[HanCinema's Box Office Review] 2015.11.27 ~ 2015.11.29

Local Delights Dominate as "Inside Men" and "The Priests" hold true at the top...

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Woo Min-ho's "Inside Men" retained the top spot in the charts over the weekend and managed to increase its admissions share to 55.4%. The film, which stars Lee Byung-hun, Cho Seung-woo and Baek Yoon-sik, claimed 1.2 million admissions across 1,129 screens (up from last weekend's 1,075) to move its total tally to 3.5 million ($24 million). There was no real challenge to its dominance as its closest rival, "The Priests", earned the attention of just 237 thousand moviegoers (10.8%).

Last weekend, these two flicks were the only local films to feature in the top ten, but this week they were joined at the top of pile by two news releases in the form of Jeong Gi-hoon's drama "You Call It Passion" and Lee Jong-pil's period piece, "The Sound of a Flower".

"You Call It Passion" stars Jung Jae-young and Park Bo-young in a comedy-drama based on a novel by Lee Hye-rin about a sports journalist who struggles to survive the intense entertainment industry. The film was allocated 560 screens around the country, and from them attracted the interest of 224 thousand filmgoers (10%), while "The Sound of a Flower" claimed 138 thousand (6%) across 563 screens. Both films were released on Wednesday and, together with this weekend's number one and two, helped the local features capture over 82.6% of the box office pie.

In fifth place, and down two, fell the last installment of the popular "Hunger Games" series of films. "The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 2" added 117 thousand admissions to its cause, bringing its total tally in Korea now to 679 thousand ($4.4 million), while the Japanese animation, "The Boy and The Beast" by Mamoru Hosoda, managed 80 thousand admissions across 363 screens.

Mamoru Hosoda's coming-of-age adventure was not the only Japanese film to feature in this weekend's top ten; "Power Rangers The Movie Train Force VS Dino force" came next and attracted 45.2 thousand during its first weekend out, narrowly outplaying the most expensive James Bond film of all time: "Spectre". Sam Mendes's "Spectre" has already grossed over $749.6 million worldwide, but South Korean viewers have been less impressed with the latest Bond, and so far it's only managed to attract 1.7 million filmgoers to its screens; 41.5 of which came from this past weekend.

In ninth place entered a new American romance flick "Crimson Peak" by Guillermo del Toro. This gothic romance film was made for around $55 million, and so far this atypical flick has grossed $74 million worldwide; on Korea, its first weekend out saw 20.5 thousand coming out in support (1%). Finally, the last weekend of November was rounded out by the re-release of Michel Gondry's 2004 film, "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind", which has managed to stay, impressively, in the top ten for four weeks now, and during that time banked an additional $2.6 million (411 thousand admissions).  

Korean Box Office - Admissions for the Weekend 2015.11.27 - 2015.11.29 (www.kobis.or.kr)

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