Author: Mark (Page 73 of 90)

Another big weekend for D-WAR, as Shim Hyung-rae’s monster movie topped the 5-million admissions mark with ease. And that is just for the 94% of the nationwide box office that KOBIS tracks. In fact, as of the Monday, D-WAR is now over 5.71 million admissions according to Showbox (that’s about $39 million).

MAY 18 is also chugging along, quite respectably, as it too is nearing 5 million admissions. (UPDATE: CJ Entertainment just said that MAY 18 topped 5 million on Monday).

Marvel Comic’s latest superhero film, FANTASTIC FOUR: RISE OF THE SILVER SURFER, had a more modest debut, with just 336,429 admissions.

With RETURN in fourth, that gives Korean movies three of the top four spots… just like old times. Unfortunately, 280,000 admissions is not exactly stellar.

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

Personally, I am more interested in the movies coming out this week, such as STARDUST and ZODIAC. But I fear they will both get pummeled fairly badly by MR. BEAN’S HOLIDAY. But who knows? Maybe Michelle Pfeiffer has the star power to give STARDUST a nice boost.

The big-budget, cgi-fest D-WAR continued its strong opening over the weekend, taking in 2.95 million admissions, or about $20.1 million, since its opening Wednesday, according to its distributor Showbox. That works out to the second-best opening ever in Kore, ahead of SPIDER-MAN 3, and just behind THE HOST.

(Note: I have no idea where Film 2.0 got their low numbers from this week. The official boxoffice system, KOBIS, had 2.7 million admissions off of 94% of the national boxoffice. But Showbox’s official number was 2.95 million).

Given the weak word of mouth on D-WAR, I would be surprised if it makes it to 10-million admissions. It will do well, but I think THE HOST’s record is safe.

The No. 2 spot went to CJ Entertainment’s MAY 18, earning nearly $5 million over the weekend to bring its 11-day cum to about $23.2 million (3.4 million admissions, according to CJE).

The Korean horror film EPITAPH, distributed by Studio 2.0, opened a somewhat disappointing fifth, earning about $2 million.

Together, those three films accounted for over 78% of the national boxoffice last weekend, a nice turnaround after three months of Hollywood domination.

Title – Weekend Admissions – Total Nationwide Admissions
1. D-War – 1,931,947 – 2,770,563 (Korean)
2. May 18 – 932,557 – 3,219,124 (Korean)
3. Die Hard 4.0 – 259,631 – 2,956,606
4. Ratatouille – 188,553 – 703,101
5. Epitaph – 185,414 – 296,580 (Korean)
6. Transformers – 115,260 – 7,276,979
7. 1408 – 108,793 – 170,965
8. Harry Potter and the Long Title – 70,703 – 3,652,325
9. Evan Almighty – 26,269 – 228,447
10. Hitcher – 10,873 – 18,268
(Source: KOBIS)

Okay, I was wrong about Shim Hyung-rae’s dragon tale D-WAR. It is not a guilty pleasure movie. It is not a movie for 10-year-olds. It is just plain old bad. Possibly — just possibly — amusing for university sophomore geeks who are really liquored up and/or burning through a garbage full of weed. But even for a mindless dork like myself, it was pretty brutal.

[Shudder…]

Fortunately for the producers and distributors, “good” is not a terribly important quality in getting people to go to the theaters. Exhibit A – HULK. Which, the more that I think about it, is an apt comparison. HULK was a lousy, lousy film, with bad CGI and a non-story. And Shim once starred in the not-so-classic film HYEONG-RAE AND THE HULK.

HULK pulled in $130 million or so at the US box office back in 2003, and D-WAR is apparently going to quite well, too (2.2 million admissions, as of Saturday night).

I assume I do not need to recount the plot at this point. It is widely known already… plus there is not much to recount. Big snake wants girl. TV news guy tries to keep girl from snake. There is much exposition. There are flashbacks. The flashbacks have flashbacks. Words like “Imoogi”, “Baruki” and “Yowijoo” get mentioned a lot, but no one laughs. Finally the special effects kick in.

More than the wooden acting and silly story, the entire film has an odd, through-a-prism feel to it. It looks like an American action/fantasy film on the surface, you can recognize all the bits and pieces… but it feels constantly unreal from start to finish. As if the whole film was out of focus (mentally/metaphorically, that is). It was like an abstraction of an abstraction.

As far as design goes, it totally looked like LORD OF THE RINGS meets CHINESE GHOST STORY.

The best part of D-WAR, hands down, was Craig Robinson (who plays Darryl in THE OFFICE). He must have re-written all his lines, because they are the only natural-sounding, believable lines in the whole film. He was even funny in parts.

Second-best part – it is barely 90 minutes long. Down from the 107 minute version Variety reviewed last November (although it felt even longer than PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN 3: AT WORLD’S END).

Luckily, when I got home, I discovered that FOX-TV was showing a 16-hour BATTLESTAR GALACTICA marathon. A few episodes washed away the worst of the mental grime.

….

Against the odds, the expert predictions, and good sense, D-WAR looks like it is going to be a hit in Korea. The $32-million monster movie was released on Aug. 1 with a bang, and it is looking strong. D-WAR made about $2.8 million on Wednesday alone (417,000 admissions), then made another $3.3 million yesterday.

With such a good start, Showbox is now predicting D-WAR will pull in around 2-2.5 million admissions by the end of Sunday (up to $17 million). That’s like THE HOST and SPIDER-MAN 3 money. I don’t think anyone would have predicted an opening that good.

The question now is how well will it sustain. What will the word of mouth be? The story might be weak, but with the kids out of school now, things could be looking good for the creature feature.

And, really, why not? Giant dragons, monsters with rocket launchers attached… Sounds like the stuff of dreams, when I was back in my Lego days.

Sorry, too busy with the book again for more than a quick run-down.

Title – Weekend Admissions – Total Nationwide Admissions
1. May 18 – 284,200 – 1,325,000
2. Die Hard 4.0 – 127,200 – 2,363,800
3. Ratatouille – 82,700 – 279,800
4. Transformers – 63,000 – 6,986,000
5. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix – 53,500 – 3,441,000
6. Evan Almighty – 33,800 – 128,100
7. Muoy – 21,100 – 112,500
8. Alone – 13,900 – 457,500
9. Attack on the Pin-up Boys – 9,200 – 58,100
10. Power Rangers – 4,900 – 89,600

Okay, a couple of brief notes.

This is kind of interesting. At the moment at DVD Empire, THE HOST is the No. 1 selling Blu-ray title. (Is just No. 4 among HD-DVDs, though).

Kind of exciting the other day — I saw my first Blu-ray discs on sale in Korea. At the Evan Records at COEX (same time I saw the Shin Sang-ok collection). It was a sad little collection, though, and I did not see THE HOST among those titles.

Have HD-DVD and Blu-Ray players gone on sale in Korea yet? Last I checked they were not being sold here (at least not legitimately… in Yongsan, anything is possible).

Calling all readers! I could use your help. I am trying to put together a list of the biggest flops in Korean movie history (well, in the last 10 years or so, anyhow), but I am worried about forgetting something obvious (or even not-so-obvious but important). So if you feel like taking a moment to write in your suggestions, I would appreciate it very much.

Of course there is RESURRECTION OF THE LITTLE MATCH GIRL, NATURAL CITY and WONDERFUL DAYS. I have a list of other ideas, but I would be more interested in hearing what you all think. And it does not have to be just financial flops. Films that did so-so commercially but that you think were total dogs could count, too. Whatever you think fits.

Many thanks for your help.