Korean films take in fewer ticket sales

Reception for domestic films in the first half of this year proved to be lackluster both in terms of commercial and low-budget films, according to the Korean Film Council.

In an interim report released Tuesday by the state-run organization, of the 95 million tickets sold, just 42.5 percent, or 40 million, were for Korean produced films. The figure marks a 2.7 percent year-on-year decrease.

Except for Yoon Je-kyun’s “Ode To My Father,” which opened last year and continued to reign until January, the upper tier of the box office was filled with Hollywood blockbusters, the report showed.

Marvel’s superhero flick “Avengers: Age of Ultron,” topped the charts with 10 million ticket sales, making 88 billion won ($75.3 million) from Korean theaters, followed by Matthew Vaughn’s spy thriller “Kingsman: The Secret Service,” coming in third with 6.1 million viewers.

“Jurassic World,” the fourth installment of Universal Studios’ popular Jurassic Park series, ranked fourth with 4.6 million tickets sold. It brought in about 40 billion won in local theaters.

Among the films released this year, only two Korean films, “Twenty,” directed by Lee Byung-hun, and “Detective K: Secret of the Island,” were able to surpass three million admissions.

In the country’s diversity film section - a cinematic term here that has been used to refer to films outside the mainstream - “Whiplash” came out on top with 1.6 million viewers.

BY JIN EUN-SOO [jin.eunsoo@joongang.co.kr]