Korean Box Office Update (01/20-01/22, 2012)

Dancing Queen Waltzes to First Place During Busy Lunar New Year Weekend

	Title	Release Date	Market Share	Weekend	Total	Screens
1	Dancing Queen	1/18/12	23.30%	508,463	632,457	520
2	Unbowed	1/18/12	17.60%	384,102	477,465	399
3	Journey 2: The Mysterious Island (us)	1/19/12	16.70%	327,053	373,288	392
4	Puss in Boots (us)	1/11/12	14.40%	287,000	1,199,347	450
5	Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol (us)	12/15/11	7.20%	151,106	7,186,748	276
6	Pacemaker	1/18/12	5.70%	126,629	193,025	418
7	The Neverending Story	1/18/12	3.90%	88,741	139,138	267
8	We Bought a Zoo (us)	1/18/12	3.40%	77,834	106,745	236
9	The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (us)	1/11/12	2.30%	47,509	349,206	151
10	Love On-Air	1/5/12	1.40%	31,095	891,921	150

Business came back in a big way over the Lunar New Year weekend after a bit of a slump for local releases of late but besides the holiday bump how did the frame fare?   Despite a strong 1-2 finish from local films, the results were decidedly mixed.  The total amount of tickets sold came in at 2.18 million, up over 20% from last weekend, but down nearly 25% from last year's Lunar New Year, which fell on the first weekend of February.   The market share for local releases jumped up to 53% but with four big new films this should come as a bit of a disappointment, not to mention that the last Lunar New Year boasted a commanding 72%.

The number one movie over the holiday was the Uhm Jeong-hwa and Hwang Jeong-min film Dancing Queen which had a strong 508,463 debut amid the crowded field.  Reviews have been on the positive side but it remains to be seen how it performs in subsequent weekends.

Opening at number two was the Ahn Sung-ki starring Unbowed with 384,102.  The film opened in Busan and has received strong notices.   It's second place finish is very encouraging as it was not expected to place so high, also good news is that its total is less than 25,000 away from breakeven point already.  It will be interesting to see how this performs further down the line, specifically wether it could unseat Dancing Queen in its sophomore run.

Journey 2, a Dwayne Johnson kids vehicle from the US had a strong opening at number with a surprisingly healthy 327,053.   Holiday weekends are always a good time for family fare and in truth there wasn't much else to choose from so perhaps this should come as no surprise.

Puss in Boots, dropped three spots to number four but nevertheless managed to retain a healthy amount of its audience as it ended the weekend with 287,000 admissions which puts it comfortably over the one million mark.

Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol saw its biggest drop to date as it garnered an additional 151,106 admissions but no one will be laughing as it easily leapt over the seven million mark, the fourth film of 2011 to do so.  I believe this makes last year the first to reach that milestone.

Pacemaker was the next new Korean release to open wide but with only 126,629 tickets sold it was quite disappointing.   Given its big marketing push and positive reviews a lot more was expected of it, of course it could grow over the coming weeks but I would be surprised if this were to be the case.

The last new Korean release was romcom The Neverending Story which came in at number 7 with 88,741.  Another lacklustre result, even if this film was not the most anticipated of the weekend's new offerings.   I expect this particular film to swiftly exits theaters.

We Bought a Zoo also opened this weekend but could only muster a paltry 77,834.  The Matt Damon family film has not impressed in any of its markets to date so this just adds to its disappointing result.   Meanwhile The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo crumbled, losing three quarters of its business and winding up with only 47,509, this after a mediocre start.

Rounding out the Top 10 was Love On-Air in its third week with 31,095 which was a calamitous 85% drop from last weekend.   Clearly it couldn't cope with the new competition.   It's total stands at 891,921 but it will now be no small task to push it past the one million milestone.

