Korea Weekend Box Office - Jan. 26-28

Zhang Yimou takes the top spot this week with his latest costumed, schmuck-foo drama, CURSING THE GOLDEN, FLYING DAGGER FOR THOUSANDS OF MILES (or something like that), taking in a healthy 461,000 in admissions, or about $3.1 million. Someone should force Zhang and Hong Sang-soo to swap their next projects (two extremely talents directors who have both gone to the same well too often).

Once again showing us the Seoul/jibang effect, THE PERFECT COUPLE came in No. 2 in Seoul with 88,100 in attendance (24% behind GOLDEN FLOWER), even though it was No. 1 nationwide with 520,600 in attendance (13% ahead).

Huzzah. 200 POUND BEAUTY just passed MY BOSS, MY TEACHER to become the top comedy of all time in Korea (not to mention the ninth-biggest box office draw). With 6.16 million in attendance and still at No. 3 on the weekend chart, BEAUTY is certain to pass by SHIRI to become the eighth-biggest film ever in Korea. Next in line after SHIRI would be TAZZA, at around 6.8 million in attendance.

Korean animation continues its tepid run with the opening of Lee Sung-gang's YOBI: THE FIVE-TAILED FOX in No. 7, with 186,000 in attendance. While not a great opening, it already has beaten most Korean animation, though. AATCHI & SSIPAK pulled in just 107,154 in its run last year, EMPRESS CHUNG with 75,957, OSEAM with 60,000 (approx.) and HAMMERBOY with 47,502. WONDERFUL DAYS did around 400,000 or so back in 2003, but I am trying to track down the exact number. So there is still a chance that YOBI could become the biggest Korean animated film ever, or at least in recent memory, especially with the Seollal holidays still to come.

In the meantime, it looks like the biggest animated Korean film is the re-release of the 30-year-old ROBOT TAEKWON V, with 473,8000 in admissions this go-around alone.
(Btw, something I did not know, but apparently the Korean golden age movie great Yu Hyun-mok produced the film... kind of cool). I wish I knew how TAEKWON V did in its original release, but alas I do not.

This Week	Title........................................	Release Date	Screens Nationwide	Weekend Attendance (Seoul only)	Total Attendance
1.	Curse of the Golden Flower	1.25	278	116,200	461,000
2.	The Perfect Couple	1.25	284	88,100	520,600
3.	200-Pound Beauty	12.14	237	78,900	6,157,900
4.	Miss Potter	1.25	196	65,300	185,900
5.	Mapado 2	1.18	337	63,000	1,318,000
6.	Herb	1.11	236	46,500	1,286,300
7.	Yobi: The Five-Tailed Fox	1.25	105	38,000	186,000
8.	Deja Vu	1.11	134	37,400	772,100
9.	Robot Taekwon V	1.18	189	36,600	473,800
10.	Blood Diamond	1.11	93	26,600	441,300

(Source: Film2.0)

Random Notes - Vol 2, No. 2

Some random notes from around the media about Korean pop culture:

• 200 POUND BEAUTY is now officially the 10th-biggest Korean movie of all time, beating out JSA for the No. 10 spot. Does it have what it takes to surpass MY BOSS, MY TEACHER? 200 POUND is still selling around 45,000 tickets a day (during the weekdays), but starting yesterday, a lot of new competition hit the screens.
  
  
• Boa is now five for five in Japan, as her latest album there has gone No. 1. Too bad she is not selling much in her homeland any more (her last album, in 2005, was just the 14th-biggest seller of the year). Also funny that the reporter called her the "Korean Britney Spears". Too many inappropriate jokes there to even know where to start.
  
  
• Singers Se7en and Rain both seem to be going through rough patches at the moment. Seven's new TV drama, GUNG S (aka PRINCE WHO), has kicked off with less-than-stellar ratings (remember, you can always read the cached version of any Korea Herald article, even after the link turns into a for-pay archive story). And Rain apparently did not impress several journalists in his recent swing through Singapore and Hong Kong. I can echo those comments. Rain came to the press club here in Seoul back in October to talk about his tour, but he was so vague, evasive and inarticulate in this answers, he really annoyed most of the foreign journalists who showed up. Nice of him to take the time, but if he is going to take the trouble, he really should come prepared.
  
