Bad news for Jang Nara: Her film company has decided to pull their recent film Sky and Ocean from theaters a mere twelve days into its run. The company says this is in response to the controversy the film has sparked, but no doubt the abysmal ticket receipts are also to blame.

For being a small, relationship-based music film, the film has been at the center of a lot of noise. Jang’s production company, which is headed by her father Ju Ho-sung, has battled accusations that there was unfair lobbying going on behind the scenes when the film was nominated for a best film Daejong Award.

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Ouch. Jang Nara’s latest film, Sky and Ocean [하늘과 바다], hasn’t just flopped at the box office, it put in a decidedly miserable showing in last place in its opening week. It seems these days we’re hearing about new films breaking records by bringing in millions of viewers in a single weekend (examples: Take Off, Haeundae, Chaw), but Sky and Ocean fell short of even 10,000 audience members in its first weekend. To be specific, it drew 9,952 viewers.

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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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Joining the club of 2009 blockbusters is the currently screening film Take Off, also called Ski Jump or National Athlete [국가대표]. The sports comedy starring Ha Jung-woo, Sung Dong-il, and Kim Ji-suk has been buoyed by favorable word-of-mouth buzz and has pulled in over 7 million viewers since its July 29 release. It also picked up six awards at Saturday’s Chunsa Film Festival, including Best Picture. This is director Kim Yong-hwa’s follow-up to the romantic comedy 200 Pound Beauty, a sleeper hit that brought in 6.6 million viewers.

Such is its success that it has also announced a re-edited version (akin to a director’s cut), also to be released in theaters, with material that promises additional fun and laughs that been cut out of the original. (That’s not surprising, since the original run clocks in at 137 minutes.) These added parts feature 15 more minutes of Ha Jung-woo’s storyline involving his search for his biological mother and his memorable first encounter with the eccentric Lee Jae-eung, as well as a new-and-improved version of the film’s opening Olympic sequence with enhanced graphics (7 minutes longer than the first version). The new version is called Take Off: The Complete Version and opens on September 10. (This creates the somewhat unusual scenario of an original and its re-edited version screening in theaters concurrently.)

Meanwhile, the Ha Ji-won and Sol Kyung-gu disaster film Haeundae, which opened the week before Take Off, has now brought in more than 11.1 million viewers, beating Silmido (11.08 million) on the list of biggest box-office Korean films of all time. Its performance to date puts it into fourth place behind The Host (13 million), The King and the Clown (12.3 million), and Taegukgi (11.74 million).

Via Star News, Yonhap News

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Despite being several weeks into its release, eyes are on disaster film Haeundae this weekend at the box office as the film is expected to break the 9 million mark in viewers.

As of reports on Saturday morning, the 15th, the film has sold more than 8.5 million tickets, putting it squarely at #5 in the all-time Korean box-office list. It recently surpassed the #7 film Friend (8.18 million), #6 Speed Scandal (8.21 million), and #5 D War (8.43 million).

There have only been four movies to break 10 million, and people are curious to see whether Haeundae will join them. They are: #4 Silmido (11.08 million), #3 Taegukgi (11.74 million), #2 King and the Clown (12.3 million), and #1 The Host (13.02 million).

If Haeundae manages to hit the 10 million mark, its stars Ha Ji-won and Sol Kyung-gu will join their colleagues Song Kang-ho and Jang Dong-gun as 10-million-ticket actors, earning Ha Ji-won the distinction of being the first woman in the club. (King and the Clown did star Kang Sung-yeon and The Host included Bae Doo-na, but they aren’t considered “10-million-ticket” actresses; they weren’t the lead draws and were part of the subplots.)

Via IS Plus, OSEN

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