Ha Jung-woo‘s big ski-jump movie Take Off [국가대표, or National Athlete] has had another great run over the Chuseok holiday weekend, and its overall ticket sales have now landed it as No. 8 on the all-time box office list in Korea. With more than 8.28 million viewers, the sports-comedy movie has pushed 2001′s Jang Dong-gun film Friend down a slot (8.18 million viewers). This also puts Take Off within reach of the movies in seventh and sixth places: Speed Scandal (8.3 million) and D War (8.42 million).
The movie features a motley team of guys who take up the unfamiliar sport of ski jumping, wanting to bring honor to their country (by winning a ski jump competition, they hope to help bring the Winter Olympics to Korea). Take Off opened on July 29 and is still going strong in theaters; in addition to Ha Jung-woo, it stars Sung Dong-il, Kim Ji-seok, Kim Dong-wook, and Lee Jae-eung.
Via E Daily
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Tags: box office, Ha Jung-woo
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Thus the Korean paradox. Sports dramas = bad ratings. Sports films = big box office
Love watching ski jumping/flying competitions. Anybody remember Eddie the Eagle?
i would love to watch this movie
for the sake of ha jung woo..
This is one of those movies I wish I could watch on big screen. Hooray for HJW and all the other actors. I never thought this movie would do so well considering it’s a sports movie. It seems that light-hearted and uplifting movies tend to do well lately in Korea.
perhaps korean sports movies are shorter therefore more suspense packed. dramas tend to play things out longer and after a while, it can become repetitive. therefore writing needs to be much much better and live shoot cannot work for sports drama. i mean, look at heading to the ground…
two cents.
Sounds like a really fun & cool movie to watch! The synopsis sounds pretty similar to the comedy movie Cool Runnings featuring the Jamaican bobsled team in Winter Olympic as well ;p
Hehehe…I totally thought of Cool Runnings too!
I refuse to believe that D-War did that well at the box office… what happened? Was there a counting error?
Yeh for HJW!
I don’t think I’ve ever watched a Korean sports movie so I’m definitely watching this when I get the chance. And there’s Ha Jung-woo… ♥
@janie and giddygirl
Me too. It does seem to have the same feel and possibly light-hearted comedy.