It's early days for 2012 as this is only the third weekend but it's safe to say that January has not been a good month for Korean films. Hopefully a portion of the quartet of new releases will remain strong presences in theaters over the coming weeks but we may have to wait until February when we see some big new releases, specifically the Choi Min-sik and Ha Jung-woo gangster film Nameless Gangster and the Ha Yu directed, Song Kang-ho starring thriller Howling both of which could prove substantial hits. Meanwhile, next wek sees the release of Tarbosaurus 3D, though I'm not sure wether or not it will be opening wide.

Source: kobis.or.kr


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 Sunday evening or 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. 

To keep up with the best in Korean film you can sign up to our RSS Feed, like us on Facebook, or follow us on Twitter.

Weekly Review Round-up (01/14-01/20, 2012)

Lots of reviews this week with The Front Line being released in the US.  Four movies also came out this week in Korea though as of yet only review has surfaced, expect more to come.

CURRENT KOREAN RELEASES

Dancing Queen

(The Korea Times, January 19 2012)

My Way

(hancinema.net, January 14, 2012)

RECENT RELEASES

A Better Tomorrow

(Varied Celluloid, January 13, 2012)

Bedevilled

(Init_Scenes, January 18, 2012)

Choked

(Film Business Asia, January 16, 2012)

Come Rain, Come Shine

(Hanguk Yeonghwa, January 13, 2012)

Countdown

(Modern Korean Cinema, January 19, 2012)

I Saw the Devil

(examiner.com, January 14, 2012)

Moby Dick

(Hanguk Yeonghwa, January 16, 2012)

Mother Is a Whore

(Hangul Celluloid, January 18, 2012)

Poetry

(Empire, January 18, 2012)

Sector 7

(Haunted Hell, January 19, 2012)

Spellbound

(Beyond Hollywood, January 15, 2012)

(The National Post, January 12, 2012)

The Day He Arrives

(Beyond Hollywood, January 13, 2012)

The Front Line

(Entertainment Weekly, January 19, 2012)

(Film Journal, January 19, 2012)

(Libertas Film Magazine, January 19, 2012)

(Movie Line, January 19, 2012)

(Slant Magazine, January 16, 2012)

(The A.V. Club, January 19, 2012)

(The Los Angeles Times, January 20, 2012)

(The New York Times, January 19, 2012)

The Man From Nowhere

(cinemageekly.com, January 15, 2012)

(g33k-e.com, January 14, 2012)

The Servant

(Dramas Whoo!, January 16, 2012)

You're My Pet

(The One One Four, January 14, 2012)

War of the Arrows

(Beyond Hollywood, January 19, 2012)

PAST FILMS

A Man Who Was Superman, 2008

(Rainy Day Movies, January 13, 2012)

Chaw, 2009

(Movie Mobsters, January 15, 2012)

Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter and Spring, 2003

(Otherwhere, January 13, 2012)

Sympathy for Lady Vengeance, 2005

(Hanguk Yeonghwa, January 18, 2012)

The Coast Guard, 2002

(boxofficebuz.com, January 16, 2012)

The Isle, 2000

(Hanguk Yeonghwa, January 15, 2012)

The Weekly Review Round-up is a weekly feature which brings together all available reviews of Korean films in the English language (and sometimes French) that have recently appeared on the internet. It is by no means a comprehensive feature and additions are welcome (email pierceconran [at] gmail [dot] com). It appears every Friday morning (GMT+1) on Modern Korean Cinema. For other weekly features, take a look at Korean Cinema News, and the Korean Box Office Update. Reviews and features on Korean film also appear regularly on the site. 

To keep up with the best in Korean film you can sign up to our RSS Feed, like us on Facebook, or follow us on Twitter.

Countdown (카운트다운, 2011) and the Rise and Fall of the Korean Star System

Around the same time that South Korea emerged as a global economic force in the early 1990s as it went about the process of shaking off the gloom from decades of authoritarian oppression, the film industry began to see a lot of changes.  Large corporations began to fund some projects and film production rapidly modernized.  The quality and budgets of films rose.  Another aspect of the industry that began to take shape was the star system.  Given the low market share of Korean films at that point, there weren’t many household names in the local film industry since the larger public would not have been aware of the films much less the stars.  As the 1990s progressed however, a few names became known to local film viewers.  Park Joon-hoon and Han Suk-kyu were some of the first major Korean stars.  To this day they are still popular draws at the box office but then again the rebirth of the industry didn’t happen that long ago.

