The first two and a half weeks of January were notable for the continued strength of films released in December. This is due to the fact that there were few major releases in the period between Christmas and the Lunar New Year holiday (which falls this year Jan. 22 - 24).

 

Topping the chart by a considerable margin was <Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol>, which took 1.95 million admissions in the month to date. Its total after 33 days on release is a very impressive 7.03 million tickets, which makes it the fifth best-selling imported film in Korean box office history. The only other Hollywood films to perform better are <Avatar> with 13.3 million admissions, <Transformers 3> with 7.78 million admissions, <Transformers 2> with 7.40 million admissions, and <Transformers> with 7.39 million admissions. The film has already sold close to 2 million more tickets than the third film in the <Mission: Impossible> franchise, which topped out at 5.12 million admissions. Although it has started to slip in the box office rankings, the upcoming Lunar New Year holiday will give it a good chance of catching up with some of the <Transformers> films.

 

Other holdovers that continued to do well include <Sherlock Holmes: Game of Shadows> and Korean sports drama <Perfect Game>. The former added 834,000 admissions to bring its total to 2.19 million tickets (almost precisely the same score of the 2009 <Sherlock Holmes> film). A baseball movie based on two legendary real-life pitchers, <Perfect Game> added 615,000 admissions to reach 1.43 million. The film had a comparatively weak opening on Dec. 21 for Lotte Entertainment, but it was helped along by positive word-of-mouth for the nuanced performances of actors CHO Seung-woo and YANG Dong-geun.

 

The World War II epic <My Way> from director KANG Je-kyu, also released on Dec. 21, performed at a similar level to <Perfect Game>, selling 546,000 new tickets. However, given the film's very high budget, expectations were vastly higher and so this score was considered a deep disappointment. <My Way> has sold 2.13 million tickets to date, and appears to have just about reached the end of its run.

 

Meanwhile, a milestone was reached by CJ E&M’s <Spellbound>, starring the popular actress SON Ye-jin. Despite being released way back on Dec. 1, the film continued to sell tickets in January, racking up another 208,000 tickets to bring its total to just over the 3 million admissions mark. SON plays a young woman who, after a near death experience, is tormented by visions of dead people and leads a solitary life until one day she crosses the path of a stage magician, played by LEE Min-gi.

 

Three January releases made it onto the top 10 chart, with Showbox’s Korean romance <Love On-Air> (a.k.a. “Wonderful Radio”) landing at #3 with 834,000 tickets sold since its Jan. 5 release. Directed by KWON Chil-in (<Singles>) and featuring rising star actress RHEE Min-jung, the film centers around the relationship between a radio DJ who used to be a famous singer, and her new bad-tempered producer.

 

Jan. 11 release <Puss in Boots>, a spinoff of the popular <Shrek> franchise, sold almost as many tickets (825,000) despite being released a week later. It has the distinction of being the film that finally knocked <Mission: Impossible 4> out of the #1 slot during the Jan. 13 - 15 weekend.

 

Finally, the Hollywood adaptation of the popular novel <The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo> sold 279,000 tickets in seven days to land in the #8 slot. Directed by David Fincher, the film was released just one week later than the Swedish feature film based on the same novel. Niels Arden Oplev’s version was originally produced back in 2009, but had never been released in Korea. Opening on a just a few screens, the Swedish version ended up selling just 1,500 tickets.

 

A look at the extended Top 10 list for domestic films reveals an unusual circumstance: the #6 - 10 slots are all filled by films that had not been officially released yet. A large number of preview screenings have taken place for Korean films that will be released just ahead of the Lunar New Year holiday. Four Korean films in total will be competing for viewers. The first, <Dancing Queen>, is about a Seoul mayoral candidate (HWANG Jung-min) and his wife (UHM Jung-hwa) who is obsessed with dancing.

 

The second, <Pace Maker>, stars KIM Myung-min as an aging marathoner who is invited on to Korea's Olympic team to serve as the "pace maker" for a talented young athlete. The bittersweet romantic comedy <Never Ending Story> is about a man and a woman (played by EOM Tae-woong and JUNG Ryeo-won) who are each diagnosed with inoperable brain tumors.

 

Lastly, social drama <Unbowed> from director CHUNG Ji-young is based on a real-life court case in which a professor who threatened a prominent judge with a crossbow goes through what he believes to be a highly biased trial. Starring AHN Sung-ki as the professor, the film has stirred up considerable interest in broader society for the issues it raises about Korea's legal system.

 

In the new year, KOFIC’s Box Office Information Service (KOBIS) launched a new website which lists a weekly top five among specialty or art-house releases. For the week lasting from Jan. 9 - 15, the top five films were (1) Japanese film <I Wish> with 5,420 admissions; (2) documentary <The Swell Season> with 4,951 admissions; (3) Spanish-UK animated film <Chico and Rita> with 3,429 admissions; (4) American independent comedy <Barney's Version> with 2,771 admissions; and (5) Spanish director Pedro Almodovar's <The Skin I Live in> with 1,954 admissions.

 

<I Wish> has been performing strongly ever since its release on Dec. 22, and it has amassed an impressive total of 30,055 admissions. The total of 11,577 for <The Skin I Live in> can also be considered quite strong for a small-scale release of this type.