'Exhuma' surpasses two million tickets in four days

A scene from occult thriller ″Exhuma″ [SHOWBOX]

Grave diggers took over the Korean box office this past weekend.

The occult thriller film “Exhuma” surpassed 2 million ticket sales as of Sunday afternoon, just four days after its release on Thursday.

The four-day feat beat the record previously held by the 2023 hit history drama “12.12: The Day,” which saw two million admissions in six days. “Exhuma” sold one million tickets on Saturday alone, according to distributor Showbox.

“We expect the heat to continue through the second week thanks to many scenes that are open to interpretation, which have led the audiences to ponder and revisit the film,” Showbox said in a news release.

“Exhuma” is the third movie that Jang Jae-hyun has directed and written, following “The Priests” (2015) and “Svaha: The Sixth Finger” (2019).

The horror film stars “Oldboy” (2003) actor Choi Min-sik along with Kim Go-eun, Yoo Hae-jin and Lee Do-hyun, who makes his first silver screen appearance.

Kim plays Hwa-rim, a shaman who — along with her partner medium, Bong-gil, played by Lee — receives a request from a Korean family in the United States who are plagued by hauntings. Deeming the issue to have stemmed from the family’s ancestors, the duo, along with a feng shui expert and an undertaker, exhume the family ancestors’ grave. But after something escapes from the coffin, unsettling events, including deaths and possessions, occur.

The film premiered at the 74th Berlin International Film Festival, or Berlinale, with a screening on Feb. 16. It was included in the Forum section, which showcases experimental films, an honor director Bong Joon-ho’s “Snowpiercer” (2013) and Kim Tae-yong’s “Late Autumn” (2010) received in the past.

BY YOON SO-YEON [yoon.soyeon@joongang.co.kr]