2016.07.22 ~ 2016.07.24

All aboard the"Train to Busan"...

Yeon Sang-ho's action thriller"Train to Busan"was officially released last Wednesday and over the weekend it enjoyed one of biggest opening weekend hauls of the year. Yeon's first live action film captured 75% of the box office pie from over 1,785 screens around the country. That's an incredible 3.2 million admissions (or $24 million) in just one weekend.

"Train to Busan"starsGong Yoo,Jeong Yu-mi,Ma Dong-seokandKim Soo-anin an apocalyptic thriller that takes place on a KTX train headed for Busan. The film was screened at Cannes earlier this year where it was well received by critics and cinephiles alike, but now Korean filmgoers are swarming to its screens at home to catch one of the most-anticipated films of summer. While the film's official release was just last week, the film was available at various cinemas the week before, so the film has already amassed over 5.3 million admissions ($38.5 million).

Last weekend's number one, Jon M. Chu's "Now You See Me 2", had its screens slash in half and subsequently slipped to second with 456,524 admissions (10.5%). The film had its international premiere in New York City at the beginning of June, and currently, Jon's sequel to the popular 2013 film has grossed $285.9 million (the film was produced for around $90 million). The fifth film in the "Ice Age" series of films, "Ice Age: Collision Course", also arrived in Korea last week. "Collision Course" took third place having attracted 206,260 admissions from 579 screens. That was enough to outplay another popular animated sequel: PIXAR's "Finding Dory".

"Find Nemo" is one of most successful animations of all time and its sequel has not disappointed fans of the original. Worldwide, "Finding Dory" has banked $781.7 million, and in Korea, since its release on June 6, it's sold 2 million admissions ($1.1 million, or 3.6%), 163,644 thousand of which came from this past weekend. Fifth place fell to the Japanese animation "Yo-kai Watch: Enma Daiō to Itsutsu no Monogatari da Nyan!" by Shigeharu Takahashi and Shinji Ushiro. The film is the second film in the "Yo-kai Watch" series developed by Level-5 in Japan, and its first weekend out in Korea yielded 119,332 admissions ($813,234).

Park Dae-min's period piece"Seondal: The Man Who Sells the River"dropped two places to settle in sixth with 70,031 admissions (1.5%), moving its total tally to 2 million, followed by the American survival horror "The Shallows" with 70,031 admissions (1.1%). The Bucheon International Fantastic Film Festival is currently underway and one of its short film collections managed to enter the top ten with 16,500 admissions ($87,010). The "BIFAN2016 Fantastic Short Films 1" had just 4 screens at the festival, but it still managed to attract enough cinephiles to feature here.

Finally, the penultimate weekend of July was rounded out by the German comedy "I'm Off Then" by Julia von Heinz in ninth place with 10,673 admissions (0.2%), andKim Tae-gon's comedy drama"Familyhood"(starringKim Hye-soo) rounded out the top tenth by adding another 8,442 (0.2%) admissions to its cause."Familyhood"was released at the end of last month and has since amassed 2.1 million admissions ($14.8 million).

Korean Box Office - Admissions for the Weekend 2016.07.22 - 2016.07.24 (www.kobis.or.kr)

 -Chris Wheeler