(Source: KOBIS – Figures represent 98% of nationwide box office)

So why didn’t anyone at Wild Side Films or Park Chan-wook’s company send me one of these?

Okay, this box office chart is a week late. Many apologies.

As you can see, TRANSFORMERS 2 is still king of the mountain here in Korea, although it is finally slowing down a little — “just” 900,000 admissions last weekend to bring its total to 6.6 million, or 44.63 billion won ($35.1 million). I do not think the new HARRY POTTER film is going to do very well in Korea (not in comparison to its North America numbers), but it should still be strong enough to send TRANSFORMERS 2 into second place.

The next three films were all Korean, so there is some robustness for local films, despite this being the middle of Hollywood’s best season.

And CHAW, the comic-horror film, was in 10th, despite not officially opening until the 16th.

And a fairly international crop this week, as we have the latest JUON (Japan) film in fifth, ARTHUR AND THE INVISIBLES (France) in sixth, and MISSING LYNX (Spain) in eighth. The Italian film THE UNKNOWN WOMAN was 12th, followed by France’s LET IT RAIN.

(Source: KOBIS – Figures represent 98% of nationwide box office)

TRANSFORMERS 2: REVENGE OF THE FALLEN continued its assault on the Korean box office (not to mention on eardrums, sanity, etc.), accounting for a huge 66 percent of all movie ticket sales last weekend. Michael Bay’s robot film pulled in another 9.86 billion won ($7.8 million) on the weekend to bring its total to 35.28 billion won ($27.8 million) — that is ahead of the opening of Bong Joon-ho’s THE HOST, depending on how you count these things.

The blockbuster has now had over 5.2 million admissions in 12 days, making it by far the biggest foreign opening ever in Korea. Could TRANSFORMERS 2 be the first foreign film to make it to 10 million admissions? Possibly. I do not see any huge films on the calendar for the next couple of weeks (HARRY POTTER on the 15th, then HAEUNDAE on the 23rd). Although traditionally Hollywood films do not sustain at the box office as well as Korean films do.

After TRANSFORMERS, the next three films on the chart were all Korean, so I guess that is kind of good news. RUNNING TURTLE continues to hold up, landing in No. 2 with 1.84 billion won to bring its total to 16.18 billion won ($12.7 million).

The uplifting tale of some scrappy women overcoming the odds to compete in an unpopular sport FOREVER THE MOMENT BRONZE MEDAL had to be a disappointment — despite a big advertising push and a big opening on over 500 screens, the weightlifting drama made just 1.78 billion won ($1.4 million) over the weekend (barely 251,000 admissions).

(Source: KOBIS – Figures represent 98% of nationwide box office)

TRANSFORMERS 2: REVENGE OF THE FALLEN had a huge opening last weekend, the biggest since at least PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN 3, and pretty close to Bong Joon-ho’s 2006 hit THE HOST (Goemul).

The loud, toy robot sequel pulled in 14.1 billion won ($10.9 million) over the weekend, and 19.7 billion won ($15.3 million) since it opened on Wednesday. That equates to 2.1 million admissions over the weekend and 3.0 million since Wednesday.

If it seemed like just about every screen in Korea was playing TRANSFORMERS 2, you were pretty much right — a record-shattering 1,038 screens. There are just 2,000 screens in all of Korea. (When I came to Korea, there were not even 500 screens in the entire country).

(Btw, the chart below says 1,200 screens for TRANSFORMERS, but remember the KOFIC list double-counts some screens, so tends to be a little exaggerated).

The real question will be staying power. Movies like PIRATES 3 and SPIDER-MAN 3 had openings nearly as big as THE HOST, but they ended up with much smaller totals. TRANSFORMERS (the first) by comparison had 1.3 million admissions in its opening weekend, but went on to pull in 7.4 million admissions, the best foreign film ever in Korea.

The only other movie that anyone went to see last weekend was RUNNING TURTLE (Geobuki Dallinda), which made 1.8 billion won ($1.4 million) to bring its three-week total to 13.0 billion won ($10.1 million). TURTLE is going to top 2 million admissions, making it officially a hit, I guess.

Everything else is sad. The No. 3 film BLOOD PLEDGE (Yeogyo Goedam 5) made just 499 million won ($387,000) over the weekend, bringing its total to 2.8 billion won. That’s just 59,000 admissions for it last weekend.

MISSING LYNX from Spain opened in fourth. The only other Korean film was Bong Joon-ho’s MOTHER (Madeo), in sixth. MOTHER has now made 19.5 billion won — slightly less than what TRANSFORMERS 2 did in five days.

Rather amazing to me was that the 8th Mise-en-Scene Genre Film Festival landed in 10th. With just two screens. That’s pretty wild. The 11th place film, THE BROTHERS BLOOM, sold fewer tickets, despite being on 110 screens. Wow.