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The recently released 6/45 has created quite the stir in the world of Korean cinema. This comedy movie with a star-studded cast has topped the Korean box office with over $3.06 million in earnings over the weekend in its second week in theaters. Over the weekend, the movie also crossed the staggering mark of 1 million movie audience.
The comedy movie features Go Kyung-Pyo, Kwak Dong-Yeon, and Lee Yi Kyung, among others. The film shows a lighthearted run-in between South and North Korean soldiers over a lottery ticket worth 5.7 billion won, which got carried across the military demarcation line by strong gushes of wind and a little bit of fate.
While 6/45 soars, Korean box office faces a dip
6/45, according to Kobis, a subunit of the Korean Film Council (Kofic), soared to the top of the box office and accumulated over $2.74 dollars in the first week of its release. Since then, the success of 6/45 has only been on an upward trend. The title's popularity grew by a sharp 11% and it covered more than 45% of the market, aggregating a gross of $8.36 million.
While 6/45 continues its nationwide success, the Korean Box Office is witnessing its worst slump since mid-May. Due to a dearth of noteworthy new releases, the domestic box office for the weekend of Friday to Sunday fell to $6.75 million. Since early May this year, last weekend marked the lowest score of the box office.
According to Kobis' monthly data, gross receipts in August were KRW14.9 billion, which was a sharp fall from KRW16.3 billion in the previous month. However, a comparison to last year's data showed that the gross was over twice as much as August 2021. The percentage of domestic box office revenue devoted to Korean films increased to 81% from 39% in Hollywood-dominated July.
The monthly August getaway could just be a phase. After reaching a peak of $22 million in late July, the box office has been decreasing for five weeks, raising the issue of whether local Korean films can fully capitalize on the Hollywood break as all upcoming major Hollywood productions are set to release not before October.
Hunt and Top Gun: Maverick follow 6/45 at the Korean Box Office
Following 6/45 at the box office was Hunt, the Korean blockbuster which dominated the box office for three consecutive weeks. The film slipped to second place with a fourth weekend gross of $31.1 million, a 45% regression from its previous week.
Directed by Lee Jung-Jae, Hunt marks the directorial debut of the star, who also stars in the film alongside Jung Woo-Sung. The movie is an action espionage thriller. Previously, it received an invitation to the Midnight Screening non-competitive section of the 2022 Cannes Film Festival.
Joseph Kosinski’s Hollywood blockbuster, Top Gun Maverick, which was released in Korean theaters in June, is still doing extraordinarily well in theaters as months later the movie is in fourth place at the box office.
Holding fifth place was the domestic crime-thriller Limit directed by Lee Seung-Jun.
