Back in 2008, we got all excited by the news that JUNG Ji-hoon (a.k.a. Rain) was going to perform in Speed Racer, a Hollywood blockbuster. And before that, even a brief performance of a Korean-American actor as a minor supporting role in an American TV series or film was greatly newsworthy. However, 7 years since Speed Racer, Korean actors’ presence in foreign movies is not anymore great news. Especially in the Asian film industry, it is a kind of everyday thing.

 

For these Korean stars abroad beyond the state boundary and language barrier, what is their performance like? The number of viewers and amount of sales are not everything, but certainly worth attention. Let us have a look at their performance in the foreign box office, of those in the world market.

 

 

 

The most active Korean actor in the American film market would definitely be LEE Byung-hun. His stay at Hollywood has been great from the start. In his Hollywood debut G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra (2009), he superbly played Storm Shadow along with distinguished actors including Channing Tatum and Joseph Gordon-Levitt. It went straight to the top place in the box office in the first week of release with USD 300 million sales, which lead to the production of G.I. Joe: Retaliation in 2013. Featuring LEE again, G.I. Joe: Retaliation has earned USD 375.74 million, making the G.I. series a successful brand.

 

However, I come with the Rain (2009) directed by TRAN Anh Hung and featuring Josh Hartnett and KIMURA Takuya was a complete disaster in terms of both sales and critique. RED 2, which opened in the same year as G.I. Joe: Retaliation, attracted as many as 3 million viewers in Korea although it did not reach No. 5 in the US box office. Likewise, Terminator Genisys, featuring LEE as T-1000, did not do well in the North American market defeated by Inside Out and Jurassic World, but still achieved USD 440.16 million sales thanks to the world market. Next year, we will be able to see LEE in The Magnificent Seven along with Chris Pratt and Denzel Washington, and Beyond Deceit with Anthony Hopkins and Al Pacino.

 

JUNG Ji-hoon and BAE Doo-na’s arrivals in Hollywood were made possible by Andy and Lana Wachowski. JUNG Ji-hoon performed in the Wachowskis’ Speed Racer (2008) and in the following year, he took the central role in Ninja Assassin (2009) produced by the Wachowskis and directed by James McTeigue, who used to be their assistant director. BAE Doo-na performed in Cloud Atlas co-directed the Wachowskis and Tom Tykwer. She also played a unique character in Jupiter Ascending.

 

Unfortunately, these works by the Wachowskis did not do quite well in terms of sales. Speed Racer earned just USD 93.94 million. Cloud Atlas and Jupiter Ascending earned barely above the production fee with USD 130.48 million and USD 183.88 million respectively.

 

BAE is continuing partnership with the Wachowskis, this time with an SF TV series Sense8 (2015) produced by Netflix. JUNG Ji-hoon performed in The Prince (2014), his first Hollywood movie since Ninja Assassin, and now is headed for China, performing in For Love or Money (2014) with LIU Yifei, earning CNY 66.15 million sales.

 

Claudia KIM made big news to be in The Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015) which reached the 6th place in the all time best box office chart with 1.4 billion USA sales. She also performed in an independent film Equals with Kristen Stewart and Nicholas Hoult. It also featured PARK Yu-hwan and was invited to the Venice International Film Festival last September, with the theater release scheduled for next year. 

 

 

 

 

In 2011, JUN played in Wayne WANG’s Snow Flower and the Secret Fan with Hugh Jackman and LI Bingbing. It was a USD 6 million-low budget movie distributed by Fox Searchlight in North America, and gained a satisfactory USD 11.34 million sales. It is not a Bill KONG movie, yet he helped her recruitment.

 

JANG Dong-gun’s The Promise directed by CHEN Kaige had the biggest budget in Chinese movie history, of USD 35 million. The US market was not at all favorable for this film: screened at 213 theaters nationwide, only earning USD 500 thousand or so in 10 days of release. However, the response was quite different in China. It became one of the most successful films in China, earning USD 9 million in just 4 days. However, failure of JANG’s debut in Hollywood, The Warrior’s Way (2010), directed by LEE Seung-moo, was evident. While the cost was USD 42 million, it only made a USD 11.08 million sales in the box office. In Korea the accumulated viewers were merely 430 thousand or so.

 

CHOI Si-won was already a film actor in A Battle of Wits (2006) before he joined Super Junior, a K-pop boy band. He kept up with both jobs as a singer and an actor going back and forth Korea and the Chinese speaking region, and performed in three chinese films this year, To The Fore, Dragon Blade and Helios. They all earned a satisfactory sales of CNY 145.24 million, 743.83 million and 209.74 million, making CHOI a leading Asian actor to perform with distinguished actors including Jackie CHAN, Adrien Brody, John Cusack and Eddie PENG.

 

KWON Sang-woo is also headed for China, playing in 12 Chinese Zodiac Heads (2012) where Jackie CHAN was the director and also played in it. 12 Chinese Zodiac Heads is the most successful Chinese movie featuring a Korean actor, earning CNY 881.81 million, which led KWON to perform in Shadows of Love (2012) and Honey Enemy (2015), creating a filmography with both Korean and Chinese films. 

 

SONG Hye-kyo’s first films in the Chinese speaking region have been with two of its grand masters: WONG Kar-wai and John WOO. WONG’s superb action film The Grandmaster (2012) earned CNY 290.23 million, WOO’s The Crossing (part 1 and 2 combined) (2014) earned CNY 250.42 million.

 

SO Ji-sub’s Korean-Chinese co-production Sophie’s Revenge (2009), PARK Han-byul’s Bunshinsaba 2 (2014), directed by AN Byung-ki, an active director in China, had a quite good performance of CNY 91.99 million and CNY 82.17 million respectively, but SO and PARK are both still concentrating in domestic career.

 

A long time Korean wave star SONG Seung-heon performed in The Third Way of Love (2015) which was released in China last September, and will also be in The Bombing (2016) along with Bruce Willis and Nicholas TSE. SON Ye-jin is featured in Bad Guys Always Die produced by a major Korean blockbuster director KANG Je-kyu and Chinese director-producer FENG Xiaogang, which is soon to be released in Korea and China.

 

 

 

In 2014, CHOI Min-shik earned the title of box office hit maker. Roaring Currents where he played Admiral YI Sun-shin became the all time biggest hit of Korea, and Lucy, which is his Hollywood debut where he worked with Luc Besson and Scarlet Johansson, made USD 458.86 million sales which is more than 10 times the production cost.

 

LEE Min-ho and LEE Joon-gi are about to step in the Chinese and American markets respectively. LEE Min-ho is to play in a USD 31 million budget Korean-Chinese co-produced action film Bounty Hunters with Wallace CHUNG. LEE Joon-gi’s Hollywood debut is going to be the last episode of the Resident Evil series. Resident Evil: The Final Chapter is to be directed by Paul W.S. Andersen who also directed the first, fourth and fifth movies of the series, and is to be released in early 2017.