  
• Bae Yong-joon paid the most taxes of any Korean entertainer in 2006. Last year he made over $15 million (it is unclear in the article if they meant overall or just in Japan), despite not appearing in any movies or TV shows. Not bad for a down year. Look for his taxes to soar in 2007 as he appears in LEGEND (or what the KT calls "The Four Guardian Gods of the King Taewangsasingi"), beginning around May-ish. LEGEND should be the most expensive TV show ever made in Korea (topping $40 million), and a good chunk of that will be for the cast (of course, a much bigger chunk will go to sets and special effects).
  
  
• Incheon airport the world's best? I think not. Nor do I put much faith in any survey that calls the desolate hole that is Narita the world's No. 7 airport. Incheon Airport is certainly clean and modern, but it has a lousy selection of restaurants (compare it to, say, O'Hare, which has a Wolfgang Puck's, Pizzeria Uno's, Quiznos and more), and ridiculously bad immigration queues. Nothing like waiting in one of the three huge lines for foreigners while Koreans zip through in one of 20 empty rows. Certainly lets you know your place in a hurry. Extra-annoying because it is such an easily solvable problem.
  
  
• Too much negativity in today's post? Sorry about that. So do yourself a favor and check out the new Lee Sung-gang animated film, YOBI (or YEUWOOBI, depending on who you ask). It is a little childish, but, still, Lee Sung-gang does good stuff.
  

My Award Show Has a First Name, It's O-S-C-A-R

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced the nominees for the 79th Academy Awards a few hours ago. In general, I am not a fan of the Oscars and think it is a big mistake to put much stock into the awards; however, I must say I am fairly pleased with this year's nominees. All five Best Picture films seem quite solid (even THE DEPARTED, despite my griping).

Two favorites, PAN'S LABYRINTH and CHILDREN OF MEN, both received several nominations. Hopefully these awards will spur local distributors here in South Korea to release some of those movies a little quicker (I'm talking to you Warner Bros, and I'm talking about LETTERS FROM IWO JIMA). FYI, THE QUEEN comes out Feb. 15, BABEL on Feb. 22, and LAST KING OF SCOTLAND on March 8.

No big surprises that Korea's nominee, THE KING AND THE CLOWN, did not get a nod for Best Foreign Language Film. I thought that was an incredibly weak selection that had no chance (it did not even make the short list, announced a few weeks ago). Not sure if THE HOST would have done any better... could not have done worse, I guess. In general, I thought 2006 a pretty weak year for Korean movies (artistically, anyhow).

But as I indicated in the beginning of this post, I am not a big Oscar fan, especially for the Best Foreign Language Film category, and I think we would be far better off if we ignored the whole silly thing.

Nikki Finke, as always, has all of the political and box office analyses, while completely ignoring any thought of art or quality (worse, she actively campaigns against such considerations, as in the middle of that link when she says that UNITED 93 did not deserve a nomination, despite being well-directed and having a great script, just because it had no A-list actors in it).
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Oh, nearly forgot, if I am going to mention Korean movies getting the love from foreign critics (as I did here), then it seems only fair to mention when they get the raspberries, too. Japan's Bunshin Raspberry Awards named one Korean movie to their list of the 10-worst films of 2006 -- Choi Ji-woo's silly melodrama NOW AND FOREVER, which was ranked No. 7 among the most rank. TALES OF EARTHSEA was the runaway winner (loser?) of this year's Raspberries.

Korea Weekend Box Office - Jan. 19-21

A remarkably stable weekend at the box office. Despite having a new No. 1 film, many films in the top-10 experienced very little drop-off from last week. 200 POUND BEAUTY took in just 200 fewer viewers last weekend in Seoul compared to the previous weekend. Not bad for a movie that has been out for a month and a half.

DEJA VU and BLOOD DIAMOND also experienced only small declines, BLOOD DIAMOND so much so that it rose from seventh to sixth. ERAGON, on the other hand, did have a pretty substantial drop, falling from first to fifth.