In the late 1990s, when the domestic film market exploded, the star system blew up along with it.  Very quickly, talent and management agencies began to hoard and commodify promising talent, employing strategies pioneered by the Hollywood star system and its domineering power brokers in the talent management sector.  Soon the hallyu phenomenon added to this escalation of the importance of above the line talent and it was at this point that things began to spiral out of control.  Budgets for Korean films were quite low but agents had driven up the prices of top talent so production costs for the industry began to soar.  Filmmakers were not happy with the direction that the industry was taking but the grip that these agencies held over the entertainment industry proved very strong.

Around the peak of the Korean film industry’s dominance of the box office in the middle of the last decade there began to be a change in star power.  Up until then recognizable actors had proven big draws for audiences but there appeal was starting to diminish.  As the industry saw a dramatic fall in 2007 there was a shift in how projects were designed.  Budgets were too high and had to be slashed, and since top actors weren’t backing up their hefty fees with solid return on investment there weren’t deemed as essential as once was the case.

At the present time even more consternation has been expressed over the bankability of big stars.  Last year there were a number of big flops, some, like Sector 7 and My Way, were huge blockbusters that generated little interest but there were a number of mid-level productions, more modest in their ambition, which were mainly relying on the recognizability of their main stars.  One of these was Hindsight, starring Song Kang-ho, another was Countdown, which featured the promising pairing of Jeong Jae-yeong and Jeon Do-yeon.

Jeong Jae-yeong is the king of deadpan, I dare you to watch Going By the Book (2007), in which he expresses not a single emotion, without falling off your seat laughing.  Over the years he has amassed an impressive array of credits, which have included many recalcitrant gangsters and stoic antiheroes.  In time he has developed into one of Korea’s most dependable leading men and of late has moved audiences to laughter and tears with award-winning roles in Castaway on the Moon (2009) and Moss (2010).

Jeon Do-yeon may very well be the most versatile actress in Korea.  Starting off in TV, she got her start in movies with the successful romance films The Contact (1997) and A Promise (1998) before moving onto different roles such as a gangster’s girlfriend in Ryoo Seung-wan’s No Blood No Tears (2002) and a diffident mother in Lee Chang-dong’s Secret Sunshine (2007) for which she won Best Actress at Cannes.

In Countdown, Jeong plays Gun-ho, an efficient and stoic debt collector who discovers that he has liver cancer.  Five years ago his son died and his organs were donated to a number of people whom Gun-ho now approaches in the hopes of getting a liver transplant.  One of these beneficiaries is Ha-yeon, a con artist who is currently in jail.  She is about to be released and agrees to the operation on the condition that he finds someone for her, the man responsible for her incarceration.

The film boasts a terrific opening but it doesn’t take long for the melodrama signals to turn on.  The death of Jeong’s character’s son, who was afflicted with Down Syndrome, weighs heavily on him.  So much so that the memory of the loss has been suppressed by some sort of ‘han’-induced amnesia.  It should also be mentioned that his parents are disabled.  All this comes within the first 10 minutes.

Sadly, Jeong’s deadpan demeanor in Countdown comes off as glum and a little sleepy while Jeon admirably throws herself into a role that is underwritten and scarcely worthy of her talent.  It’s rather unfortunate that this is the case, especially since the film started out so well.  The problem with the film is that despite all its promise it is critically lacking in originality.  The set pieces are for the most part banal or rehashed car chases and standoffs.  The photography is competent but the editing sometimes leaves much to be desired.

