Korean Box Office Update (10/28-10/30, 2011)

Weekend of October 28-30, 2011:

	Title	Release Date	Weekend	Total
1	Punch	10/20/11	594,125	1,510,522
2	Real Steel (us)	10/12/11	355,383	2,085,158
3	In Time (us)	10/27/11	188,317	220,966
4	Always	10/20/11	173,033	735,159
5	The Client	9/29/11	39,924	2,367,018
6	Friends with Benefits (us)	10/27/11	29,920	46,366
7	The Three Musketeers (uk)	10/12/11	28,755	644,117
8	Silenced	9/22/11	27,994	4,640,739
9	A Reason To Live	10/27/11	27,424	39,162
10	The Tree of Life (us)	10/27/11	19,205	24,663
-	Teacher and the Devils	10/27/11	3,012	6,078
-	You Pet	11/10/11	2,305	2,305
-	HIT	10/13/11	1,538	109,167
-	Couples	11/2/11	1,456	7,994

Another healthy weekend at the box office, although with little discernible difference from last week's.  Admissions totalled 1.53 million, yet another increase over last year.  The market share held steady at 56% which was below last year's weekend (70%) when The Unjust opened.

Punch remained on top after a strong start, not only that but ut managed to increase by nearly 20% in its sophomore frame for a 594,125 three-day and 1,510,522 total.  This will certainly be Kim Yun-seok's fifth straight feature to top 2 million, a remarkable feat.  The question is how far can it go in the coming weeks, word of mouth seems to be strong so I'm betting it will cross 3 million before long.

Real Steel declined a modest 30% to 355,383 and managed to cross 2 million in the process.  A strong performance for a film that has underwhelmed in its homeland.  Justin Timberlake seems to be flavor of the week as his romcom Friends With Benefits, which opened months ago in the west, and his current In Time both opened to middling figures, 29,920 and 188,317 respectively.  Friends With Benefits seemed to fare particularly badly but I don't think romcoms play well in Korea since the homegrown product in that department is so strong.

Always lost half its audience after a midlevel start and wound up with 173,033.  At this point it may or may not cross the 1 million mark.  The Client, which had played strong throughout the month took a big tumble as it prepares to exit theaters. It added 39,924 to an impressive 2,367,018 total.  Silenced performed similarly as it dropped to 27,994 for what will likely to its last weekend in the top 10.  It has sold 4,640,739 tickets to date and sits at number 4 on the yearly chart.

Song Hye-kyo's new movie, A Reason to Live, which premiered at Busan, got off to a very disappointing start with 27,424 admissions.  This will likely be its one and only week in the top 10.

Next week, the anticipated marital arts Thai-Korean co-production The Kick will make its bow in theaters.


The Korean Box Office Update is a weekly feature which provides detailed analysis of film box office sales over the Friday to Sunday period in Korea. It appears every Monday morning (GMT+1) on Modern Korean Cinema. For other weekly features, take a look at Korean Cinema News and the Weekly Review Round-up. Reviews and features on Korean film also appear regularly on the site. 

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