[HanCinema's News] "Harbin" and "Bogota: City of the Lost" Set for End of Year Box Office Showdown

After a fairly underwhelming winter season to date, "Harbin" is already set for big office returns. The action spy film set during the early twentieth century under the Japanese Occupation leads reservations at the South Korean box office despite being eight days from release. "Harbin" appears to have hit the sweet spot of moody location shooting and star power that South Korean audiences are eager for over the holidays.

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The main rival "Harbin" is "Bogota: City of the Lost" which is shaping up to be its chief competitor. Early reservations still haven't started for "Bogota: City of the Lost" so there's no hard data at present with which to make a direct comparison. But the similarities between the two films are obvious. "Bogota: City of the Lost" is also an epic film framed by Korean history shot in a foreign location- just with Colombia and the IMF Crisis rather than China and the Japanese Occupation.

There's also the matter of the leading stars, who hold many curious similarities. Hyun Bin of "Harbin" and Song Joong-ki of "Bogota: City of the Lost" are both actors better known for their television work as romantic leads. Both have also been trying to break into film for quite some time, with mixed results. Ironically, Hyun Bin's biggest success to date has probably been "The Negotiation" despite its weak box office performance because it was there he connected with Son Ye-jin.

The two of them went on to make the huge hit "Crash Landing on You" and married a year after that show ended. "Harbin" is his first project since the two of them had their first child in November of 2022. Song Joong-ki is also a recently married man with two children born in June of 2023 and November of this year. Both are cultivating a more serious image in their acting work with these projects as they hit their forties.

While that decade doesn't generally bring to mind stardom, Song Kang-ho did much of his most impressive work when he was that age, with more recent titles like "One Win" being a bit of a disappointment for him. In any case, whether "Harbin" or "Bogota: City of the Lost" comes out ahead, actors and viewers alike appear to have a keen interest in these more epically styled projects. "Harbin" will come out on December 24th and "Bogota: City of the Lost" will come out on December 31st.

Written by William Schwartz