The film is not as witty as it attempts to be and as a result it is far too dry and glum to ever be funny.  The local overcast weather is a also detriment in this film which by all rights should be colorful and exuberant, they should have played with lighting, locations and wardrobe more to counteract this.  It’s a sad state of affairs when the most interesting location is a Lotte department store.

Another issue is that the weight of inevitability looms over the narrative as we are just waiting for the backstory, the seeds of which have already been planted in the opening minutes, to kick in and hijack the narrative.  It’s a long time coming and though it is predictably melancholy and cloying, thankfully it works rather well.  This is due in large part to Jeong, who is afforded the opportunity to add more depth to his character and performance in these final stages.

At the end of the day, Countdown is a mediocre film with a humdrum narrative which happens to feature two big stars.  It’s like a song that thinks it’s cool and savvy, replete with self-assured lo-fi beats and interspersed instrumental bursts, but is really just elevator music.  I am a big fan of both Jeong Jae-yeong and Jeon Do-yeon but now I will need to count down until they both return in better films.

MKC Interview With Director Huh Jong-ho

★★★☆☆

Reviews and features on Korean film appear regularly on Modern Korean Cinema.  For film news, external reviews, and box office analysis, take a look at the Korean Box Office Update, Korean Cinema News and the Weekly Review Round-up, which appear weekly on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday mornings (GMT+1).

To keep up with the best in Korean film you can sign up to our RSS Feed, like us on Facebook, or follow us on Twitter.

Korean Cinema News (01/12-01/18, 2012)

Lots of great features this week and a few more 2011 wrap-ups.  Also some casting news for Bong Joon-ho's hotly anticipated Snow Piercer, I certainly the Tilda Swinton piece materializes!  Some great trailers and more also featured featured this week.

KOREAN CINEMA NEWS

Korean Cinema 2011: the View from Here
How do you introduce new Korean films to an American audience?  US-based author and curator of film at the Smithsonian’s Freer and Sackler Galleries in Washington, DC, Tom VICK shares his views on recent trends he has noticed programming their Korean film festival.  Korea’s film industry produces a deluge of commercial and independent releases.  But recent years have brought a proliferation of young, talented filmmakers with only a film or two under their belts.  (Korean Cinema Today, January 5, 2012)

Director of My Sassy Girl to Take on a More Serious Movie
Korean director Kwak Jae-yong is perhaps best known for his romantic-comedy My Sassy Girl (2001), but he’s decided to try his hand at a more somber story and will take on a film about the so-called “comfort women” of World War II.  The movie, to be called Flower Shoes, will be set from 1930 to 1945 and will detail the experiences of the Korean women forced into sexual slavery by the Japanese during that time period.  (Joong Ang Daily, January 12, 2012)

New Stills for Ha Ji-won/Bae Doo-na Pic Korea
The first publicity stills have emerged for the upcoming film Korea (aka As One) which pairs Ha Ji-won and Bae Doo-na.  Based on the true story of the victory of the South and North Korean teams at the Chiba International Table Tennis Championships in 1991, Ha Ji-won represents Hyeon Jeong-hwa and Bae Doona represents Lee Boon-hee from the North.  (hancinema.net, January 12, 2012)

Cinema of Embodied Unpleasures
Rowena Santos Aquino takes an in depth look at the body of work of Korean auteur Kim Ki-duk in an engaging three part discussion called 'Spotlight on Contemporary Korean Cinema: Kim Ki-duk' over at Next Projection.

