[HanCinema's Box Office Review] 2015.06.26 ~ 2015.06.28

A rush of fresh blood dislodges "Jurassic World"...

A string of new flicks, both foreign and domestic, flooded Korea cinemas last week, and in the aftermath of the weekend a new championed emerged. For the past few weeks the gigantically successful "Jurassic World" (which has, to date, banked over $1.2B worldwide) has dominated Korean screens with its ferocious abominations, but this past weekend saw a new favourite rise to the top, a local flick that's based on a true story of war and young courage.

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Kim Hak-soon's "Northern Limit Line" opened in Korea on the 24th to over a 1,000 screens around the country. The film, which stars Kim Mu-yeol, Jin Goo and Lee Hyun-woo) claimed 40.4 % of the box office to steal the crown from Colin Trevorrow's "Jurassic World" with just over 1.1 million admissions ($7.8M). "Jurassic World" managed 641 thousand admissions which moved its bottom line in Korea to $34.8 million (4.4 million admissions). Close behind the devastating dinosaurs came another local entry, "The Classified File" starring Kim Yun-seok and Yoo Hae-jin, which fell just the one place from last weekend's result. Showbox's "The Classified Files" was given 661 screens from which to pull from, and from them it managed to attract 505K to its cause. The top three films managed to capture over 80% of the box office pie, with "The Classified Files" marking the watershed between those who scored, and those who featured.

In fourth place came another new local entry, this time an original drama by Kim Seong-je. "Minority Opinion" is a drama about the "Yongsan Crisis" conceptualised by Son Aram. The film stars a string of local talents, namely Yoon Kye-sang, Yoo Hae-jin, Kim Ok-vin, Lee Kyung-young, Kim Eui-sung and Jang Gwang, and from the 398 screens allocated to it managed just 139K admissions ($1.4 million). That's less than half of what "The Classified File" claim, and double that of fifth place holder "Ted 2".

Seth Macfarlane's sequel to the popular 2012 comedy "Ted" has arrived in Korea to a lukewarm reception. "Ted 2" was released in Korea on Thursday and took fifth place over the weekend with a little over 71K admissions to its name ($656K), but almost lost out on a top five finish as the local action comedy "Intimate Enemies" (starring Ryoo Seung-bum and Go Joon-hee) racked up 66K admissions over 375 screens during its opening weekend. In seventh place came the French animation "The Jungle Bunch 2" with 26K, followed by Will Canon's horror flick "Demonic" (21K).

Last weekend Lee Hae-yeong's mystery film "The Silenced" (featuring Park Bo-yeaong and Uhm Ji-won) shot straight to third, but week two for Lee's latest has not aged well. "The Silenced" had it screens slashed from 489 to 274 in little over a week, and with the 19K admissions it scored here moves its total tally now to just 344K ($2.3M). Lastly, the list of this past weekend's top performers was closed out by the Japanese film "Midnight Diner" which fell four places to tenth with 19K to write home about.

Korean Box Office - Admissions for the Weekend 2015.06.26 - 2015.06.28 (www.kobis.or.kr)

- C.J. Wheeler (@Woolgatherist; KoreaOnTheCouch)