Korean Box Office: MISS GRANNY, FROZEN Lead Korea's Biggest Weekend

By Pierce Conran

It was a huge weekend for theaters during this year's Lunar New Year, the biggest in fact, with around five million tickets sold. This was above the 3.5 million recording during last year's Lunar Year frame and significantly above the previous 4.5 million viewer record set during late summer last year when Snowpiercer and The Terror Live duked it out. What's more, a surprisingly close battle for first place took place as the two leading pictures swapped places a few times over the course of the week. With Lunar New Year falling on a Friday this year, the holiday stretched over Thursday to Saturday. Figures below are for the standard three-day frame.

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Review: THE HUNTRESSES Misfire in Poorly-Plotted Blunder

By Pierce Conran

Following the recent hits Masquerade (2012) and last year’s The Face Reader, period films are set to make a big push into the Korean market in 2014 with at least six big Joseon era films poised to flood the market. Getting the ball rolling in the new year is the action comedy The Huntresses, a film initially set to debut last spring but rescheduled by distributor Showbox when the project needed more time to complete digital work in post-production. Entering a crowded Lunar New Year field alongside Miss Granny, Man in Love and Hot Young Bloods, the film is hoping to draw in family crowds with its fun premise and trio of female stars.

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