Yonsama Wave Hits Korean Box Office

Posted by X at 9:30pm.

Posted in Box Office News, Comedy, Martial Arts, Drama, Action, Asia, Toronto Film Festival 2005.

Maxmovie released preliminary figures regarding this week’s online pre-order sales, and if there’s any lesson to learn from them, that’s to never trust my box office predictions anymore…

With the Chuseok Holidays (starting on September 17) looming in the background, the amazing popularity Bae Yong-Joon achieved in the last few years was the main selling point of Hur Jin-Ho’s ‘외출’ (’April Snow’), more than the fact it was directed by one of the country’s most important figures in deviating from cliched melodrama, or that it starred one of the top young talents in Son Ye-Jin.

Bae’s film debut (which wasn’t really his debut, but let’s not digress) in October 2003, Lee Jae-Yong’s ‘스캔들’ (’Untold Scandal’) scored an impressive 84.44% preorder rate at Maxmovie, but the 39.90% ‘April Snow’ scored is all the more impressive, facing competition from Lee Myung-Se’s ‘형사’ (’Duelist’), the comedy ‘가문의 위기’ (’Marrying The Mafia 2’) and the sensation of the summer, ‘웰컴 투 동막골’ (’Welcome To Dongmakgol’).

The drawing power of the popular actor is even more evident, since the Chuseok holidays season has long been dominated by comedies, whereas his film is a 18-rated melodrama with heavy themes. But it might just be another sign that the audience watching Korean films nowadays is changing. A lot of the biggest hits of the year have seen increasingly older demographics making up a larger part of their viewership. ‘April Snow’ is no different, as it achieved an impressive 50% ratio with 30-40 something viewers.

But Lee Myung-Se can be a happy man, too. His ‘Duelist’ scored an excellent 30.05%, and will have the largest number of screens compared to its three main competitors (consider that only 1/3 of the audience pre-orders tickets, and it’s a trend mostly confined to Seoul and the other larger cities like Busan, Daegu and Kwangju). It looks like Kang Dong-Won had a big effect on this result, since the film achieved a 77% in sales to women. Maybe that’ll change his character’s name to ‘Slightly Less Sad Eyes.’ The popular young idol had a hand (along with co-star Jo Han-Seon) in making ‘늑대의 유혹’ (’True Romance’) a big success, with rates for women approaching the 90%.

As expected, the only comedy of the bunch, ‘Marrying The Mafia 2’ earned some really respectable figures, with 17.01%, landing in third place. Although it’s less than half of what the original ‘가문의 영광’ (’Marrying The Mafia) scored (36.1% in 2002), considering the competition it’s a very good result. Also, as other comedies focusing on verbal wit and gangsters have shown before, there’s a good chance the film will become very successful outside Seoul, making this pre-order results a non-factor. The film scored OK with males, with 35%.

‘Dongmakgol’ is the only other film that will have a chance to compete with the ‘Big three.’ Even though its 9.95% is a big step down from last week and it certainly will not confirm its top spot for the 6th consecutive week, it looks like it could hit the 7 Million tickets mark with no big effort. An interesting factor in the film’s success is that Showbox distributes both this and ‘Marrying The Mafia 2,’ so how the screens will be allocated is still an issue. Of course Showbox wants to allow ‘Dongmakgol’ to make as much money as it can, but not cutting the potential of ‘Marrying The Mafia 2’ is also a cause for concern.

One thing I predicted well, at least. Korean films will totally, completely dominate the Holidays.

Data as of Tuesday

1. 외출 (April Snow) 39.76%
2. 형사 (Duelist) 30.11%
3. 가문의 위기 - 가문의 영광 2 (Marrying The Mafia 2) 17.11%
4. 웰컴 투 동막골 (Welcome To Dongmakgol) 9.95%
5. Night Flight 2.10%
6. 박수칠 때 떠나라 (The Big Scene) 0.45%
7. After The Sunset 0.21%
8. Guess Who? 0.11%
9. Crimson Rivers 2 0.11%
10. In Good Company 0.11%

Via Maxmovie