Part I - Filmmaker  (Next Projection, January 11, 2012)

Part II - Mentor  (Next Projection, January 12, 2012)

Part III - Subject: Arirang  (Next Projection, January 13, 2012)

Chris Evans in Negotiations to Star in Bong Joon-ho's Snow Piercer
Bong Joon-ho, one of South Korea's top directors, has not made one bad film so far in his career. In fact, at least two of his feature films, namely Memories of Murder (2003) and The Host (2006), are in my opinion masterpieces of modern cinema.  His last film was the 2009 critical hit Mother.  (Twitch, January 14, 2012)

Multiculturalism a New Theme in Korean Movies
More and more Korean movies, including Pacemaker by director Kim Dal-joong that opens next Thursday, are taking on the theme of multiculturalism that is changing the face of Korean society.  In 2010, one out of every 10 marriages involved a foreign spouse, while the number of children from multicultural families has grown seven-fold from 25,000 in 2006 to 160,000 in 2010.  And this trend is being portrayed more frequently on the silver screen.  (The Chosun Ilbo, January 13, 2012)

The History of Korean Cinema .... on screen
The fact of the matter is, outside of Korea, Korean cinema is still a very 'new' thing. Generally most people may have seen your Oldboy's and My Sassy Girl's but outside of that the earliest film that those in the West will have likely seen would probably be JSA (2000) or Shiri (1999).  This puts Korean cinema in an interesting position of only being around 14 years old (15 using the Korean birthday system!).  For a national cinema so young, it really has come along leaps and bounds, but the more interesting thing is what was it like before this point.  (Tully's Recall, January 14, 2012)

V-I-C-T-O-R-Y! Korean Sports Movies
Anyone who has seen the millions of Koreans flocking to the streets and plazas to cheer on the National Team during World Cup season would probably be aware how much Koreans love sports.  Korea is a highly competitive society where focus, diligent attitude, eagerness for hard work, and teamwork is highly valued; all elements that can be found in sports.  Add pursuit of honor to that mix and you’ve got a perfect combination for grabbing people’s attention.  (The Korea Blog, January 11, 2012)

A Class Apart: Why Im Sang-soo Loses to Kim Ki-young in the Battle of The Housemaids

Hong Nguyen takes a look at the two versions of The Housemaid.  The original from 1960 by Kim Ki-young and the remake which cam 50 years later at the hands of Im Sang-soo.  (London Korea Links, January 16, 2012)

Lee Chang-dong’s Poetry Set for Release in Japan
Korean auteur director Lee Chang-dong’s film Poetry is set for release in Japan on Feb. 11, 2012.  The Cannes Best Screenplay Award-winning film will be distributed by KinoEye Japan and Siglo, which released the film’s Japanese poster and trailer today.  The film’s Japanese title translates to “Poetry: Agnes’ Song”.  (KoBiz, January 16, 2012)

CJ CGV Opens Two More Vietnam Multiplexes
Leading South Korean exhibitor CJ CGV has opened two more multiplexes in Vietnam, bringing their total to nine cinemas with 69 screens in the country.   The two multiplexes are in the center of Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi with two 3D screens each.  The Ho Chi Minh City cinema has eight screens while the Hanoi cinema has seven.   (KoBiz, January 16, 2012)

Romance Joe to Compete at Rotterdam Tiger Awards
This year’s International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR) has announced the complete line-up for its Tiger Awards Competition.   The 15-film selection includes Korean director Lee Kwang-kuk’s Romance Joe, which will make its international premiere.   Park Hong-min’s A Fish was announced earlier on as the competition’s first 3D film ever.   (KoBiz, January 12, 2012)

Tilda Swinton to Join Snow Piercer
Tilda Swinton is in talks to join post-apocalyptic thriller Snow Piercer.  The feature is based on the French comic Le Transperceneige created by Jean-Marc Rochette and is South Korean director Bong Joon-ho’s first foray into English language film.  Snow Piercer’s plot follows a group that is traveling by train together in a future ice age.  (film-news.co.uk, January 18, 2012)

New Thai Film Fest Set to Open with Always
The first edition of Thailand's Hua Hin Film Fest is set to bow Jan. 26 with the screening of South Korean pic Always, followed by the unspooling of 50 movies over four days.   (Chicago Tribune, January 17, 2012)

Kim So-yong's New Film to Debut at Sundance

The director of Treeless Mountain is back with her third feature, an American independent produciton starring Paul Dano as a young rock musician whose divorce from his wife (Jena Malone) triggers a desire to bond with the 6-year-old daughter he's never really known.  (The Wall Street Journal, January 18, 2012)

