Last weekend, the movie became the most successful film of all time in Korea.
But with the end of the summer blockbuster season in sight, you will soon be seeing new
films on the movie theater marquees.
So to give us more details about ROARING CURRENTS′ historic run... and a glimpse at what to look
forward to in theaters in the near future... our film critic Pierce Conran joins me.
ROARING CURRENTS isn′t showing any signs of slowing down at the box office, is it?
As you mentioned already, the big news is that it crossed James Cameron′s AVATAR late
last Friday to become the most-viewed film of all time in Korea.
It reached 13.31 million admissions in only 17 days and then proceeded to have another
enormous weekend.
As of last night, the film stands at a stellar 15.4 million admissions and still seems to
have a ways to go, though it is finally slowing down.
Due to 3D tickets, its revenue total is still just behind AVATAR, but it should have no
trouble crossing that mark this weekend.
That sounds like quite an achievement.
Has its success taken the wind out of other releases?
"The Pirates" has been doing pretty well.
Yes and no.
It′s certainly been dominant and it hasn′t left much for other releases.
Last weekend the top 3 films accounted for over 85% of the market.
THE PIRATES has been putting up a strong fight following a decent but slightly underwhelming
debut, and has now amassed just shy of 5 million viewers.
However, the big new film HAEMOO suffered considerably from the crowded marketplace,
taking 6 days to reach 1 million spectators.
ROARING CURRENTS was a film that people locked to forget the pain of Sewol, while HAEMOO,
which has unfortunate parallels with the tragedy, has had the opposite effect.
So, looking beyond this current run of blockbusters, what should we be watching out for in theaters?
Those still looking for their action kick need look no further than THE EXPENDABLES
3, which sees Sylvester Stallone and most of the biggest action stars of the 80s and
90s team up once again for a melee of high octane violence.
Meanwhile, horror fans get to take a chance on the new local release TUNNEL 3D.
While released last week, U.S. rom-com BEGIN AGAIN seems to be picking up traction.
Those looking for something a little different would do well to check out MY ORDINARY LOVE
STORY, which is seemingly also a rom-com but turns into something quite different.
The local film, which was the closing film of the Puchon International Fantastic Film
Festival, turned out to be a very pleasant surprise.
Summer is ending and before we know it we′ll be right back in holiday mode with Chuseok,
which is always a big
time for new movies.
What will be the big releases this year?
As with previous years, the local industry is throwing out
a pair of big releases, hoping to capitalize on
the holidays.
Most high profile among those is TAZZA: THE HIDDEN CARD, the sequel to the enormously
successful 2006 original, TAZZA: THE HIGH ROLLERS.
A slic