Category: Korean movies (Page 15 of 31)

Only one Korean film in the top-10 again this week — CHERRY TOMATO, way down in tenth. Korean movies had dropped below 40 percent of the market for 2008 (down to 38.7%). American films are up to 47.9 percent. INDIANA JONES 4 remained at the top of the box office. All rather depressing.

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

This week was one of those really fun weeks that makes me glad to have the job that I do. I got to meet a lot of cool, interesting people and see some extremely cool and interesting things.

One story this week for The Hollywood Reporter was about the coming Robot Taekwon V movie that the veteran filmmaker Shin Chul is producing. The Hollywood producer William Teitler (POLAR EXPRESS, JUMANJI) has signed onto the project, so I talked to him and Shin and the other nice people at Shin’s company.

The new Robot Taekwon V movie will be based on the comic books that were just published (that Shin commissioned). It is a sequel to the original story, taking place 32 years after the first movie. Kim Hoon, the young hero of the first film, is now a 45-year-old salaryman with a lousy job and a bad marriage, when he gets a chance to pilot the 56-meter-tall robot again. Judging by the comic, the new story definitely has a lot of potential.

(Oh, it looks like the movie will not be coming to theaters until summer of 2010. So you will have to wait).

I even got to see an amazing bit of demo animation that local f/x house Mofac Studio made. I think something like seven f/x companies will be working on the Robot Taekwon V movie, but unfortunately, I think the Mofac demo is a secret and I have not been able to find anything about it online. There are these two videos on Youtube (here and here), but I think Mofac’s was a lot more impressive.

Then for something else I was working on, I coincidentally got to spend some time at the Mofac office on Friday. Mofac is one of Korea’s top f/x studios, and has worked on a lot of big projects, from VOLCANO HIGH to TAEWANGSASINGI (and now is doing a lot of work on LAUNDRY WARRIOR). Their office was quite cool. A nice renovated house, with walls covered in signed STAR WARS posters; President Jang has one of the most amazing collections of STAR WARS toys I have ever seen (along with plenty of comic book toys, anime toys and other goodies). Definitely looked like a fun place to work.

No surprise that the new INDIANA JONES film won quite handily this week. It took in 1.6 million admissions, or about $9.1 million. That is quite good — as in SHREK 3 good. But not PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN 3 good.

Considering all the competition coming soon (SEX & THE CITY on June 6), not to mention how dreadful INDIANA 4 is (so very, very boring and witless), I’m guessing it should get over 5 million admissions, but nowhere near TRANSFORMERS numbers.

PRINCE CASPIAN got its butt kicked pretty badly in Korea, far outdone by INDY 4 and IRON MAN (although all three films are beating SPEED RACER).

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

Korean films are down to 41 percent of the box office. And not too many strong Korean films on the horizon until THE GOOD, THE BAD, THE WEIRD hits in July.

Which reminds me, I think Hollywood is giving THE GOOD, THE BAD, THE WEIRD a pretty wide berth. WALL-E and HANCOCK are getting released here at the same time as they are in United States (late June/early July), but the new Batman and X-Files movies are being bumped until August… I presume to give them a better chance. If director Kim Jee-woon does not screw this up, it looks like his film will be a monster hit.

The first review of THE GOOD, THE BAD, THE WEIRD is in and so far the film is looking pretty good.

Derek Elley at Variety gives the film a very good review, saying:

From the initial train holdup through a shantytown gun battle to a 15-minute desert flatlands chase that’s a jaw-dropper, pic maintains an ironic grin that leavens the heavy discharges of ordnance and continuous roundelay of faceoffs.

Also nice to read in Derek’s review that Jung Woo-sung’s performance holds up, as there have been rumors that Lee Byung-hun and Song Gang-ho were much better than Jung.

One quibble with Derek’s review, though — why does he call the movie the “most expensive South Korean movie to date”? Uh, D-WAR?

I will add more reviews as I find them.

A flood of trailers for Kim Jee-woon’s new film THE GOOD, THE BAD, THE WEIRD have hit the internet in recent days. And I must say, it is one good looking movie.

A higher quality version of the trailer, but without the English subtitles, is here.

The three stars of the film, Jung Woo-sung, Lee Byung-hun and Sang Gang-ho, all look at the top of their game, too. Assuming CJ Entertainment can get GBW into theaters around the end of July or so, the odds are looking increasingly good that this will be the biggest Korean film of the year.

Wow. Just one Korean film in the top-10 this week — BEASTIE BOYS (aka MOONLIGHT OVER SEOUL), way down in seventh. As people expected, Korean movies’ share of the year’s box office is plummeting rapidly, thanks to the onslaught of Hollywood summer blockbusters. Korean films are down to 43.8 percent of the box office, while American films have climbed to 43 percent. Those numbers are just going to get worse and worse over the next couple of months.

The top film last weekend was the latest Narnia movie, PRINCE CASPIAN, which had a decent (but not outstanding) $4.06 million opening. That works out to about 641,000 admissions, down slightly from the 716,000 admissions that THE LION, THE WITCH AND THE WARDROBE had in its opening weekend.

Close behind was IRON MAN, which pulled in another $2.8 million to bring its 19-day total to $24.04 million — or 3.7 million admissions.

After the big two, box office numbers decline fast. The next three films did okay, taking in $630,000-740,000. But after No. 5, the remaining films did not do much at all. BEASTIE BOYS made $170,000 to bring its total to $3.7 million.

THE CHASER is still around on a few screens around Korea. It was 17th last weekend, making a few thousand dollars over to bring its big total to $33.93 million (5.07 million admissions).

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

IRON MAN continued strong for a second weekend, taking in nearly $5 million, bringing its total 12-day take to over $18 million (or 2.8 million admissions).

SPEED RACER did relatively well in Korea (at least compared to its disastrous opening in the United States), with 424,000 admissions, or $2.74 million.

TAKEN is still doing bizarrely well in Korea, bringing its one-month total to $13.5 million. I have no real explanation for its success here.

Not a bad little bonus for DETECTIVE CONAN, using a second holiday weekend to bring its total to $530,000.

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