Stream K-Dramas at OnDemandKorea

[HanCinema's Box Office Review] 2014.07.18 ~ 2014.07.20

Koreans continue to go ape for Reeves' revolutionary rendition...

Advertisement

Matt Reeves' apes enjoyed a second term at the top as it continued its dominance as Korea's film of choice. Last weekend "Dawn of the Planet of the Apes", the sequel to the 2011 film "Rise of the Planet of the Apes", entered the Korean market and captured 47% of box office pie to take gold. Week two for the blockbuster was just as successful as it added another 1M stubs (48.5%) to bring its total tally now to 3.1M ($24.3M). The only local representatives in this weekend's top ten came in the form of "The Divine Move", "Confession", as well as Kim Seong-hun's action drama "A Hard Day".

Jo Beom-goo's "The Divine Move" has enjoyed consistent support since its release on the third of July. The film claimed 925K in week 1, 622K in week 2, and over this past weekend added another 476K (22.8%) to its cause. Jo's drama now moves to 3.1M admissions ($25.2M) and has subsequently just overtaken "The Target" (2.8M) as the fifth highest grossing Korean film of the year. Following it was the robotic riots of Michael Bay's latest "Transformers" film, a huge performer globally and whose Korean chapter amounts to over $42.3M (5M admissions). Bay's titans came out in Korea late June and have remained a serious contender in charts ever since.

In fourth we find the Japanese horror flick "JU-ON : The Beginning of the End", the seventh installment of the "JU-ON" franchise, which attracted just over 200K Korean filmgoers (8.9%). Japanese films rarely climb this high in the chart, but Masayuki Ochiai's efforts here have managed to rally valuable Korean support. Trailing behind in fifth, and marking somewhat of watershed in terms of admissions, came Lee Do-yoon's "Confession" with 63K (2.9%). The film is Lee's debut as a director and he's also credited with having written the screenplay for the film. Thus far Lee's opening act has attracted over 378K Korean filmgoers and banked $2.9M. "Confession" was only released two weeks ago (where it entered in fourth with 148K admissions), but has struggled to challenge the foreign blockbusters and local leaders, such as "The Divine Move", for a filling piece of box office pie.

"Bunshinsaba 2", a Chinese horror by director Ahn Byeong-ki, and the Russian animation "Kikoriki: Team Invincible" came in sixth and seventh with 44K (1.8%) and 17K (0.7%) respectively, followed by Kim Seong-hun's popular action film: "A Hard Day" (13.7K - 0.6%). "A Hard Day" has performed well considering it's had to battle the likes of "X-Men: Days of Future Past", "Edge of Tomorrow", "Transformers", and now the latest in the "Planet of the Apes" series. But despite all that stiff competition, the film has managed to amass an impressive 3.4M admissions ($26.2M) over its eight weeks in the top ten. The film has never tasted gold, but its perseverance has still seen it become the fourth highest grossing Korean film of the year thus far. Lastly, the weekend's top ten was closed by the American comedy drama "Frances Ha" by Noah Baumbach (12K) and William Eubank's sci-fi thriller "The Signal" (9K).

 

What's coming out next week in Korea? [HanCinema's Film News] New Korean Films Inbound...

Last weekend's report: [HanCinema's Box Office Review] 2014.07.11 ~ 2014.07.13

 

Korean Box Office - Admissions for the Weekend 2014.07.18 - 2014.07.20 (www.kobis.or.kr)

# Films Release date Week-end Total
1 "Dawn of the Planet of the Apes"   1 052 182 3 142 836
2 "The Divine Move" (신의 한수) 2014/07/03 476 694 3 194 568
3 "Transformers: Age of Extinction"   213 038 5 219 572
4 "JU-ON : The Beginning of the End" (呪怨 -終わりの始まり-)   204 559 291 040
5 "Confession" (좋은 친구들) 2014/07/10 63 709 378 033
6 "Bunshinsaba 2" (筆仙 Ⅱ)   44 825 62 817
7 "Kikoriki: Team Invincible" (Смешарики. Начало Kikoriki)   17 899 19 122
8 "A Hard Day" (끝까지 간다) 2014/05/29 13 725 3 440 914
9 "Frances Ha"   12 576 18 474
10 "The Signal"   9 519 101 773
Korean movies only  
  "Mourning Grave" (소녀괴담) 2014/07/03 7 465 479 289
  "Santa Barbara" (산타바바라) 2014/07/17 7 016 11 593
  "Non-Fiction Diary" (논픽션 다이어리) 2014/07/17 1 783 3 059
  "KUNDO : Age of the Rampant" (군도:민란의 시대) 2014/07/23 766 13 334
  "BLACKDEAL" (블랙딜) 2014/07/03 323 7 650
  "Gyeongju" (경주) 2014/06/12 287 62 443
  "Roaring Currents" (명량-회오리바다) 2014/07/30 238 238
  "Her Addiction" (중독애) 2014/07/16 187 976
  "The Barefooted Young" (1964, 맨발의 청춘) - Re-release   166 5 652
  "One Night Only" (원나잇온리) 2014/07/03 74 2 625

 

- C.J. Wheeler (chriscjw@gmail.com@KoreaOnTheCouch)

❎ Try Ad-free