Meanwhile, the cow movie, OLD PARTNER (Wonang Sori) continues to do well, taking in another 1.5 billion won ($1 million) over the weekend to bring its eight-week total to just over $10 million.
(Kind of funny and interesting, btw, how seriously OLD PARTNER's producers and the police are treating piracy of this film. I mean, I am happy that the powers-that-be are trying to protect anyone's intellectual property... but with the endemic piracy in South Korea, why is this film so special? And why don't everyone else's films deserve the same protection?)
BENJAMIN BUTTON was third, and has now broken the 10-billion-won mark ($6.6 million). Korean film THE SCAM (Jakjeon) was in fourth, with 774 million won to bring its total to 8.8 billion won.
The only other Korean film in the top-10 was HANDPHONE, which was sixth with 314 million won, bringing its total box office to just over 4 billion won.
Not a lot of arthouse love in Korea, as the much acclaimed THE WRESTLER opened in eighth, and the Colin Firth crime caper IN BRUGES opened in 10th.
(All numbers courtesy of KOBIS, and the chart is from KOFIC).
Not that anyone asked, but I liked WATCHMEN, albeit with a lot of reservations. It certainly was not a perfect film, or even great. And it has the worst use of a Leonard Cohen song in a movie soundtrack that I can recall. But I did like the movie's ambition, and that it followed the comic's peculiar rhythms instead of the usual three-act Hollywood blockbuster cliche.
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4 comments:
(Kind of funny and interesting, btw, how seriously OLD PARTNER's producers and the police are treating piracy of this film. I mean, I am happy that the powers-that-be are trying to protect anyone's intellectual property... but with the endemic piracy in South Korea, why is this film so special? And why don't everyone else's films deserve the same protection?)
Well of course everyone's deserve protection. I think that with a lot of films and other digital products (e.g., Microsoft Word) there is a sense that you aren't really "hurting" anyone by copying it without paying.
But that "piracy okay" standard doesn't apply for every product, and it can be easy to see that it can do damage for the rare product that won't succeed if people who use it/see it don't pay for it.
This was driven home with the near death of HWP, a ubiquitous word processing application that was copied far more often that it was purchased.
It was only after this culturally unique product (yes, it was unique in the way it handled many aspects of Han'gŭl) was almost sucked up by Microsoft Borg that people sat up and took notice. That's when the "buy it for 만원" campaign got started and the makers got back on their feet.
From what I understand, it seems something like that is at work here.
And if it will make people realize the value in paying legitimately for something, more power to them. Here in the US, I like the "piracy is theft" commercials they have on the DVDs. For some, at least, it gets the message home.
And then the iTunes model of encouraging people do the right thing at a reasonable price is also effective. Those things can/do/would work in Korea, too, I think.
(Kind of funny and interesting, btw, how seriously OLD PARTNER's producers and the police are treating piracy of this film. I mean, I am happy that the powers-that-be are trying to protect anyone's intellectual property... but with the endemic piracy in South Korea, why is this film so special? And why don't everyone else's films deserve the same protection?)
Well of course everyone's deserve protection. I think that with a lot of films and other digital products (e.g., Microsoft Word) there is a sense that you aren't really "hurting" anyone by copying it without paying.
But that "piracy okay" standard doesn't apply for every product, and it can be easy to see that it can do damage for the rare product that won't succeed if people who use it/see it don't pay for it.
This was driven home with the near death of HWP, a ubiquitous word processing application that was copied far more often that it was purchased.
It was only after this culturally unique product (yes, it was unique in the way it handled many aspects of Han'gŭl) was almost sucked up by Microsoft Borg that people sat up and took notice. That's when the "buy it for 만원" campaign got started and the makers got back on their feet.
From what I understand, it seems something like that is at work here.
And if it will make people realize the value in paying legitimately for something, more power to them. Here in the US, I like the "piracy is theft" commercials they have on the DVDs. For some, at least, it gets the message home.
And then the iTunes model of encouraging people do the right thing at a reasonable price is also effective. Those things can/do/would work in Korea, too, I think.
Oh, and do you have any thoughts on this news.
Hi Kushibo:
Thanks for the notes. Yes, I have mostly the same opinion about what is going on with Korea's selective piracy enforcement. My questions were meant to be more rhetorical.
I have written plenty of stories about how Koreans are more than willing to buy digital content. The big problem is all the jerks out there selling pirated content. Really confuses the marketplace -- people feel like they are buying the content, therefore they are not stealing.
I am not an IP Nazi. In fact, I appreciate the chaos of the Internet "marketplace." However, having hundreds of slimeballs selling pirated DVDs on every corner and subway station in Seoul is just shameful. Especially now that police are allowed to take action on their own.
(Used to be they could only respond to a complaint. Now they can enforce on their own).
No thoughts on Wondergirl imitators at all. I have no idea who is paying for their content and who is not. I do not trust anonymous sources at crappy newspapers.
However, I am pretty certain JYP Entertainment paid for the Stacy Q sample in the original Wondergirls hit.
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