Category: Korean movies (Page 18 of 31)

A bit of a change starting this week, as I will be reporting weekly revenue instead of attendance. Seems like the more relevant stat to me. But if something significant happens to a movie’s attendance (like topping 10 million admissions), I will try to mention it.

The Korean won is worth about 940 won/dollar, so you can approximate the chart to millions of dollars easily enough.

Let me know if you have any feedback, questions, concerns with the change.

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

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

Some day, Im Pil-sung is going to make a really great movie. ANTARCTIC JOURNAL, his first film, was not. And, sad to say, HANSEL & GRETEL is not one either.

The story is simple enough (and I will try to avoid spoilers). Eun-su (Cheon Jeong-myeong) is driving through the countryside, on his way to meet his mother, when he gets into a car accident. His is thrown from the car and passes out. When he wakes up, there is a girl with a red cloak and a lamp who guides him to her house in the forest.

The girl’s house and family are very odd and unnatural. Lots of candy and sweet food, even though no one does any baking. Lots of bright colors and strange designs. And there are apparently some strange, nasty things that go bump in the night.

Eun-su also soon discovers that he cannot get away; there is no way out of the forest. After a couple of days, the kids’ parents disappear, to be replaced by a more malevolent fellow. Gradually the mystery is revealed, along with plenty of blood and general ickiness.

The good? Well, the designs are the usual bright and freaky stuff we always expect from Ryu Seong-hee (OLDBOY, I’M A CYBORG BUT THAT’S OKAY, THE HOST). And there are parts (especially in the middle) where the surrealism is interesting and promising.

Unfortunately, the bad far outweighs the good. The story is too odd to be taken seriously as a drama, but not fantastic enough to be interesting in it’s own right. Eun-su is not a very interesting character and does not draw you in at all. The psychology underlying the surreal story is puddle deep. Furthermore, the characters keep saying the same things over and over again… Very annoying.

In addition, like all Korean horror movies, a large chunk of the second half is filled with endless explaining and crying and explaining and crying. Ugh. Why do the bad, evil people at the heart of the story do the things they do? Who cares… they are just bad and evil. No nuance.

Which is too bad. I like Im. I think he is underrated. Considering how tepid and similar far too many Korean movies were these days, it is great to see someone trying to do something different and off-beat. I think he was trying to do something like PAN’S LABYRINTH, but Im’s story is horribly underdeveloped.

If you are interested in seeing more of the film (despite my mean review), the movie trailer is at Youtube. You can also see the trailer at the movie’s official website here.

Hi all. Sorry for not mentioning that I was taking some time off for the holidays this year. The time away was much appreciated though. Now I am back and ready for 2008.

Hollywood is certainly starting off 2008 strong, with nearly 70 percent of the boxoffice. Top film over the holidays was THE GOLDEN COMPASS, which has made over $15 million since it opened on Dec. 18. NATIONAL TREASURE 2 is also doing well, with around $8.2 million since Dec. 20.

Top Korean movies is SEX IS ZERO 2, with about $12 million since Dec. 13 (with about $1.1 million of that coming over the long holiday weekend).

Very sad to see HANSEL & GRETEL open so poorly. Just $1 million since it opened on Dec. 27. Very disappointing on a lot of levels. I missed the press screening because I was on holiday, but I hope to get a review up on this site in the next few days.

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

Hrm… Looks like KOBIS has updated its website. Looks nice enough, but it still does not work well at all with Safari. More information than ever, though.

My ever-so-cool colleague Chun Sujin just wrote a feature about the end of Dream Cinema, the last non-multiplex theater in Seoul. Dream Cinema is an ugly concrete box, with fading paint, broken seats and a dubious sound system (at the best of times). But when it was opened in 1964, it was one of the fancier cinemas in the city, like the Daehan or Picadilly.

Very much worth a read, especially since I can still remember a time before there were any multiplexes in Korea. Amazing how fast things change.

Writing this makes me remember the last time I went to the Dream Cinema to watch a film. It was the first Korean press screening for LORD OF THE RINGS: FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING. The sound system was in worse shape than usual that day, and about 20 minutes into the film the sound went out entirely. I had to wait another couple of days until the next press screening to see the movie. As I was dying to see FELLOWSHIP (geek that I am), I was pretty bitter about that.

And if you want to check out the Dream Cinema, it will stay open until January or so. To commemorate the theater and its closing, the manager booked DIRTY DANCING, which has turned into something of a surprise hit (and tickets are just half-price, compared to other theaters).

Dream Cinema is located in Seodaemun, right by the Seodaemun Subway Station on line No. 5.

Andrei Lankov has a great (if short) essay about the classic Korean “ero” film MADAME AEMA at the Korea Times (here). Totally worth a read.

If you like that sort of thing, you can read a short essay about the 3S policy in KOFIC’s KOREAN CINEMA book (which you can download for free here (yeah, there is a more normal link at www.koreanfilm.or.kr, but it does not seem to work with Mac computers, so I linked to Google’s html cache instead. If you use PC, though, you can see the article here ).

If you are interested in urban history or more of the sports side of the 3S policy, there is a very interesting article about Seoul’s urban policy and the 1988 Olympics here.

