2012 Korean Films in a Nutshell

Well, Jiwon. Sounds like there's a lot of interesting films out there this Christmas season.

[Reporter : Park Ji-won] Yes, but not only for this Christmas season.
There have been a lot of interesting Korean movies all year long.
2012 was a record-breaking year, both in the number of total film ticket sales,. and Korean film ticket sales.

According to the Korean Film Council, the total number of ticket sales, combining both Korean and foreign films, as of Monday, reached well over 186-million.
That's a 26 percent increase,.. compared to the year 2010.
However, the growth in the number of movie-goers was led mainly by the popularity of Korean films.
Korean films accounted for less than 50 percent of overall ticket sales in 2010, but it was 60 percent this year.
Two Korean films in particular did very well.
The action-comedy "The Thieves", and the historical drama "Masquerade",. each sold over 10-million tickets, placing them as two of the top three biggest box office hits in Korean film history.
While 28 Korean films have sold over a million tickets this year, seven of the Korean films, like 'Architecture 101', and "A Werewolf Boy", have each attracted over four million viewers.
And director Kim Ki-duk winning the top prize at the Venice Film Festival also highlighted the strong performance of Korean films this year.

[Reporter : Ji-won] Well, as I was covering film-related news this year, I've seen most of the Korean films that drew millions of viewers, and they were all pretty good.
What was your favorite Korean film this year ~~

[Reporter : Ji-won] And one thing to keep in mind also is that film critics say they were pleased to see a more diverse genre of films attracting viewers, films like "Unbowed" or "26 Years", which are based on true events and have strong social messages.
It seems like that more and more Korean viewers not only watch films to entertain themselves, but also to learn more about society.

Thanks Jiwon, for the special coverage on films today. And, we'll be seeing you all throughout this week.

[Reporter : ] Sure, see you tomorrow.

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Reporter : jiwonpark@arirang.co.kr