They Should Have Done 'Atlantic Princess'

Okay, this is strange. American rock group WEEZER has apparently covered a Boa song. The ballad MERI KURI (aka, MERRI CHRI) is supposed to appear on the Japanese version of Weezer's newest record, THE RED ALBUM.

When I went to Amazon.co.jp, I could not find the song listed on any of the versions of THE RED ALBUM, however I found a download of Meri Kuri here. (Video of Boa's Korean version is here. Japanese version is here).

The mind boggles.

Korea Weekend Box Office - June 13-15 (late!)

Sorry for putting this week's top-10 up so late. Crazy busy week here.

KUNG FU PANDA is really on a tear, beating out a couple of big new entries in its second weekend. Nearly 1 million tickets in its second weekend? With $16 million so far, if PANDA keeps it up, it could become the most successful animated film ever in Korea (assuming you don't consider films like RETURN OF THE KING to be animated).

IRON MAN finally dropped out of the top-10 this week (it was xxth), giving it a final total of 4.3 million admissions, or $27.8 million.

I was surprised that the two Korean films, LIFE IS COOL and LIKE FATHER, LIKE SON, had such limited releases (just a dozen screens or so). Are their distributors trying a soft release? Or did they just give up?

This Week	Title............................................	Release Date	Screens Nationwide	Weekend Revenue (bil. won)	Total Revenue (bil. won)
1.	Kung-Fu Panda	6.05	633	5.88	15.90
2.	Incredible Hulk	6.12	529	3.00	3.45
3.	The Happening	6.13	304	1.39	1.62
4.	Sex & the City	6.05	362	1.18	5.22
5.	Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull	5.22	351	1.01	26.07
6.	What Happens in Vegas	5.29	192	0.28	4.43
7.	Black Heart (Heuksim Monyeo - Korean)	6.12	216	0.23	0.27
8.	Flash Point	6.12	175	0.12	0.14
9.	Girlscout (Korean)	6.05	223	0.10	1.38
10.	Prince Caspian	5.15	??	0.072	9.22

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

TV Studio Burns

The Chosun Ilbo has pictures of a fire that engulfed a historical drama set at a KBS-TV lot in Suwon on Thursday (June 12).

(HT: Korea Beat).

Korea Weekend Box Office - June 6-8

Holy crap! Korean movies in May had their worst month on record -- just 7.8 percent of the boxoffice. KOFIC says that is the lowest level they have since 2000 (when they started tracking). Ouch.

Just one Korean film in the top 10 this week, GIRL SCOUT, so the bad news is going to continue for at least a little while longer.

Oh, and I am going back to tracking attendance, at least for this week. For some reason KOBIS is not updating, so I am using Film 2.0 stats, and they only track attendance. Not sure yet what I am going to do going forward.

(UPDATE: KOBIS finally updated its website. And this week's numbers were slightly different than the earlier estimate, so I have updated below)

This Week	Title............................................	Release Date	Screens Nationwide	Weekend Revenue (billion won)	Total Revenue (billion won)
1.	Kung Fu Panda	6.05	632	7.40	8.09
2.	Indiana Jones and the Bored Our of My Skull	5.22	527	3.78	24.43
3.	Sex & the City	6.05	412	2.41	3.02
4.	What Happens in Vegas	5.29	299	1.01	3.83
5.	Girl Scout (Korean)	6.05	292	0.88	1.05
6.	Prince Caspian	5.15	236	0.57	9.09
7.	The Eye	6.05	123	0.35	0.41
8.	88 Minutes	5.29	236	0.32	1.76
9.	Iron Man	4.30	99	0.15	27.75
10.	Body	5.29	118	0.079	0.69

(Source: Film 2.0)


As bleak as things are at the moment, they should start looking up soon, as some of Korea's biggest films of the summer start to unroll -- PUBLIC ENEMY 3 on June 19, CROSSING on June 26 and THE GOOD, THE BAD, THE WEIRD on July 10 17.

Not so big but potentially interesting is the rotoscope romantic comedy SHE WAS COOL on June 12, Kwak Jae-young's latest exercise in too-much-is-just-enough MY MIGHTY PRINCESS on June 26, and the historical epic THE DIVINE WEAPON on Aug. 7.

Will Korea Ever Get the iPhone?

Apple head honcho Steve Jobs just announced the brand-spanking new 3G Apple iPhone, and it looks quite nice. NY Times story on the announcement here. One quibble on the story, though -- it ends with:

The only major countries without an iPhone distribution agreement are Russia and China.

Does that mean the iPhone has a distribution agreement with South Korea? Or that Korea is not considered a "major country"? Apparently the second instance is true, and Korea is not getting the iPhone yet (last paragraph in that link).

For geopolitics, I agree that Korea is not a big fish. But for telecom and mobile services? Please. The Korean market is so much bigger than China's. The Korean market is a major one.


It gets tiring dealing with dimwitted editors in New York or wherever that don't get this. Like how everyone squeals about how big the China movie market is growing, when Korea's is well over twice as big. Of course, at the rate China is growing (assuming you believe their statistics)(which I do not), and the rate Korea has stopped growing, China could overtake the Korean movie market in three or four years. But still... the point is Korea has been a bigger movie market than China for a decade (which, considering China's past, essentially means that Korea has always been a bigger movie market than China).

Linking to Myself -- Music Stuff

I wrote about some Korean music, new and old, over at the Korea Gig Guide. Some stuff about Pastel Music and the original band of Lee Soo-man's (the guy who created SM Entertainment, Boa and Dong Bang Shin Gi). Rather than double-post, I will let you just head over there if you are interested in reading about it.

Korea Weekend Box Office - May 30-June 1

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.

This Week	Title............................................	Release Date	Screens Nationwide	Weekend Revenue (bil. won)	Total Revenue (bil. won)
1.	Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull	5.22	735	5.55	19.30
2.	What Happens in Vegas	5.29	346	1.70	1.98
3.	Prince Caspian	5.15	402	1.00	8.31
4.	88 Minutes	5.29	257	0.95	1.01
5.	Iron Man	4.30	323	0.65	27.42
6.	The Body	5.29	208	0.40	0.48
7.	We Own the Night	5.29	168	0.24	0.29
8.	Never Back Down	5.22	156	0.10	0.73
9.	Taken	4.09	80	0.086	15.90
10.	Cherry Tomato (Bangeul Tomato - Korean)	5.29	104	0.072	0.084

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