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[HanCinema's Box Office Review] 2014.04.04 ~ 2014.04.06

"Captain America" strikes again…

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After weeks of cycling the crown the Korean box office has finally awarded a second term at the top. Marvel's "Captain America: The Winter Soldier" stormed onto the scene last weekend and has managed to retain the number one position with over 760K admissions. The film, which recently broke the April ticket tally in the States, now moves onto 2.6M admissions in Korea and has grossed over $303M worldwide. Its nearest rival came in the form of the French-American thriller "3 Days to Kill", directed by Joseph McGinty Nichol (aka "McG") with the story itself by Luc Besson, which managed second place with only 117,175 admissions to its name.

"3 Days to Kill" stars Kevin Costner in an action outing that came out late February in the U.S. and has since pocketed $35M internationally. Critics have been hard on McG's efforts, but that didn't prevent over 117K Korean cinephiles going into the dark and deciding for themselves. Its lukewarm arrival was good enough for silver, but only just as the biblical epic "Noah" lapped at its heels with 117K of its own. "Noah" flooded Korea late last month where it was hailed by almost a million moviegoers. Since then, however, the Christian tale has bobbed down the chart as it approaches the 2 million admissions mark.

In fourth, and down just the one place, came Lee Han's drama "Thread of Lies" with 95,631 stubs. That pushed Lee's fifth feature onto 1.5M since its release on the 13th of last month. Lee impressed back in 2011 with "Punch", a compelling drama starring Kim Yun-seok and Yoo Ah-in that earned critical approval and banked over 5.3M admissions. Not far behind in fifth came the comedy drama "The Grand Budapest Hotel" with 88,552, which in turn was tailed by Peter Berg's "Lone Survivor" that snuck in with 79K. Berg's war drama is based on the book by Marcus Luttrell and Patrick Robinson and dramatizes the true story of a failed Navy SEALs counter-insurgent mission in Afghanistan. 

At number seven was the new Japanese animation film "Crayon Shin-chan: Baka-uma! B-kyu Gourmet Survival!!" with 44,277 tickets sold, followed by Tracy Letts's black comedy "August: Osage Country" with 29,633. Korean films will be looking to improve their representation in the top ten in the coming weeks, but for now the only other local flick that made it into the top tier was Kim Myeong-gyoon's "Mr. Perfect" starring Yoon Si-yoon and Yeo Jin-goo. "Mr. Perfect" is Kim's first time in the director's chair, but also wrote "Mr. Perfect" and did produce the screenplay for both "Holy Daddy" and the enchanting "Chunhyang" before taking his seat. "Mr. Perfect" opened its account with the support of 22,178 filmgoers and thoroughly outplayed "Son Of God" in tenth which was able to amass a meek 6,850 admissions.

 

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] 2014.03.28 ~ 2014.03.30


Korean Box Office - Admissions for the Weekend 2014.04.04 - 2014.04.06 (www.kobis.or.kr)

# Films Release date Week-end Total
1 "Captain America: The Winter Soldier"   762 126 2 611 964
2 "'3 Days to Kill'"   117 175 144 593
3 "Noah"   117 029 1 957 967
4 "Thread of Lies" (우아한 거짓말) 2014/03/13 95 631 1 551 975
5 "The Grand Budapest Hotel"   88 552 424 500
6 "Lone Survivor"   78 956 118 297
7 "Crayon Shin-chan: Baka-uma! B-kyu Gourmet Survival!!" (映画クレヨンしんちゃん バカうまっ! B級グルメサバイバル!!)   44 377 47 476
8 "August: Osage County"   29 633 40 518
9 "Mr. Perfect" (백프로) 2014/04/03 22 178 29 136
10 "Son Of God"   6 850 8 090
Korean movies only  
  "Miss Granny" (수상한 그녀) 2014/01/23 1 119 8 650 383
  "Monster - Movie" (몬스터) 2014/03/13 574 526 114
  "Mansin: Ten Thousand Spirits" (만신) 2014/03/06 560 34 169
  "Innocent Thing" (가시) 2014/04/10 494 3 061
  "Broken" (방황하는 칼날) 2014/04/10 461 5 709
  "Tinker Ticker" (들개) 2014/04/03 319 699
  "Apostle" (신이 보낸 사람) 2014/02/13 313 420 304
  "The Nut Job" (넛잡: 땅콩 도둑들)   264 478 081
  "Mulberry" (뽕, 1986) - Re-release   199 353
  "My Boy" (마이보이) 2014/04/10 182 1 182

 

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

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