The new No. 1 movie is MAPADO 2. Did not see it. But it is interesting to see how its Seoul weekend box office was only a little more than ERAGON did last week, but its national attendance since Thursday was more than 200,000 bigger. Just another sign of how tastes differ between Seoul and the countryside in Korea.

The restored print of ROBOT TAEKWON V made its debut in eighth (well, almost debut, since it was first screened at the Pusan International Film Festival in 2005). Not great, but not bad for a 30-year-old movie that most people already now. In fact, if you look at the nationwide numbers, it opened in fifth (same effect as MAPADO 2). Incidentally, the nice people at RTV's production company rediscovered the English subtitles for the movie, so the next time it comes out on DVD, it should include them.

Michel Gondry's SCIENCE OF SLEEP may be all the way down at No. 17 last weekend, but the film has now sold just over 40,000 tickets, or a little over $425,000. Not bad for an odd little film on so few screens. And the Japanese film HONEY AND CLOVER has now sold over 32,000 tickets.

This Week	Title........................................	Release Date	Screens Nationwide	Weekend Attendance (Seoul only)	Total Attendance
1.	Mapado 2	1.18	385	110,000	737,000
2.	200-Pound Beauty	12.14	262	101,400	5,718,700
3.	Herb	1.11	275	80,000	951,800
4.	Deja Vu	1.11	182	69,000	583,500
5.	Eragon	1.11	239	57,600	867,800
6.	Blood Diamond	1.11	120	42,600	338,100
7.	Night at the Museum	12.21	196	42,300	4,476,200
8.	Robot Taekwon V	1.18	209	41,800	230,100
9.	Deathnote: The Last Name	1.11	200	25,900	546,100
10.	Barnyard	1.18	110	19,000	82,000

(Source: Film2.0)

Take My Breath Away, A Kim Ki-duk Set Visit

Local journalists (even myself) were invited on Thursday to the set of Kim Ki-duk's latest film, BREATH (숨), to get an early glimpse at the movie, talk to the actors, and see how Korea's arthouse bad boy is doing these days. Around 50 of us press types showed up, despite the-less-than-stellar commercial appeal of Kim these days, confirming my general belief that it is a lot easier to be famous than successful in Korea.

Anyhow, filming is taking place at Seodaemun Prison, nestled in the narrow valley between Mount Inwang (Inwangsan) and Mount An (Ansan). The former prison closed in 1987 and has been a museum since 1992 or so, so it is a convenient site to shoot a prison story.


The story of BREATHE, as I understand it, is about a woman who falls in love with a death-row inmate. Or an inmate who falls in love with a woman at the prison. Or something like that. Said inmate is being played by the Taiwanese actor Chen Chang, known for CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON and THREE TIMES. Even though this is a fairly low-budget project, Kim apparently wrote the role with Chang in mind and, I was told, referred to the character in the script as "Chen" from the beginning.

These set visits are an odd bit of artifice in Korea. A horde of media types gather to watch a staged bit of fake film making, followed by a press conference where the director and actors tell you how great it is to work together, how much they have all admired each other's works, etc.

For the most part, the BREATH event followed the usual script. We crowded into the prison's narrow corridor to watch a couple of scenes. Usually the chaos of having so many journalists around means that the filming is faked, but I was told that Kim put film in the camera and wanted to use the stuff we saw. Given how Kim only has 10 days to shoot this movie (he usually really rushes his shoots), I would not be surprised.


The biggest "news" (such as it was) was watching how Kim Ki-duk interacted with the press. The man has had some well known spats with the Korean press over the years, especially last year when he bashed THE HOST (or sounded like it, anyhow), complained about how his movies are treated in Korea and threatened to stop releasing his films in Korea altogether. Kim received quite the smackdown for his little tirade (which, I am told, really chastened and upset him). For our event, though, Kim was quite polite, if a little passive-aggressive, talking repeatedly about how he considered this movie to be like an "export" into Korea (because his films tend to do better in France and Italy than here in their homeland).

