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[HanCinema's Box Office Review] 2016.08.05 ~ 2016.08.07

"The Last Princess" outmaneuvers "Operation Chromite" for pole position...

Heo Jin-ho's historical melodrama, "The Last Princess", arrived in theaters on Wednesday and narrowly outplayed John H. Lee's controversial war drama, "Operation Chromite". Last weekend, "Operation Chromite" captured 36.5% of the sales (1.8 million admissions) to claim pole position; week two, however, saw Lee's latest slip to second with 1 million admissions (22%) after "The Last Princess" attracted 1.1 million admissions (24%) from 963 screens around the country.

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"The Last Princess" (aka "Princess Deokhye") is Heo's eighth film (others include "Christmas in August", "April Snow", "Five Senses of Eros" and "Dangerous Liaisons") and is based on Kwon Bi-young's 2009 novel of the same name. In it, actress Son Ye-jin plays the last princess of the Joseon Dynasty, an unlucky royal that had the misfortune of being The Daughter of the Emperor Gwangmu.

With the million admissions collected over the weekend, "Operation Chromite" now moves its total tally to 5.2 million ($37 million) and so becomes the fifth-highest grossing film released in Korea in 2016 ("Train to Busan" and "A Violent Prosector" currently lead the way with 10 million and 9.7 million respectively).

The much-anticipated superhero film based on DC's antiheroes was next in third place with 761,995 admissions (16.6%). David Ayer's "Suicide Squad" stars Will Smith, Jared Leto, Margot Robbie, Joel Kinsman, Viola Davis; the film was also recently released in America and, currently, "Suicide Squad" has grossed $267 million worldwide (the film was produced for an estimated $175 million).

The 3D animation "The Secret Life of Pets" starring Louis C.K., Eric Stoneheart, Kevin Hart, Steve Coogan and Ellie Kemper arrived in Korea recently and its first weekend out yielded $4.6 million (639,664 admissions) from 726 screens, followed by last weekend's number two: Yeon Sang-ho's "Train to Busan". Yeon's first live action flick has been the star of summer flicks thus far, and with the 622,532 admissions (12.8%) it captured over the weekend, the film has crossed the 10 million admissions mark to become the highest grossing Korean film of the year.

The fifth installment of the Jason Bourne series of films, "Jason Bourne", was up next in sixth place with 270,340 admissions (5.64%), followed by the 2D Japanese animation "Detective Conan: The Darkest Nightmare" on 190,373 admissions (3.6%). The sequel to Pixar's 2003 hit "Finding Nemo" did not take off in Korea; since its release at the end of the first week of July, "Finding Dory" has amassed 2.5 million stubs (46,240 coming from this past weekend), or $18.4 million. Worldwide, "Finding Dory" has banked over $870 million.

The Japanese family drama "After the Storm" by Hirokazu Koreeda remained unmoved in ninth place and added an additional 13,169 admissions to move its total tally now to 51,401 thousand ($383,515). And tenth place fell to the fifth film in the "Ice Age" series of 3D animations: "Ice Age: Collision Course". "Collision Course" came out in Korea late July where it entered in third place. 10,189 (0.2%) admissions went its way over the weekend which was enough to secure tenth place and move its bottom line in Korea now to 547,408 admissions ($3.6 million).

 

Korean Box Office - Admissions for the Weekend 2016.08.05 - 2016.08.07 (www.kobis.or.kr)

# Films Release date Week-end Total
1 "The Last Princess" (덕혜옹주) 2016/08/03 1 169 282 1 705 147
2 "Operation Chromite" (인천상륙작전) 2016/07/27 1 077 750 5 243 010
3 "Suicide Squad"   761 773 1 416 608
4 "The Secret Life of Pets"   638 869 985 530
5 "Train to Busan" (부산행) 2016/07/20 622 296 10 038 401
6 "Jason Bourne"   270 057 2 359 360
7 "Detective Conan: The Darkest Nightmare" (名探偵コナン 純黒の悪夢(ナ)   190 373 336 469
8 "Finding Dory"   46 240 2 563 378
9 "After the Storm" (海よりもまだ深く)   13 025 51 030
10 "Ice Age: Collision Course"   10 123 546 286
Korean movies only  
  "Run-off" (국가대표2) 2016/08/10 7 883 20 050
  "Seondal: The Man Who Sells the River" (봉이 김선달) 2016/07/06 1 157 2 046 672
  "Bling" (슈퍼 프렌즈) 2016/08/10 1 055 8 748
  "The Handmaiden" (아가씨) 2016/06/01 771 4 286 422
  "The World of Us" (우리들) 2016/06/16 557 39 416
  "Tunnel" (터널) 2016/08/10 492 14 789
  "The Truth Beneath" (비밀은 없다) 2016/06/23 344 250 664
  "The Sun Never Gets Old" (태양은늙지않는다, 1970) - Re-release   159 159
  "The Drop Box" (드롭박스) 2016/05/19 96 2 040
  "Bleak Night" (파수꾼) 2011/03/03 82 24 492

 - Chris Wheeler

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