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| ▲ This photo, provided by Plus M Entertainment, shows the poster for 'Dream.' (PHOTO NOT FOR SALE) (Yonhap) |
SEOUL, Apr. 27 (Yonhap) -- South Korean star director Lee Byeong-heon’s brand-new film “Dream” topped the local box office on its very first day of release.
Per Korea Film Council on Thursday, Lee’s sports comedy-drama film topped the box office chart by raking in more than 93,000 admissions (31.7% of sales share) on Wednesday. It is the first time in 50 days for a Korean film to touch down in first place on the daily box office chart after the action-noir film “The Devil’s Deal,” starring Cho Jin-woong and Lee Sung-min.
Korean films have recently been analyzed to be continuing to grapple with weak ticket sales and audience numbers in local theaters due to a lack of hit films. Meanwhile, the Japanese animated blockbuster “Suzume,” released last month, has continued its supremacy at the local box office, followed by the American action-packed flick “John Wick: Chapter 4.”
Director Lee, who took the helm of “Dream,” has credits for producing the mega-hit action-comedy film “Extreme Job,” which attracted more than 16 million moviegoers. His latest film, starring Park Seo-jun and IU, follows the story of a former professional soccer player who becomes the coach of a thrown-together soccer team, formed by homeless people, that challenge themselves to run at the Homeless World Cup.
In the meantime, the American computer-animated adventure film “The Super Mario Bros. Movie,” released on the same day, sat in the second slot by raking in more than 89,000 admissions. Based on Nintendo’s Mario video game franchise and produced in collaboration with the computer animation studio Illumination, this animated family film depicts the journey of Nintendo’s iconic Italian plumber hero Mario, who goes on an adventure to save his younger brother Luigi.
Meanwhile, in North America, where the animated film hit the big screens earlier than those in Korea, “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” has been jumping past huge milestones by already becoming the all-time highest-grossing film of this year only in its opening week.
(This article is translated from Korean to English by Ha eun Lee)
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