Jang only wrote the initial screenplay for the film, which was directed by Ra Hee-chan. But since Ra got his start as Jang’s Assistant Director and has pretty much said he considers this to be a Jang film, let’s give Jang the credit.

I was a little surprised that SHADOWS IN THE PALACE opened only in the No. 2 spot. I guess I should not have been, but I was. SHADOWS was the debut by Kim Mi-jeong, who also was an AD on some high-profile films.

RESIDENT EVIL 3 opened in third. No way was I going to spend money to see that film in the theaters, but I suspect once it hits cable TV, I will be watching it endlessly (probably whenever I discover it during some late night flicking).

LOVE EXPOSURE opened in fourth. Is it my imagination, or has there been a minor flood of uninspired movies about relationships, sex, love and cheating over the past few months?

(Source: KOBIS – Figures represent 94% of nationwide box office)

Up next week — Lee Myung-se’s M.

Kind of a weird year this year. Chuseok came and went with barely a ripple, but some much more interesting films seem to be coming out now. Kind of playing havoc with people’s forecasts.

At long last, Hur Jin-ho lands on the top of the box office. Not just once, but two weeks in a row, with his latest melodrama HAPPINESS. Sure, 967,000 admissions in 10 days is not so impressive, but HAPPINESS has made Hur quite happy anyway because he has never led the box office in Korea before. Good for him. And good for Zip Cine, the company that produced the movie.

Otherwise, the most notable thing about this week’s box office to me is how egalitarian it is. The No. 10 movie, THE BOURNE ULTIMATUM, is in nearly 200 theaters! And it made around $350,000. I do not recall the No. 10 films doing 50 percent as well as the No. 3 movie before. Kind of unusual.

Also surprising is that a new Jodie Foster thriller and a new Clive Owen action film were both bested by a couple of fairly small films — BECOMING JANE and COPYING BEETHOVEN. I am not sure what that all means, but it is kind of nifty.

(Source: KOBIS – Figures represent 94% of nationwide box office)

Last Week’s Box Office (Oct. 5-7)
Title – Weekend Admissions – Total Nationwide Admissions

1. Happiness (Korean) – 322,400 – 583,565
2. Rush Hour 3 – 211,069 – 354,381
3. Love (Korean) – 143,991 – 1,770,649
4. The Nanny Diaries – 139,852 – 238,029
5. The Bourne Ultimatum – 98,780 – 1,878,427
6. The Happy Life (Korean) – 77,188 – 1,084,124
7. Kidnapping Granny K (Korean) – 58,219 – 1,458,958
8. Crank – 39,171 – 68,027
9. The Mafia, The Salesman (Korean) – 31,982 – 867,188
10. Invasion – 23,316 – 544,173