10 Million for 왕의 남자 (The King and The Clown)

Wasn't Jang Hyuk supposed to play the role of Gong-Gil? I think Darcy mentioned it in his review at Koreanfilm.org. Good thing military duty called.

This film's become quite a phenomenon, I guess. Just a matter of short time before it takes the #1 domestic grosser crown, which is pretty mind-blowing.

Gong-Gil was decided after an audition in March. Jang Hyuk was up for Jang-Saeng (which makes more sense, looks-wise), and I guess we're lucky he ended up dropping out. Gam Woo-Sung is so much better.

You can check the full production diary (well, 'dates') in the first link up there.

That's a relief. The mental image of Jang Hyuk playing an effeminate = not so hot.

X, you're back! All's well again.

Very happy for King and the Clown. Been watching lots of making clips and news and can't wait to have the movie on DVD.

Do you know if there've been many repeat viewings of the movie? People going back to watch it multiple times?

yep. Some people watched it 20 times. Most come back for a refill. It's getting crazy.

Lee is already working on his next film, 라디오스타 (Radio Star), which sounds fun, and then he'll go back to Historical Dramas next year.

Btw, Damo review up next week along with Duelist. Just have to regroup a little (had a lil' surgery early this week). ^^

"The King and the Clown" is a great movie, but I don't think it wasn't that great to have over 10 million audiences.

To be honest, I think "The King and the Clown" is a little too overrated. I went to Korea on December and watched both "Typhoon" and "The King and the Clown". When I watched "Typhoon", it seemed as if my expectations were a little too high, since I'd been dying to watch it since October. A week after being disappointed by "Typhoon", I watched "The King and the Clown", which were getting great reactions. Expecting a lot, I watched it and by the end, I loved the movie. I was sure that "The King and the Clown" was better made than "Typhoon". However, the reactions of Koreans were a little overboard. They called "The King and the Clown" an excellent movie (some say that it's even worth watching over 6 times), and called "Typhoon" trash. Since I had nothing better to do, I decided to watch those two again. Watching "Typhoon" the 2nd time, I liked it more than I did first. But, I still liked "The King and the Clown" more so I was excited to see it again. I don't know why.. but the 2nd time watching it felt a little boring.

I rambled a little too long just to make one point, but I just felt like I had to say this somewhere just for once. "The King and the Clown" is a well-made movie, but, comparing it with the Box Office records of other movies, it should have stopped at around 3-4 million audiences.

it's not like Silmido and Taegukgi are great movies, and they still sold a huge amount of tickets...

Lee Joon-Ik just understands the new audience in Chungmuro, even though some people might think he's just lucky. Even in his previous film, he showed history from the average person's POV (Lee Moon-Shik's 거시기), instead of Historical Dramas on TV repeatedly focusing on important figures, using commoners as the equivalent of Star Trek's 'red shirts', which sometimes made them feel somewhat distant -- the main reason why Fusion Dramas like 다모 (Damo) started popping up and people like Lee Byung-Hoon have been focusing on figures 'outside the palace' in recent years, so to speak.

This tendency to show 'heroic average people' is more in tune with a kind of 'positive nationalism' -- as in being proud of who you are without becoming offensive, not the hate mongering of certain Chosun Ilbo puppets and smarmy pseudo-intellectuals -- which is hitting the nation right now, and found its apex around the 2002 World Cup. Most of the performances I've seen from the film give that 'big event' feel, like the National Soccer Team playing, or similar. Lee's big talent is in reworking historical events from a different perspective (I mean, how many films and TV Dramas have been made about Yeonsan? Countless, even Im Kwon-Taek did some!), which is why they feel so fresh.

I think his achievement here is much more important than the bulky, machismo-drenched blockbusters which currently lead the all time box office (although they're both entertaining films on their own), and budget-to-box office ratio is not the only reason. There hasn't been a truly great Historical Drama on the big screen since 1995's 영원한 제국 (The Eternal Empire) -- although 무사 (Musa: The Warrior) was pretty badass-- and everything I've seen about this film makes me think this might be it.

I do agree that Simido wasn't that great and the King and the Clown was probably more enjoyable to watch (although I can't blame Silmido since they'd have their limits making a movie off of a historical document). But then, in that case, I'd have to say a lot of other movies deserved to have over a 10-million-people audience for being better than Silmido. But I do think Taegukgi deserved its audience (since not much movies can make that many guys cry as Taegukgi did).

Getting off of that topic, I do agree that the director seems to understand the taste of today's audiences. Maybe my tastes are just getting a little old. I guess I can't blame the director or anyone that was a part of the movie.. but I just don't seem to be able to figure out the judging standards of Korean audiences today. I have to say Typhoon wasn't a 10/10 movie (and I'm frequently comparing Typhoon and the King and the Clown because those were the only movies I watched in December and two similar-quality movies were judged so differently), but neither is the King and the Clown a 10/10, but around the same level.

Yes, indeed. Musa was awesome.

"...everything I've seen about this film makes me think this might be it."

Agree. I've been watching the mv over and over and there's something very special about the movie. It's just a 4-minute mv and I get teary just watching it. There's a joyfulness and playfulness about it that's very appealing, and there's also a peculiar sense of pain and heartache. This is the first time I want to watch a movie so badly. (OK, I admit I want to watch it for Lee Joon-ki too, hehe... He's so dang cute in My Girl. ^_^)

X, hope you're feeling much better and recovering well from your surgery.

Dug some info about the DVD Release.

Seems like the barebones rental will be out late next month, but Director Lee talked with a regular poster from DVD Prime about the DVD release, and said it's set for late Summer, because they want to do it right. Might be one of those super-duper editions with 3 Discs and a ton of extras, or maybe just a really solid DVD a la Lady Vengeance or all of enterOne's releases.

Now, previous info I had was late March/early April, but this was on magazines which are always late when it comes to release changes, and they certainly couldn't expect this kind of success.

Now I wouldn't completely trust Lee's date, as things can change, and I'm sure they're not gonna wait 8 months after release with the DVD market doing so badly, but he said they're gonna do a good job on this, as Lee is one of the many directors who's also a DVD Mania, but the wait is gonna be long.

Of course, if anything changes I'll let you know.

Does anyone know if this has sold to the U.S. already? I've heard that CJ Entertainment is selling it and the price is going really high.