[HanCinema's News] Genre Films to Close Out August

While the four major big-budget films of the summer have been released three relatively high profile genre films with well-known casts remain on the August release calendar. The horror film "Metamorphosis" and the historical era comedy film "Jesters: The Game Changers" will release on August 21st, while the multi-year romance "Tune in for Love" comes out on August 28th.

Over the weekend "Exit - Movie" passed seven and a half million viewers, while "The Battle: Roar to Victory" just passed the four million viewer mark. In past summers these movies would have been in an excellent position for continued box office dominance. However, strong upcoming competition from genre films may limit their viability. "Extreme Job" and "Parasite" were both buoyed past the ten million viewer mark in the face of generally weak competition.

"Metamorphosis" and "Jesters: The Game Changers", ironically enough, have benefited from good buzz in large part because two of the major big budget films this summer, "The Divine Fury" and "The King's Letters", were such unexpected failures. "Metamorphosis" is promising to be the supernatural horror film "The Divine Fury" was not, while "Jesters: The Game Changers" is likely to be a significantly more cheerful spin on Joseon-era science.

"Tune in for Love" has two major romantic stars in the form of Jung Hae-in and Kim Go-eun, but the movie's real big draw has been the lack of a major domestic South Korean romance so far this year. The last one, "On Your Wedding Day", released at about this same time last year and was, for a romantic genre film, a fairly strong success at the box office, taking in close to three million viewers and winning its fair share of awards.

Written by William Schwartz

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"Metamorphosis" is directed by Kim Hong-seon, and features Bae Sung-woo, Sung Dong-il, Jang Young-nam, Baek Yoon-sik, Kim Hye-jun, Cho Yi-hyun. Release date in Korea: 2019/08/21.

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"Jesters: The Game Changers" is directed by Kim Joo-ho, and features Cho Jin-woong, Son Hyun-joo, Park Hee-soon, Ko Chang-seok, Choi Won-young, Kim Seul-gi. Release date in Korea: 2019/08/21.

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"Tune in for Love" is directed by Jeong Ji-woo, and features Kim Go-eun, Jung Hae-in, Park Hae-joon, Kim Guk-hee, Jung Yoo-jin, Choi Joon-young. Release date in Korea: 2019/08/28.