Does the opening of WATCHMEN last week mean the summer movie season now starts at the beginning of March? Let’s hope not. However, the real summer releases are beginning to fill the calendar, and this year looks like one of the more interesting in quite some time.

If you follow Korean movies at all, you know the pattern — Korean films start the year pretty strong, thanks in part of the Lunar New Year. But by March the balance flows back to Hollywood. Then May and June and much of July are completely dominated by Hollywood. But by the end of July, Korean films make a comeback and usually do very well in August. Korean films do well again for the Chuseok holiday in late September/early October, then finish the year strong.

Will 2009 be the same? Certainly Hollywood’s rhythms fit that schedule. But this year there are several really big Korean films challenging Hollywood’s turf, so there is at least the potential for a different result this year. It is still a little early to be talking about summer, but what they hey — here’s a look at the coming season’s movies:

April 2
– PRIVATE EYE (Geurimja Sarin). A thriller set early in the Japanese colonial period. So far colonial era films have had rather lackluster results at the box office, but this film looks interesting.
– FAST & FURIOUS 4 (or whatever number this one is).

April 30
– THIRST (Bakjui). The new Park Chan-wook film. Starring Song Gang-ho. Religion, vampires, sex. What else do you need to know?
– WOLVERINE

May 7 – STAR TREK
May 14 – ANGELS AND DEMONS
May 22 – TERMINATOR 4
Some time in May (tentative) – MOTHER. Bong Joon-ho’s latest. Distributor is waiting to see how the film does at Cannes, hoping it gets some good coverage and a bounce. Early word on this film is very strong.

June
– TRANSFORMERS 2: REVENGE OF THE FALLEN. The first TRANSFORMERS film was the most successful foreign film ever in Korea. How will the sequel do?
– GI JOE. Officially slated for August 2, word is Fox has moved this film up to June, although there is no exact date yet. (UPDATE: Nevermind. I’m an idiot. August release it is.) Features Lee Byung-hun has one of the bad guys.

July 2 – PUBLIC ENEMIES

Sometime in July
– HAEUNDAE. Big tsunami hits the sound coast of Korea, in particular the popular beach resort of Haeundae. Big money is going into the disaster effects, plus it stars Sol Kyung-gu and Ha Ji-won.
– JEON WOO CHI. Goblins wreaking havoc on the world? I would be more skeptical, but I am a pretty big fan of Choi Dong-hoon (TAZZA, THE BIG SWINDLE), so I have hope this film could be a lot of fun. Besides, special-effects heavy films coming out in late July/early August have a pretty good record (THE HOST, D-WAR).

No dates yet
– HARRY POTTER 6.
– All those Hollywood comedies. Hollywood still pushes its blockbusters hard in Korea, but the vulgar comedies just do not translate well so often get minimal releases (if any at all).

I am sure I have missed more than a few films. I will update this list as summer gets closer.

The anti-superhero epic WATCHMEN took the top spot this week in Korea — but not by a lot. The classic comic book made just 1.8 billion won ($1.2 million) over the weekend, for a quite tepid opening. Especially considering the film opened on nearly 400 screens (although, to be fair, it was nearly three hours long).

Meanwhile, the cow movie, OLD PARTNER (Wonang Sori) continues to do well, taking in another 1.5 billion won ($1 million) over the weekend to bring its eight-week total to just over $10 million.

(Kind of funny and interesting, btw, how seriously OLD PARTNER’s producers and the police are treating piracy of this film. I mean, I am happy that the powers-that-be are trying to protect anyone’s intellectual property… but with the endemic piracy in South Korea, why is this film so special? And why don’t everyone else’s films deserve the same protection?)

BENJAMIN BUTTON was third, and has now broken the 10-billion-won mark ($6.6 million). Korean film THE SCAM (Jakjeon) was in fourth, with 774 million won to bring its total to 8.8 billion won.

The only other Korean film in the top-10 was HANDPHONE, which was sixth with 314 million won, bringing its total box office to just over 4 billion won.

Not a lot of arthouse love in Korea, as the much acclaimed THE WRESTLER opened in eighth, and the Colin Firth crime caper IN BRUGES opened in 10th.

(All numbers courtesy of KOBIS, and the chart is from KOFIC).

Not that anyone asked, but I liked WATCHMEN, albeit with a lot of reservations. It certainly was not a perfect film, or even great. And it has the worst use of a Leonard Cohen song in a movie soundtrack that I can recall. But I did like the movie’s ambition, and that it followed the comic’s peculiar rhythms instead of the usual three-act Hollywood blockbuster cliche.

I guess this really is the year of the cow — OLD PARTNER (Wonang Sori) was the No. 1 film in the land for a second week. The low budget documentary made another 2.4 billion won ($1.55 million) to bring its total box office now to 13.3 billion won ($8.4 million). In fact, OLD PARTNER has now topped 2 million admissions. Pretty amazing for a film that did not sell even 6,000 tickets in its opening weekend.

In second, once again, was BENJAMIN BUTTON, followed by Korea’s THE SCAM (Jakjeon). The top new film was Clive Owen’s THE INTERNATIONAL, down in fourth. Other new openers were THE UNBORN in sixth and Korea’s GUSEJU 2 in ninth.

December’s big hit, SCANDAL MAKERS (Gwasok Seukaendeul) finally dropped out of the top 10, falling to 12th. But don’t feel too bad for the silly Cha Tae-hyun comedy: now that it is topped 8.2 million admissions, SCANDAL has become the sixth-biggest film ever in Korea. And, even better, it has apparently had its remake rights picked up by Hollywood.

It has been a long, steady climb, but at last, six weeks after being released, the low-budget documentary OLD PARTNER (Wonang Sori) is the No. 1 film in the land. OLD PARTNER pulled in nearly 3 billion won ($1.5 million … yikes, what an exchange rate) over the weekend to bring its total box office to 9.4 billion won ($6.3 million).

Not bad for a $70,000 film that opened on just seven screens.

Additionally, Korean movies took in three of the top four spots on the chart this week, with HANDPHONE (Haendeupon) opening in third and THE SCAM (Jakjeon) in fourth.

Must be rather disappointing for HANDPHONE, making just 1.7 billion won ($1.2 million) despite opening on 443 screens; even with its great surge, OLD PARTNER is still on only 276 screens).

THE SCAM has now pulled in over 870,000 admissions and 5.8 billion won ($3.9 million).

Just one other Korean film on the chart this week, as SCANDAL MAKERS (Gwasok Seukaendeul) landed in ninth, bringing its total revenue to 52.9 billion won ($36 million). According to KOBIS, SCANDAL MAKERS is now at 8.1 million admissions, but remember that KOBIS does not track every theater in the nation, so SCANDAL MAKERS has probably done slightly better than that. The film is almost certainly now ahead of FRIEND to become the sixth-biggest movie ever in Korea.

The biggest non-Korean, non-Hollywood film, RED CLIFF 2, fell to 13th. In five weeks the John Woo epic pulled in 2.7 million admissions and made 18 billion won ($12 million).

Oh, and MARINE BOY is nearly done, too, landing in 12th, with 24,000 admissions to bring its total to 825,000 admissions.