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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Disaster movie “Haeundae,” horror-action film “Chaw”

Korean movies are doing well this week at the box office, with the just-released tsunami movie Haeundae [해운대] selling more than 166,000 tickets in its first day alone, beating out Harry Potter and the Half-blood Prince in the latter’s second week out. (Granted, Harry Potter is most certainly going to win in overall numbers, but it’s a strong showing for a Korean film to premiere at #1 when it’s going up against international blockbusters like Potter and Transformers 2.)

Meanwhile, another Korean action movie opened big last week, the killer-pig-on-the-loose film Chaw [차우] starring Uhm Tae-woong and Jung Yumi. Chaw opened on the same day as Harry Potter and secured a second-place box-office slot for the day. By the end of its first week, Chaw had managed to break the 1 million mark, benefiting from word-of-mouth buzz.

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Ha Ji-won’s about to come back into the media spotlight with two movies slated for this year: tsunami movie Haeundae and the quieter melodrama My Love By My Side.

I’m sure we’ll hear more about My Love By My Side (the Kim Myung-min film featuring him as a Lou Gehrig’s disease sufferer) when that film is ready to release, but for now it’s all about Haeundae, which will come out on July 23.

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Jumong and Terroir actress Han Hye-jin has a new project lined up, and it’s a film called No Forgiveness [용서는 없다], which co-stars Sol Kyung-gu of such films as Public Enemy Returns and Voice of a Murder. He’s also the recently announced fiancé to On Air actress Song Yoon-ah.

No Forgiveness is described as a crime thriller involving a violent murderer. Sol Kyung-gu’s character investigates dead bodies as an employee of the National Scientific, Criminal & Investigation Laboratory and embarks on a hunt to catch the killer. Han Hye-jin plays a junior police officer who joins up with Sol in digging up the truth. Also cast is Ryu Seung-beom (Radio Days), who discovers the first clue and faces off against Sol in a fierce two-way psychological battle.

The film will begin filming at the end of May, at about the same time Sol marries Song Yoon-ah (on the 28th), meaning the couple will hold off on their honeymoon while the groom films.

Not sure how I feel about the description — there’s nothing wrong with it, but it doesn’t sound particularly striking, and I’m thinking it can go either way. I’ve never been a huge Han Hye-jin fan, but these two men squaring off against each other in a murder thriller just might be worth catching.

Via OSEN

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