KOREA: BIG NUMBERS COMING

Ah, September. The month of A SOUND OF THUNDER, THE MAN and a million different varieties of bad movies dumping out of various studio orifices and stinking up our screens. I understand the studio point of view: this is the month of colonics, when they purge their corporate bodies of poisons and toxins by spraying out all the clunkers and flunkers that have been causing them to bloat. The consequence, however, is that late August/early September is a wasteland: in both the literal and figurative sense.

Not so in Korea. The box office is primed to explode with:

- APRIL SNOW: it's gotten a 40% ticket presales figure and it's starring popular TV actors. It already looks like it's going to be a big deal, and it's an 18-rated (R rated) melodrama.

- THE DUELIST: Lee Myung-Se's return after about six years is much anticipated and stars another big Korean TV star, and it's being released on tons of screens.

- MARRYING THE MAFIA 2: the sequel to the huge comedy hit is set to unfurl momentarily.

With WELCOME TO DONGMAKGOL still raking in the big bucks (it's almost at 7 million tickets - the big no man's land between 5 million tickets and 10 million tickets for Korean movies) and MARATHON surprisingly having hit the 5 million ticket mark earlier in the Spring, it's been a rocking year so far in Korea.

Go here for an in depth TWITCH analysis of the numbers.