'Along with the Gods,' '1987' dominate Korean box office

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The movie posters for ‘Along With the Gods: The Two Worlds’ (left) and ‘1987: When the Day Comes
The movie posters for ‘Along With the Gods: The Two Worlds’ (left) and ‘1987: When the Day Comes KOFIC

Two Korean films are dominating the box office in Korea, capturing 80 percent of revenues.

"Along With the Gods: The Two Worlds" and "1987: When the Day Comes" took the top two spots, according to the Korean Film Council (KOFIC).

Starring Ha Jung-woo, Cha Tae-hyun, Ju Ji-hoon and Kim Hyang-gi, "Along With the Gods: The Two Worlds" has topped the daily box office in South Korea since it was released on December 20. It set records by selling two million tickets in just four days.

On its eighth day on December 28, the movie sold 377,816 tickets and earned US$2.62 million with a daily market share of 49.56 percent to maintain its No. 1 position. To date, it has sold 6.07 million tickets with revenue of $44.78 million to become the No. 6 bestselling film in Korea for 2017.

In second place is "1987: When the Day Comes," which stars Kim Yoon-seok, Ha Jung-woo, Yoo Hae-jin, Kim Tae-ri, Park Hee-soon and Lee Hee-joon.

The movie was released on December 27 and in just two days, it has sold 588,750 tickets and earned $3.68 million. Its market share on December 28 was 29.27 percent.

"In 1987 Korea, under an oppressive military regime, a college student gets killed during a police interrogation involving torture. Government of officials are quick to cover up the death and order the body to be cremated. A prosecutor who is supposed to sign the cremation release, raises questions about a 21-year-old kid dying of a heart attack, and he begins looking into the case for truth," KOFIC wrote about the movie's plot.

Coincidentally, actor Ha Jung-woo stars in both films and he said he became very tired attending the press conferences for the movies.

"After two press events in a row, I was really tired physically and mentally. It was like running in two Olympics finals straight. That's because I had to recollect where I started with the production staff of two different films and the time I spent with them at an interval of one day as Gang-rim of 'Gods' and Prosecutor Choi of '1987,' he said.

This article was first published on December 29, 2017