Report
VETERAN Stays Newcomers in Round 3
During the last weekend of the summer holiday period in Korea, local films retained the advantage with a commanding 81% of the marketplace, as the top three entries were homebred, while overall admissions stood at 3.14 million.
Performing a third victory lap atop the charts after a 40% post-holiday weekend dip was RYOO Seung-wan’s action-comedy Veteran, which added 1.35 million viewers (USD 9.13 million) for a stellar 9.04 million total (USD 59.6 million). Star HWANG Jung-min has parlayed his tough-talking cop role into a very visible mobile game endorsement while his film appears set to saunter past the 10 million viewer mark at some point this weekend.
In second place, BAIK’s glossy romance The Beauty Inside bowed to a solid, if unremarkable, 486,204 admissions (USD 3.27 million). The high concept tale, starring HAN Hyo-joo and a bevy of other stars, is looking comfortable on the reservations chart and is receiving generally positive notices from audiences.
A fraction lower was CHOI Dong-hoon’s Assassination, which was down 51% in its fifth week for an additional 484,200 admissions (USD 3.24 million). Having accrued an enormous 11.59 million viewers (USD 75.48 million), the period action romp is now ninth in the all time domestic rankings and tenth overall.
Further behind with just 234,521 (USD 1.53 million) was The Fantastic Four reboot which fared poorly, just as it has in other markets. Rounding out the top five was Mission: Impossible-Rogue Nation with 135,315 (USD 926,498), which is a few days away from the six million mark (USD 50.33 million).
Cineguru (Daou Tech)’s local horror entry The Chosen: Forbidden Cave from KIM Hwi, which debuted as the closing film of the Bucheon International Fantastic Film Festival (BiFan) this year, was dead on arrival with a 64,228 (USD 434,829) debut at number eight.
On the diversity chart, Korean Academy of Film Arts indie Alice in Earnestland slid just 42% for another 6,895 viewers (USD 49,489), for an impressive total of 33,355 (USD 228,194).
Holdovers look set to dominate once again as this week’s new releases, which include the local cop comedy Untouchable Lawmen, Chinese fantasy Snow Girl and the Dark Crystal and action sequel Hitman: Agent 47 are tracking for soft openings.
