Korea Box Office: Phone Scam Comedy ‘Citizen of a Kind’ Wins on Slow Weekend
29.01.2024 - 02:23
/ variety.com
Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief “Citizen of a Kind,” a comedy-drama about a woman who takes matters into her own hands after becoming the victim of a scam, fulfilled its promise from an earlier week of previews. “Citizen” topped the South Korean box office on its opening weekend, accounting for a more than 40% market share.
But, with few other fresh titles reaching cinemas, overall theatrical revenues were at their lowest for several months.
“Citizen” earned $2.59 million between Friday and Sunday, according to figures from Kobis, the data service operated by the Korean Film Council (Kofic). Over five days since release on Wednesday, and with the addition of its earlier previews, “Citizen” finished its opening weekend with a cumulative of $3.58 million.
Directed by Park Young-ju, “Citizen” tells the tale of woman whose business has gone up in flames and takes a hefty loan in an attempt to restart it.
When she discovers that the loan is a hoax perpetrated by an overseas gang who may have trafficked its phone operators, the woman travels to China to sort matters out.
(The connected themes of phone scams and forced labor are becoming recurring topics in Asian films and TV, with “No More Bets,” a Chinese title, where the gangsters are based in Southeast Asia, the highest profile example from last year. Governments held talks on the matter after “No More Bets” was reported to have scared Chinese tourists into changing their travel plans out of fear of being kidnapped.)
There was little such drama elsewhere in Korean cinemas, however.
The industry’s total weekend revenues were just $5.94 million.
Fantasy action film, “Alienoid 2” slipped to second place in its fourth weekend. It recorded a 57$ weekend-on-weekend slump and
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