Korea Weekend Box Office - Nov. 2-4

Big turnover this week, with half of the top-10 consisting of new entries, led by Jeon Yoon-soo's LA GRAND CHEF, with about $3.6 million. Based on the comic book by Heo Yeong-man (TAZZA), LA GRAND CHEF is also being made into a TV show, so if you like it, you are sure to get plenty more soon enough.

The next new title this week was HERO, the Fuji-TV film featuring a cameo from Lee Byung-hun. With 271 screens, it had the widest release ever for a Japanese film in Korea, just slightly ahead of THE SINKING OF JAPAN's 256. Did not come close, however, to matching SINKING's boxoffice, which pulled in 479,000 in its opening weekend, compared to 128,000 for HERO.

Other new releases did not do much. KINGDOM had just 127,000 admissions, BLACK DAHLIA (released a year late) had 75,000. And Lee Joon-ki's latest, VIRGIN SNOW, took in just 13,000. Although VIRGIN SNOW did get a 44 screen release -- for a while there, it was looking like it would only get 10 screens. But this Japan-Korea coproduction has its eye on the Japan DVD market for the bulk of its revenues.

This Week	Title............................................	Release Date	Screens Nationwide	Weekend Attendance	Total Attendance
1.	Le Grand Chef (Sikgaek- Korean)	11.01	436	440,813	518,397
2.	Going by the Book (Bareuge Salja - Korean)	10.18	329	261,335	1,661,958
3.	Shadows in the Palace (Gungneo - Korean)	10.18	287	108,427	1,234,644
4.	Hero (Japan)	11.01	271	104,915	128,202
5.	Kingdom	11.01	192	102,192	127,675
6.	Black Dahlia	11.01	215	60,230	75,412
7.	M (Korean)	10.25	318	45,912	396,098
8.	Resident Evil 3	10.18	190	34,788	509,799
9.	Virgin Snow (Cheotnun - Korean)	11.01	44	10,511	12,814
10.	Copying Beethoven	10.11	43	10,122	265,281

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