[HanCinema's News] "Devils Stay" and "Hidden Face" to Have Box Office Showdown This November

The South Korean release calendar is fairly quiet for the next few weeks, the only release of note being the comedy film "Amazon Bullseye" on October 30th which is not laboring under high expectations. But one genre that does have high expectations at the moment is horror. Following the huge success of "Exhuma" earlier this year, the release of "Devils Stay" on November 14th has taken on particular interest, the action of the mystery film centering around an exorcism.

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But whether "Exhuma" was able to earn over eleven million admissions because it was a horror film, or an adult film, remains ambiguous. "Hidden Face" veers more toward the thriller direction. The sensual story from "Obsessed" director Kim Dae-woo is the rare feature these days with an age guidance rating of 19. Taking place in a locked room, "Hidden Face" will be more of a psychologically thrilling film about other people who we think we love, rather than otherworldly monsters.

Of course, whether either film will measure very much success at all is an open question. The South Korean box office has been quite fickle in recent years, allowing for a few huge successes while most general releases tend to struggle. "Devils Stay" and "Hidden Face" are noteworthy, however, for neither being an obvious box office draw- and it's precisely the most obviously crowd-pleasing pictures that have struggled, rather than the ones with deliberately narrow genre concepts.

Written by William Schwartz