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[HanCinema's News] "The Roundup" Sets Expectations for Potentially Huge Blockbuster Summer

"The Roundup" has greatly emboldened the South Korean film industry, with the action film being the first high performer at the South Korean box office since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. After a weak 2020 summer box office and an almost nonexistent 2021 summer box office, hopes are now high for two other big sequels that will premiere over the next two months. "The Roundup" itself is the sequel to the popular film "The Outlaws" from 2017.

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Next up will be "The Witch : Part 2. The Other One" on June 15th. The supernaturally themed film is the sequel to "The Witch : Part 1. The Subversion from 2018. The first film performed relatively modestly at the box office, exceeding only three million admissions. Yet as was the case with "The Outlaws" many have noted the clear longlasting influence of "The Witch : Part 1. The Subversion" on South Korean pop culture. Among other achievements, it launched the career of Kim Da-mi.

But the greatest expectations of all are for "Hansan: Rising Dragon" in July. Technically a prequel rather than a sequel, "Hansan: Rising Dragon" functions as a follow-up to "The Admiral: Roaring Currents" from writer/director Kim Han-min. The story deals with another real-life historical battle helmed by the legendary Yi Sun-shin, with the admiral now being played by Park Hae-il rather than Choi Min-sik, due to the story taking place five years earlier.

"The Admiral: Roaring Currents" is the all-time box office leader in South Korea with over seventeen million admissions back in 2014. That was a very different time for the South Korean film industry, which has struggled to scrape together that many admissions for every film put together in the post-COVID era. But with "The Roundup" eyeing the ten million viewer mark, a banner year for South Korean films may well be in sight.

Written by William Schwartz

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