INTERVIEWS

Interview With Director Kim Kyung-mook
One of the Korean independent film community’s most remarkable young directors, Kim Kyung-mook made his feature debut with the unconventional Faceless Things (2005). He broadened his sights with A Cheonggyecheon Dog (2008) and has most recently been doing the film festival rounds with his third feature Stateless Things. The film debuted at the Venice Film Festival’s Orrizonti competition and is set to screen in the upcoming Rotterdam film festival’s Spectrum section.  The film is about people who have no place to stay.  How did Kim come to take such an interest in these people? He met with Korean Cinema Today to tell us.  (KoBiz, January 16, 2012)

Movie Director Park Explains Perfect Game

Park Hee-gon was in his last year of high school in May 1987 when he, like thousands of other South Koreans, watched a baseball game that became legendary.  The game between the Lotte Giants and Haitai Tigers was a pitchers’ duel that lasted for 15 innings before officials called it a draw.  The pitchers – Lotte’s Choi Dong-won and Haitai’s Sun Dong-yeol – had squared off before but both were near the end of their careers and fans knew it would be the last time they faced each other.  (The Wall Street Journal, January 17, 2012)

TRAILERS

2 Lines

Introduction of Architecture


Love Fiction

War of the Arrows

POSTER

Howling

BOX OFFICE

Puss in Boots Holds Local Films at Bay

(Modern Korean Cinema, January 15, 2012)

South Korean Box Office in 2011

Although the number crunchers in Hollywood estimate that US theatrical admissions sank to their lowest level since 1995, things were not so gloomy in Korea.  With an estimated 160 million tickets sold (more precise figures will become available at a later date), it appears that Korea has approached or broken the modern-day record for admissions.  (Korean Cinema Today, January 14, 2012)

Korean Cinema News is a weekly feature which provides wide-ranging news coverage on Korean cinema, including but not limited to: features; festival news; interviews; industry news; trailers; posters; and box office. It appears every Wednesday morning (GMT+1) on Modern Korean Cinema. For other weekly features, take a look at the Korean Box Office Update and the Weekly Review Round-up. Reviews and features on Korean film also appear regularly on the site. 

To keep up with the best in Korean film you can sign up to our RSS Feed, like us on Facebook, or follow us on Twitter.

Korean Box Office Update (01/13-01/15, 2012)

Puss in Boots Holds Local Films at Bay

	Title	Release Date	Market Share	Weekend	Total	Screens
1	Puss in Boots (us)	1/11/12	33.80%	590,740	704,725	593
2	Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol (us)	12/15/11	18.00%	362,326	6,914,588	461
3	Love On-Air	1/5/12	10.80%	225,174	781,810	358
4	The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (us)	1/11/12	9.50%	185,758	228,385	321
5	Sherlock Holmes: Game of Shadows (us)	12/21/11	7.70%	154,399	2,160,333	270
6	Perfect Game	12/21/11	6.40%	128,734	1,392,738	266
7	The Outback	1/12/12	3.30%	70,297	87,383	234
8	White Vengeance (hk)	1/11/12	2.70%	55,498	70,345	163
9	My Way	12/21/11	2.20%	45,009	2,121,331	219
10	Friends: Naki on Monster Island (jp)	12/29/11	1.70%	36,930	496,880	191

For the fifth weekend in a row a major Hollywood release has trumped local fare at the Korean box office.  A new champion, of the animated variety, rose to the top this week.  Overall business was up from 1.47 to 1.75 million admissions year on year while once again the market share for Korean films tumbled to 24%, from last year's 43%.

Shrek spinoff Puss in Boots had a big weekend with 590,740 tickets sold.  That's a lot more than Megamind which took the top spot at the same time last year.

