All eyes in Korea's film industry are now trained on whether "The King and the Clown" (Wang-ui namja) will set a new record as the country's biggest box office hit after breaking the 10 million viewer mark last weekend.
It is the third movie produced in Korea to reach the 10-million milestone at the box office, following "Taegukgi" and "Silmido" in early 2004. "Taegukgi" attracted 11.74 million viewers and "Silmido" drew 11.08 million moviegoers.
The question is whether the period drama featuring court jesters and homosexuality will overtake the country's No. 1 hit "Taegukgi" in terms of ticket sales.
The media spotlight on the low-budget film reaching the 10-million viewer record is also helping drive up sales. Positive reviews by critics and moviegoers are circulating widely on the internet, and audiences have expressed a largely satisfactory reaction. As a result, moviegoers who haven't yet watched the film are lured into watching it, spurred by word of mouth or the click of a mouse.
Since its opening on Dec. 29, "The King and the Clown" has maintained a No. 1 or No. 2 position at the box office, staving off attacks from new films. In recent weeks, a handful of comedies have been released, but have hardly managed to push "The King and the Clown" off the top spots.
Not only distributors but also many viewers are now expecting the movie to set a big record.
Incorporating a homosexual code, the film features two clowns who attempt to save their lives by making the king laugh. The landmark success of the movie has propelled the once obscure actor Lee Jun-ki into the media spotlight.
The movie's production cost is a mere 4.4 billion won, below the average production budget of Korean films set at 5 billion won. But the movie, directed by
Lee Joon-ik, was hailed as a "well-made" work in terms of cinematic quality and acting.
Meanwhile, movie critics are saying that Korea should set up a reliable box office data system. The ticket sales data of "The King and the Clown", for instance, came from its distributor Cinema Service, which does not have the database reflecting all the theaters in the nation.
The state-run Korea Film Council collects ticket sales data from 189 theaters, which have a total of 1,038 screens. But the total number of theater screens across the nation is 1,551. In other words, 16 percent of theater screens are outside of the data collection system. Cinema Service's announcement for the 10-million mark sales, of course, is based on its own estimate.
While theaters in the Seoul metropolitan area are mostly registered with the Korea Film Council database, regional theaters do not provide data to the central system, making it difficult to produce accurate ticket sales data. Although the state-run film promotion institution has long urged local theaters to join the system, certain theaters still remain reluctant to give out their detailed sales data.
By Yang Sung-jin