Now if someone would only write such an essay about PPONG…

Hey! Great collection of posters and stills of PPONG at the Korean Movie Database. Nifty.

Score one for parity this week, as no one movie occupied over 300 screens. I cannot remember the last time that happened. All the movies in the top-10 this weekend were on between 276 and 98 screens.

Actually, now that I think about it, last weekend was pretty even, too, as all the movies occupied between 321 and 160 screens.

Anyhow, the biggest film, yet again (and rather mysteriously) was AUGUST RUSH. That is about $1.8 million over the weekend for a total of $5.7 million. Once again, a movie doing better in its second weekend than in its first. What an odd trend this fall.

But does anyone really want to see that film? It could make a more cynical person think that CJ was “encouraging” all its employees (and their family and friends) to see the film. How very lucky for me that I’m not cynical.

FYI, AUGUST RUSH has made a little over $25 million in the United States. Plus $1.4 million in the UK and $600,000 in Italy.

SEVEN DAYS continues to do fairly well — about $1.2 million over the weekend for a total of around $12 million.

HAIRSPRAY was the biggest debut this week. But John Travolta is no Devine.

LUST CAUTION also continues its remarkable Korean run, with another $720,000 or so, bringing its total box office to about $12 million.

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

A pretty big movie weekend on its way, with SEX IS ZERO 2 and VENUS AND MARS (or “The Fight,” “Ssaum,” in Korea) both opening.

Hey, the SPEED RACER trailer.

Not a very exciting box office this week. Although I was rather surprised to see the top spot go to AUGUST RUSH, an odd-looking melodrama out of Hollywood in which CJ Entertainment invested. I guess I was watching the wrong TV channels because I did not see a No. 1 opening coming at all. If I were a better blogger, I would check out Cine 21 or some other movie website to see what kind of feedback the film was getting from audiences… but I’m not, so I won’t.

In case you are curious, RUSH’s box office was about $1.7 million over the weekend, for a total of around $2.1 million.

Just to show how off-based my thinking was, if I were to have guessed from advertising and general stories, I might have predicted a big opening for MY ELEVENTH MOTHER. But it opened only in sixth. Even OUR TOWN opened better.

SEVEN DAYS is continuing to do fairly well, landing in No. 2 this weekend.

Rather amazingly, LUST CAUTION is still in third, after four weeks. Ang Lee’s sexy film just keeps on chugging here in Korea, having earned a little over $10 million. Not bad considering it has made just $4.3 million in the United States (since September). In case you are interested, LUST’s top territory so far has been China, where it has made $15 million, with $6 million in Hong Kong and $4 million in Taiwan.

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

Oh, last week I forgot to mention the John Cho film WEST 32ND, which opened Nov. 22. But not really my fault, since the film was on just 22 screens and never even approached the top 10. It opened in 17th, then dropped to 25th this week, for a grant total of about $54,000. Despite some decent talent being attached to the film (including Grace Park in a small role), the movie was remarkably dull… You are not missing a hidden gem.

Quite a jump up for SEVEN DAYS this week, pulling in $2.3 million (up from about $1.8 million last weekend). Not often you see a jump like that (although LE GRAND CHEF did the same just two weeks ago). A good sign people are enjoying Kim Yun-jin’s thriller.

GRAND CHEF and LUST, CAUTION both are continuing to do rather well, off a little but not a lot last weekend. Kind of nifty to see LUST CAUTION breaking the 1 million admissions mark.

SAW 4 and GOLDEN AGE both had fairly tepid openings.

Sorry, not a whole lot of commentary to make this week.

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

Just wasted an evening watching the 28th Blue Dragon Awards on KBS. Very exciting. A lot of distressing fashion choices there tonight. Granted, I’m no George Clooney, but Kim Tae-hee’s outfit was pretty hideous.

This was my first awards show with HD, and as unfortunate as some of those dresses were, my friends were even more shocked by lines and bad makeup on many of the stars. HD really is pretty cruel to some celebrities.

Anyhow, as for the awards themselves, no single film dominated this year. No real terrible decisions, either.

Best Film – THE SHOW MUST GO ON

Best Director – Hur Jin-ho, HAPPINESS

Best Actor – Song Kang-ho, THE SHOW MUST GO ON

Best Actress – Jeon Do-yeon

Best Supporting Actor – Kim Sang-ho, THE HAPPY LIFE

Best Supporting Actress – Na Moon-hee, CRUEL WINTER BLUES

Best Screenplay – Kim Nam-min, PARADISE MURDERED

Best Cinematography – Yoon Nam-ju, EPITAPH

Best Lighting – HWANG JIN-YI

Best Art Design – EPITAPH

Best Effects – THE RESTLESS

Best New Director – Kim Nam-min, PARADISE MURDERED

Best New Actor – Daniel Henney, MY FATHER

Best New Actress – Jeong Reo-won, THE TWO FACES OF MY GIRLFRIEND

I probably missed a couple of awards, but I cannot think of them right now… and do not care enough to double-check.
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Btw, the great actress Choi Eun-hee has just written an autobiography. You can read a summary of it here.

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And now, for no particular reason, here is a picture from Jun Ji-hyun’s coming film BLOOD: THE LAST VAMPIRE. I think it is a pretty good teaser. Enjoy.