MI4 added another 362,326 tickets to its enormous haul as it dropped less than a third and is now inches from the 7 million mark an could still threaten another milestone, making it the biggest film released in 2011.

Love On-Air (aka Wonderful Radio) had an encouraging small drop (20%) in its sophomore frame which, given poor reviews, I wasn't expecting.  The future looks a little rosier for the midlevel film but after such a mediocre opening this is closer to damage control than success.  Still, if it continues like this it could end up well north of the one million mark.

The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo opened with 185,758 which is not a particularly encouraging figure for a film tat was expected to play strongly in international territories, maybe word of mouth will bolster its run further down the line.  Perhaps Sherlock Holmes sequel Game of Shadows dropped about a third as it crossed the 2 million mark with its 154,399 weekend, a good showing for a sequel that has underperformed elsewhere.

Perfect Game stayed more or less flat this weekend with 154,399, which is impressive.  It will come close to the two million mark but is unlikely to cross it.  Animated film The Outback, featuring a number of K-pop star on vocal duties, opened soft 70,297.  Truth be told I hadn't even heard of the film before this weekend, I'm not sue who else did.

Hong Kong period epic White Vengeance began its run with 55,498 while mega-blockbuster and equally large box office bomb My Way slowed to 45,009 in its probable final top 10 finish.  Friends: Naki on Monster Island Japanese anime roudned out the top 10 with 36,930.

Next Week:  Lunar day weekend is nearly upon us and it's about time as the tired current local fare is in desperate need of replacement.  Opening next week are Pacemaker, Dancing Queen, Neverending Story, and Unbowed. Pacemaker looks to come out on top but let's hope it can nudge out foreign competition for a much needed local win.

Source: kobis.or.kr


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 Sunday evening or 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. 

To keep up with the best in Korean film you can sign up to our RSS Feed, like us on Facebook, or follow us on Twitter.

Weekly Review Round-up (01/07-01/13, 2012)

A pair of reviews for last year's breakout debut Bleak Night and a number of writeups for various independent and classic Korean film to boot.

RECENT RELEASES

Bleak Night

(Hanguk Yeonghwa, January 8, 2012)

(Modern Korean Cinema, January 8, 2012)

Fighting Spirit

(Modern Korean Cinema, January 10, 2012)

Leafie, A Hen Into the Wild

(hancinema.net, January 7, 2012)

Moss

(Flickering Myth, January 9, 2012)

Passerby #3

(Rainy Day Movies, January 9, 2012)

Quick

(Modern Korean Cinema, January 12, 2012)

Re-encounter

(Hangul Celluloid, January 9, 2012)

Sector 7

(Beyond Hollywood, January 10, 2012)

Sunny

(Rainy Day Movies, January 11, 2011)

The Servant

(Asian Movie Web, January 9, 2012)

PAST FILMS

A Brand New Life, 2009

(Rainy Day Movies, January 10, 2012)

A Day Off, 1968

(Init_Scenes, January 11, 2012)

Black Hair, 1964

(Init_Scenes, January 9, 2012)

Memories of Murder, 2003

(Hanguk Yeonghwa, January 11, 2011)

Night and Day, 2008

(DVD Talk, January 8, 2012)

Romantic Warriors, 2003

(New Korean Cinema, January 12, 2012)

Secret Sunshine, 2007

(BloggersBase, January 8, 2012)

The Weekly Review Round-up is a weekly feature which brings together all available reviews of Korean films in the English language (and sometimes French) that have recently appeared on the internet. It is by no means a comprehensive feature and additions are welcome (email pierceconran [at] gmail [dot] com). It appears every Friday morning (GMT+1) on Modern Korean Cinema. For other weekly features, take a look at Korean Cinema News, and the Korean Box Office Update. Reviews and features on Korean film also appear regularly on the site. 

To keep up with the best in Korean film you can sign up to our RSS Feed, like us on Facebook, or follow us on Twitter.

