BOX OFFICE IN KOREA/BOX OFFICE IN HONG KONG

Hong Kong's box office faced its worst year yet with just two local movies making the year's top ten: INITIAL D took the number 1 slot and WAIT TILL YOU'RE OLDER (Andy Lau gets old) coming in at number 10.

Local productions were down from 64 (with 5 in the year end top ten) in 2004 to 55 in 2005, and local productions only took 31% of the box office (down from 46% in 2004) and total local box office dropped 1.3%.

Ouch.

In Korea, TYPHOON looks like it's blown itself out. It's spectacular opening (3 million tickets on opening weekend) has been harpooned by bad reviews and lousy word of mouth and now it looks doubtful that it'll hit the breakeven point of 5 million tickets. KING KONG, on the other hand, has been so popular that Darcy Paquet of Koreanfilm.org has tried to see it more than once and has been denied due to sell-outs every time.

In the meantime, THE KING AND THE CLOWN, a period movie about a troupe of actors satirizing the king and getting in trouble for it, has been going like gangbusters and, again, Darcy couldn't get a ticket.

While on the one hand this may mean there aren't enough screens in Seoul, on the other hand I like this notion of sold-out shows. It makes it all a little more fun.

And finally, Korea's new Minister of Culture has gone on the record in support of the screen quota system, almost guaranteeing that Korea will at least make it through the next year (hopefully) without having its contested quota system abolished.