2019/08/01
Song Kang-ho has long been considered a major box office draw in South Korea. Only a few months ago he had the leading actor credit on the ten million viewer hit "Parasite".
Last year's "Drug King", a low performing film by Song Kang-ho's standards, managed 1.8 million viewers at the box office. But "The King's Letters" is currently set to only make half that amount, having failed to reach number one in its first weekend and now completely pushed aside by "The Divine Fury" and "Exit - Movie".
Controversy over the alleged plagiarism did the movie no favors. It was unclear whether "The King's Letters" would be allowed to screen in theaters at all until shortly before its scheduled release. Poor communication by the distribution company over this issue immediately put "The King's Letters" at a disadvantage. But negative response by viewers to the movie's depressing tone firmly prevented a possible rebound.
This has created a discouraging situation for Megabox Plus M, which had been expecting at least a 3.5 million viewer response to "The King's Letters". Similarly anemic response to the Kim Nam-gil headlined "The Odd Family: Zombie On Sale" and "Long Live the King" from "The Outlaws" director Kang Yoon-Sung has further weakened the company's position. "Beasts Clawing at Straws" with Jung Woo-sung remains their last major hope for the year.
Written by William Schwartz
Staff writer. Has been writing articles for HanCinema since 2012, having lived in South Korea since 2011. Started out in Gyeongju, then to Daegu, then to Ansan, then to Yeongju, then to Seoul, lived on the road for HanCinema's travel diaries series in the summer of 2016, and is currently settled in Anyang. Has good tips for utilizing South Korea's public bus system. William Schwartz can be contacted via william@hancinema.net. He also has a substack at williamschwartz.substack.com where he discusses the South Korean film industry in broader terms and takes suggestions for future movies to review.
"[HanCinema's News] The Unexpected Failure of "The King's Letters""
by HanCinema is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.
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