Oh, and the press conference was held outside, where it was pretty darn cold, especially when you were just sitting around, not moving. My camera's batteries died before the conference began, but you can see the site below. Note, the Taegukgi flag was already hanging there, for reasons unrelated to the press conference or the movie.


On a few occasions, I have been lucky enough to actually visit actual sets when they were actually filming, which is much more interesting. I shared a bento lunch once with Kim Jee-woon and Lee Byung-hun (and producer Eugene Lee, who was kind enough to allow me to visit) on the set of A BITTERSWEET LIFE, in the basement of a well known hotel in the Cheongdam-dong area. It was remarkable for its laid-back atmosphere. The stars had side rooms set aside for them if they wanted, but for the most part, people just hung out, watching, talking. No big, private trailers for the stars to hide in.

Anyhow, big thanks to Sponge House, Cineclick Asia, Kim Ki-duk and everyone else for inviting me (us) aboard. I guess the aim is to have the movie ready for the film festivals in the spring or summer. I will save my comments/criticisms about Kim Ki-duk for then. But I hope this movie works out well for him.

Shakedown Shut Down

Well, that was unexpected. Grady Hendrix's blog for Variety, KAIJU SHAKEDOWN is closing down. I guess I won't be able to use Kaiju as an example anymore to convince The Hollywood Reporter (or whoever) to make KOREA POP WARS a fabulously well paid gig.

I have never met Grady, despite our paths having crossed a few times (at PIFF and HK Filmart and elsewhere). I'm sure he will be fine without KS, but here's wishing him the best anyway.

Korean Music Charts - January 2007

Absolutely shocking how poor sales were for December. I thought that Korea usually gets a Christmas bump, but it certainly did not this year. The top-selling album, the latest SM Entertainment holiday release, sold just 33,453 copies. The tenth-place album, Park Sang-min's latest, sold just 11,000 (last month, tenth place sold 20,000).

Foreign music sales were also pretty bad, although they were actually up a little from November.

Still no work on 2006 overall sales yet, but you can bet they are going to be pretty depressing. On the other hand, the advance word I am getting about digital sales (online downloads, mobile phone music, etc.) is pretty incredible. Last year, mobile and downloads were (officially) about $267 million, versus $118 million for CD and cassette sales. I say officially, because the math behind the numbers if pretty murky, with no one group responsible for all the rights or collecting all the money. Unofficially, that number could have been well over $400 million. And there are rumors that 2006 might have experienced another huge leap. I will write about those numbers as soon as I hear more.

This Month	Artist	Album Name	Release Date	This Month's Sales	Total Sales
1.	Various	SM Town 10	12.12	33,453	33,453
2.	SG Wannabe	The Precious History	11.16	33,426	78,548
3.	Big Bang	Vol. 1	12.21	33,343	33,343
4.	Lee Seung-chul	Reflection of Sound	9.27	26,017	86,593
5.	Rain	Vol. 4 - I'm Coming	10.13	20,995	106,110
6.	Dong Bang Shin Gi	Vol. 3 - O-Union	9.28	20,046	349,317
7.	Brian	The Brian	12.18	15,376	15,376
8.	Bobby Kim	Vol. 2	12.11	13,723	13,723
9.	Sung Shi-gyung	Vol. 5	10.10	11,912	94,328
10.	Park Sang-min	Vol 11	12.01	11,008	11,008

(source: MIAK)

Foreign Sales:

This Month	Artist	Album Name	Release Date	This Month's Sales	Total Sales
1.	Il Divo	Siempre	12.01	7,233	7,233
2.	Richard Yongjae O'Neil	Lachrymae	9.07	6,498	19,454
3.	Various	Love and Memory	12.07	5,471	5,471
4.	The Beatles	Love	11.21	5,081	9,126
5.	Westlife	The Love Album	11.20	4,629	10,216
6.	Various	Step Up (OST)	10.24	4,407	4,761
7.	Shin Youngok	Love Duets	12.05	3,845	3,845
8.	Jo Sumi	With Love	8.25	3,418	19,055
9.	Various	Wine: Music & Story	10.19	3,404	5,410
10.	Kenny G	The Most Romantic Melodies	11.20	3,237	6,698

(source: MIAK)