Toho’s anime Chiikawa the Movie (Eiga Chiikawa: Ningyo no Shima no Himitsu) led the Korean box office for a third straight weekend, selling 320,293 tickets and taking KRW3.32bn ($2.5m) over 23–25 October, according to the Korean Film Council’s KOBIS ticketing data as reported by Econovill and Variety. That was 44.7% of the weekend’s ticket revenue. Yeon Sang-ho’s Paradise Lost opened third.
Key facts
- Chiikawa the Movie (Toho): 320,293 admissions, KRW3.32bn ($2.5m), 1,115 screens, fourth weekend.
- Cumulative: 2,248,137 admissions and KRW23.2bn ($17.5m) since 30 September.
- The Assassin(s) was second with 68,241 admissions; Paradise Lost (실낙원, CJ Entertainment) third with 66,698.
- The weekend market fell to about $5.6m from $6.7m the weekend before, per Variety.
A Japanese anime aimed at young audiences and families is outselling the No. 2 film 4.7 times over. Below it, the local titles are fighting over a shrinking pool: the second and third films finished 1,543 admissions apart, and the whole market was about 16% smaller than the weekend before, on Variety’s dollar figures. Dollar amounts here are Variety’s conversions of KOBIS won figures.
The top five
| Rank | Film | Admissions | Gross (KRW) | Screens | Total admissions |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Chiikawa the Movie | 320,293 | 3.32bn | 1,115 | 2,248,137 |
| 2 | The Assassin(s) | 68,241 | 689m | 730 | 3,374,514 |
| 3 | Paradise Lost | 66,698 | 665m | 803 | 104,876 |
| 4 | Clayface | 48,245 | 514m | 655 | 77,153 |
| 5 | Tazza: The Song of Beelzebub | 46,919 | 492m | 618 | 1,999,477 |
Source: KOBIS, 23–25 October, via Econovill and Variety.
Chiikawa: a long run, still selling ahead
The film, directed by Kei Oikawa from the manga by Nagano, opened in Korea on 30 September. Its 2.25 million admissions are two-thirds of the total for The Assassin(s), which opened a week earlier. Segye Ilbo reports that it is only the second animated film released in Korea this year to pass 2 million admissions, after Toy Story 5. In Japan, where it opened in July, the film has grossed ¥18.1bn, according to the same report. Momentum has not stalled: Segye Ilbo said it led presales on Monday morning with about 44,700 tickets booked, roughly twice the next title.
Paradise Lost opens below the political thriller
Paradise Lost, written and directed by Yeon Sang-ho and starring Kim Hyun-joo and Bae Hyun-sung, opened on Wednesday 21 October and reached 104,876 admissions (KRW1.02bn) by Sunday. The thriller follows a mother searching for her son inside a closed religious community. It had its world premiere at Toronto, where, as we reported, its four public screenings sold out in advance. It played on more screens than The Assassin(s) (803 against 730) and still finished behind it.
The Assassin(s), Hur Jin-ho’s drama about the 15 August 1974 attempt on President Park Chung-hee, has 3.37 million admissions and KRW33.1bn ($25m) since its 23 September release. Money Today reports that it has passed its break-even point. Variety notes that defamation complaints from conservative civic groups and bereaved family members continue alongside the release.
Tazza: The Song of Beelzebub ended Sunday 523 admissions short of 2 million and crossed the mark on Monday, CHOSUNBIZ reported, as covered in our report on Korea’s late-September week. Clayface, which opened to an estimated $24m in North America the same weekend, managed 48,245 admissions in Korea.
What comes next
Second in Monday’s presales was the Korean release Suneung, chuljeui bimil (“Suneung: the secret of setting the questions”), which opens on Wednesday 28 October with about 23,000 tickets booked, per Segye Ilbo. KOFIC’s figures for the whole of October, published after the month closes, will give the local share for the month.
Our reading
The chart says two things at once. Japanese animation with an existing fan base keeps travelling to Korea at scale, and it is doing so in a month when the only new Korean film in the top three sold 104,876 tickets in its first five days. For Korean distributors, the more uncomfortable fact is the margin: a Yeon Sang-ho thriller with a Toronto premiere behind it opened within 1,543 tickets of a five-week-old political drama, on more screens.
Second-weekend admissions for Paradise Lost will show whether its audience is building or was front-loaded by the director’s name. For buyers outside Korea, the domestic number matters less than the festival profile, which is already set. For more on how Asian titles are traded, see our report on Busan’s Asian Contents & Film Market.