[Korean Film News] "Voice of a Murderer" A Success

The big box office news this week is the overwhelming success of Park Jin-pyo's docudrama "Voice of a Murderer." We reported back in December that Darcy Paquet over at Koreanfilm.org predicted that the film would be one of the year's sure-fire hits, selling nearly as many tickets as "War of Flowers," the biggest draw since the monster movie "The Host" (although ""200 Pound Beauty is fast catching up). Then there was a less than warm review in The Korea Times online which foretold a poor box office showing for the director's follow-up to the immensely popular "You Are My Sunshine," which holds the title of most successful melodrama. The critic compared the new movie to a television docudrama, saying the story, familiar to most Koreans because of heavy media exposure at the time of the incident depicted in the film, lacked "cinematic interpretation." "Voice" recorded a respectable 1.46 million admissions from Thursday to Sunday, taking in US $10.1 million. The drama, based on an actual kidnapping that took place over 15 years ago, opened on 397 screens but rapidly expanded to 508 screens by Sunday. The film, distributed by CJ Entertainment, bodes well for start-up production company Zip Cinema, headed by producer Eugene Lee ("Untold Scandal").

[Source: Darcy Paquet for Variety]