The new Park Jin-pyo film, VOICE OF A MURDERER, came out strong in its opening weekend, despite some so-so reviews, pulling in an impressive 1.4 million admissions from its opening Wednesday evening to Sunday night. That works out to about $9.4 million, and a hair over 40% of the entire box office last weekend. Perhaps most significantly, the film picked up attendance and screens each day it was open, going from 275 screens on Jan. 31, to 397 screens on Feb. 1, to 530 screens on Saturday.
Way back in No. 2 was THE PERFECT COUPLE, with 59,100 admissions in Seoul, bringing its nationwide total to just over 1 million. Last week's top film CURSE OF THE GOLDEN FLOWER fell to third, with 57,200 admissions in Seoul. The Adam Sandler comedy CLICK opened in fourth, with 176,4000 in ticket sales nationwide. Not great, but about what you might expect for a second-rate foreign comedy.
200 POUND BEAUTY is still hanging around at No 5, bringing its two-month total to 6.4 million.
The two local animations YOBI: THE FIVE-TAILED FOX and ROBOT TAEKWON V are still chugging along in the bottom of the top-10, thanks to all the kids on break (and, more importantly, the parents who want them out of the house). If they can stay in the theaters until the Seollal holiday (Feb. 17-19), they might get a pretty good second wind.
Rounding out the top-10 is SCOOP, which pulled in just over 40,000 admissions on 100 screens.
Outside of the top-10, over in the art-house world, PARIS, JE T'AIME opened well, with 26,266 on just a few screens (cannot find the exact number). And SCIENCE OF SLEEP continues to do steady business on its last remaining screens, bringing its total to 48,051. Another week like last one, and it will top 50,000, which would be a nice symbolic number to surpass.
This Week | Title........................................ | Release Date | Screens Nationwide | Weekend Attendance (Seoul only) | Total Attendance |
1. | Voice of a Murderer | 1.31 | 530 | 247,000 | 1,408,000 |
2. | The Perfect Couple | 1.25 | 279 | 59,100 | 1,004,200 | 3. | Curse of the Golden Flower | 1.25 | 255 | 57,200 | 801,900 | 4. | Click | 2.01 | 152 | 53,300 | 176,400 | 5. | Apocalypto | 1.31 | 157 | 45,100 | 170,700 | 3. | 200-Pound Beauty | 12.14 | 210 | 40,500 | 6,433,700 | 7. | Miss Potter | 1.25 | 154 | 21,900 | 293,600 | 8. | Robot Taekwon V | 1.18 | 162 | 20,100 | 616,100 | 9. | Yobi: The Five-Tailed Fox | 1.25 | 105 | 20,000 | 352,000 | 10. | Scoop | 2.01 | 100 | 17,100 | 40,100 | |
(Source:
Film2.0)
Oh, by the way, Film 2.0 is my source for the top-10. But for other chart information, I go to KOFIC's database website
KOBIS. It is a pretty useful site for box office information, but you need to be able to read Korean to use it. It does not report all the theaters in Korea, just the ones that have installed its electronic tracking service, but that number continues to climb, and is now at 91% of Korea's screens.
And in a totally different vein... A great video of the Charlie Rose Show, with him talking to Alfonso Cuaron, Guillermo del Toro and Alejandro Gonzalez Innaritu is
here on Google Video. So interesting to hear from the three of them all together. And such a great comparison for Korea. Here are three directors making great films that matter to them, that make some decent money and that are getting recognized in international circles. As much as I admire so many Korean directors, this is a useful way of seeing how much more they still need to learn and improve. As William Blundell once wrote: "There are two kinds of writers in the world: bad writers and improving writers."
I also find it interesting how much emphasis they put on leaving their home country and becoming part of the wider world. So many Korean journalists like to talk about the Korean Wave, how Korean culture is doing around the world. But it is so much more important to get feedback/inspiration from as many sources as possible. Look at how many directors got their start outside of Korea (Hong Sang-soo in the United States, Song Il-gon in Poland, Kim Ki-duk in France). But how many directors, since completing their studies, are continuing to spend their time in the world? (And I don't mean spending a week at a film festival).