Quick (퀵, Kwik) 2011

Bikes

Having more or less caught up with all of the this past summer’s major Korean releases, the first thing that comes to mind is that if I ever see a motorbike in a Korean film again, it will be far, far too soon.  The two main culprits in my eyes are Sector 7 and Quick, and the thing that they share in common is Yoon Je-kyoon, the producer who was also the director behind such hits as My Boss, My Hero (2001), Sex Is Zero (2002), Miracle on 1st Street (2007), and Haeundae (2009). Not too long ago I decided to savage Sector 7 in my review as I felt it was a disaster that needed to be called out for the contempt it showed its audience, thinking moviegoers would be content with novel 3D effects at the expense of a solid story and engaging characters.  Thankfully spectators rejected the film as it suffered one of the most calamitous post-opening weekend drops in Korean film history.

Quick is not as bad a film but it does demonstrate a similar lack of respect towards its viewers.  What I mean to say is that it’s an overburdened everything-but-the-kitchen-sink comedy-actioneer that is designed to appeal to everyone but could never hope to satisfy anyone.  There is very little that the filmmakers didn’t throw in to the mix in a bid to attract viewers.  There’s k-pop, gangsters, biker gangs, youth violence, washboard abs, scantily clad women, inefficient police, romance, and of course melodrama, all that in addition to the heavy doses of action and comedy.

Flying bikes

Gi-soo is a former bike gang leader who now works as a speedy bike messenger.  One day he is sent to pick up Ah-rom, a major k-pop star, who turns out to be his ex-girlfriend.  She puts on his helmet but while he was away, someone has put a bomb in it.  Now he must do an unknown man’s bidding with the police and an old rival on his tail.

Quick is primarily an action film and it borrows its concept from the popular 90s Hollywood summer blockbuster Speed (1994), starring Keanu Reeves, it has more or less borrowed its name too.  The action is relentless and the filmmakers cram in pile-ups, explosions, and as much speed as they can into the narrative.  I must say that the action sequences are for the most part convincing but they are just variations on a theme and don’t offer us anything we haven’t seen before.  There’s also a tendency to blend the comedy in with the action, these efforts, rather than add up to something better, mostly fall flat.

Funny bikes

Comedy is a large part of Quick but I think it was either a poor choice or badly handled as it is the cause of most of the film’s many problems.  It’s not particularly funny and, as I’ve already mentioned, it doesn’t blend well with the action, but beyond that it poses two significant issues.  Since a lot of the film is played for laughs, there is no real urgency and the stakes feel very low, a big no-no for an action film.  Secondly, I found the two leads to be terrible, mainly because they have no comic timing.  I know that Lee Min-ki’s new film Spellbound as been received very enthusiastically but here he’s just a pretty face and his performance is hamfisted but also very unbalanced, Gi-Soo never felt like a character.  Kang Ye-won’s is not someone I was very familiar with beforehand but I do recognize her from last year’s Hello Ghost and she seems to be a Yoon Je-kyoon stalwart, this being the fourth film of his she has starred in.  Again she is a pretty face who only seems capable of overacting and her grating performance quickly overstays its welcome.

Sexy bikes

Quick does feel like a missed opportunity though.  At times, with all the different factions facing off against eachother, I felt this could have been like an anarchic Kim Sang-jin (Attack the Gas Station, 1999; Kick the Moon, 2001) film but it’s far too consumerist and cynical to pull that off.  The film lacks a raison d’être, it is merrily an excuse for fast vehicles and pyrotechnics but rather than reinvent the genre or offer up an original style from its mise-en-scene, it expects the money being thrown at the stunts and explosions to impress rather than the way in which they are presented.

Forgive the bad pun but I think the film was made a little too quickly, elements designed to draw in viewers were thrown together, explosions littered the marketing, numerous mid-level stars were cast in small roles but at no point was any effort put into the story, the characters, or the style of the film.  What we’re left with looks more like a drawn-out music video than a feature film and that is definitely not what I go to the movies for.

★★☆☆☆

Money shot

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