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[HanCinema's Box Office Review] 2015.01.16 ~ 2015.01.18

Fresh features help close gap on Yoon's "Ode"...

Park Jin-pyo's "Love Forecast" and Ha Jung-woo's "Chronicle of a Blood Merchant" were released last week and helped restore balance to box office.

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For the last five weeks it's been all "Ode to My Father" and, for the first time since "The Hobbit" mid-December, the film's lavish lead sunk to within striking distance. JK Youn's successful war drama captured 27.5% of the pie (808K) across 742 screens for gold, but had to defend its crown against the spritely rom-com "Love Forecast", starring Lee Seung-gi and Moon Chae-won.

Park Jin-pyo's "Love Forecast" claimed over 678K admissions (23.6%) across 709 screens to settle in second, just 125K short of a perfect start. And it was nearly clean sweep for the home team if "Chronicle of a Blood Merchant" coughed up another 6K, as it happened Shawn Levy's "Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb" (starring Ben Stiller, Owen Wilson, and the late Robin Williams) that fought hard for third, scoring 423K (13.7%) and outplaying Ha's 417K (14%). It was close scrap at the top, healthy competition that was been lacking since November.

In fifth place fell the latest Pokemon animation out of Japan ("Pokémon the Movie: Diancie and the Cocoon of Destruction"), it captured the cash of 126K filmgoers (3.8%) across 360 screens, and was closely tailed by "The Penguins of Madagascar" on 118K (3.7%).  

Clint Eastwood's "American Sniper", which stars Bradley Cooper, made its way into Korean theatres last Wednesday, and its first weekend out yielded 114K (4%), forcing "Taken 3" fall further down the chart. Last week the Neeson-studded "Taken 3" climbed as high as second in an notably uneventful weekend; it managed just 362K. This past week saw it exposed in light of the new entries injecting life back into the box, and it subsequently fell form second to eighth place, and the its 79K (2.7%) it squeezed out is still not enough to push it over the 2 million admissions mark.

The much-loved British bear "Paddington" tumbled terribly to, slipping four places to ninth (41K), and Jin Mo-young's recording-breaking documentary "My Love, Don't Cross That River" adds another 40K to its courageous cause. "My Love, Don't Cross That River" has been in top ten for eighth weeks now, and during that impressive performance this heart-felt drama garnered the attention of over 4.7M filmgoers ($34.2M)-Bravo!

 

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] 2015.01.09 ~ 2015.01.11

 

Korean Box Office - Admissions for the Weekend 2015.01.16 - 2015.01.18 (www.kobis.or.kr)

# Films Release date Week-end Total
1 "Ode to My Father" (국제시장) 2014/12/17 808 141 11 099 411
2 "Love Forecast" (오늘의 연애) 2015/01/14 678 612 973 272
3 "Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb"   422 737 555 878
4 "Chronicle of a Blood Merchant" (허삼관 매혈기) 2015/01/15 417 418 582 884
5 "Pokémon the Movie: Diancie and the Cocoon of Destruction" (ポケモン・ザ・ムービー XY 破壊の繭とディアンシー)   126 798 178 046
6 "The Penguins of Madagascar"   118 905 1 591 094
7 "American Sniper"   114 071 158 459
8 "Taken 3"   79 466 1 973 003
9 "Paddington"   41 134 292 549
10 "My Love, Don't Cross That River" (님아, 그 강을 건너지 마오) 2014/11/27 40 394 4 746 459
Korean movies only  
  "The Con Artists" (기술자들) 2014/12/24 11 715 2 559 329
  "Gangnam Blues" (강남 1970) 2015/01/21 6 068 8 269
  "How to Steal a Dog" (개를 훔치는 완벽한 방법) 2014/12/31 5 982 228 826
  "Casa Amor, Exclusive for Ladies" (워킹걸) 2015/01/08 5 529 140 644
  "Pororo, The Snow Fairy Village Adventure" (뽀로로 극장판 눈요정 마을 대모험) 2014/12/11 1 097 255 378
  "The Cat Funeral" (고양이 장례식) 2015/01/15 658 2 260
  "Ghost Over Flowers" (꽃보다처녀귀신) 2015/01/15 535 662
  "Clearer Than You Think" (생각보다 맑은) 2015/01/22 459 585
  "QUO VADIS" (쿼바디스) 2014/12/10 368 19 310
  "The Truth Shall Not Sink with Sewol" (다이빙벨) 2014/10/23 323 49 628

 

- C.J. Wheeler (@WoolgatheristKoreaOnTheCouch)

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