The Star Online: Entertainment: Movies
The Star Online: Entertainment: Movies |
- 'Warm Bodies' heats up Korean film market
- Korean star Lee Byung-hun plays ninja bodyguard in G.I. Joe 2
- 'Oz' conjures up more North America box office magic
| 'Warm Bodies' heats up Korean film market Posted: 18 Mar 2013 12:21 AM PDT SOUTH KOREA (Reuters) -- Hollywood zombie comedy Warm Bodies has put an end to the three weeks' reign of Korean film noir New World on the weekend box office. The horror romance pic landed at No. 1 on the chart after drawing in 423,332 cinemagoers during the weekend of 15 and 17 March, Korean Box Office Information System [KOBIS] showed Monday. In Warm Bodies, 23-year-old British actor Nicholas Hoult stars as a zombie named R who befriends a human and begins to turn into a human himself., creating an unusual sense of excitement in the zombie community. This is Hoult's 11th film after recording another hit with his 10th movie, Jack The Giant Slayer, which sits at No. 9 on the chart. Fashion King star Lee Je-hoon's new drama film My Paparotti made a handsome debut to the second slot with 360,333 audience numbers in the same time frame. Opposite the veteran actor Han Suk-kyu of the hit blockbuster The Berlin File, Lee depicts a gangster with gifted vocal talents who comes to show his talent with the help of his cynical music teacher Sang-jin [Han]. While New World fell to the third position with 322,618 admissions, the smash hit comedy Miracle in Cell No. 7, now the third most-watched pic in Korean film of all-time, ranked at No. 4 with 180,960 audience numbers. Kim Beom and Kim Kang-woo's mystery thriller The Gifted Hands slid down two spots and rounded off the top five after pulling in only 78,010 moviegoers. Other popular movies in the top 10n were Hollywood fantasy Oz: The Great And Powerful, U.S. war drama Lincoln, Italian animated pic Gladiators Of Rome, Nicholas Hoult's adventure fantasy Jack The Giant Slayer and Han Suk-kyu's spy thriller The Berlin File. |
| Korean star Lee Byung-hun plays ninja bodyguard in G.I. Joe 2 Posted: 17 Mar 2013 06:20 PM PDT Korean actor Lee Byung-hun makes another mark in Hollywood. Director Park Chan-wook has been there, and so has director Kim Jee-woon. Hollywood may not be an undiscovered place for Korean directors as of this year: They've made their debut films there, released them, and experienced the red- carpet glamour. Hollywood, however, still remains foreign to most Korean actors. One of the few exceptions is top actor Lee Byung-hun, whose performance in his 2009 Hollywood debut G.I. Joe: The Rise Of Cobra left a mark. The actor is now ahead of the opening of the sci-fi flick's sequel, G.I. Joe 2: The Retaliation, where he returns as Storm Shadow – the famous heroic character who works as a ninja bodyguard doing epic stunts. Lee, who enjoyed much success with the Korean period drama Masquerade released last year – the film remains the third-highest grossing Korean film of all time – says it was his "curiosity" that drew him to Hollywood. "It was more of curiosity (than ambition)," said the 42-year-old actor during an interview in Seoul, South Korea, recently. "Even after my second movie, I am still curious. I still wonder what I can actually offer in Hollywood and how much farther I can go with my career there. I'm up for new challenges and opportunities." Shooting his second Hollywood film required a number of things, including mastering every script line in perfect American English and getting used to the Hollywood filmmaking system – which is vastly different from the one in South Korea. Both directors Park and Kim have shared their difficulties getting used to the system, which they experienced while shooting Stoker and The Last Stand, respectively. Unlike the Korean film industry, where all the crew members work on the set until the director is satisfied with the shoots, working in Hollywood strictly requires start and finish, each day's work is done on time. Director Kim said the experience was "lonely" and "extremely challenging." Lee said it was "efficient but intimidating, sometimes". "Director Park and Kim were all in the US while I was shooting this film," said Lee. "Both of them would often text me (when they were frustrated) and say, 'I am going nuts' or 'I could just pack everything and go home now'. I'd giggle whenever I received the texts. "But seriously speaking, I think getting used to the system must have been much harder for them than it was for me. From what I've seen, being a film director in South Korea is just totally different from being a film director in Hollywood." Unlike Park and Kim, Lee got himself out there without an interpreter. Throughout the shooting process, Lee communicated with all of the US crew members without any help from a third party. Director Jon Chu, who worked with Lee on the film, in fact said the actor surprisingly spoke "perfect English". "I remember him coming into the project and everyone was like, 'Oh, he doesn't speak that much English'," Chu said. "So I thought this would be interesting how we would interact with each other. But then he came in for a meeting and he spoke perfect English. There he talked about how he wanted the character to be more emotional and real. He wanted to create a rawer, rage-filled character rather than just a cartoon character. It was great. We could talk about the things below the surface." Lee is undoubtedly one of Korea's most celebrated film stars, having starred in more than 40 films and TV drama series. He is noted for his strong presence and nuanced acting style. "I loved that he could be really strong and powerful but at the same time have a sense of humour about himself," Chu said about Lee's performance in Kim Jee-woon's 2008 film The Good, The Bad, The Weird, where the actor appears as a villain. "I loved that you were scared of him but also felt for him. That combination was very rare for me because usually I think in American action movies you are either a villain or a hero. The in-betweens are tough. And what I loved about Lee Byung-hun's performance in all these movies is that he plays the line very well. He plays it and goes back and forth. And that takes a real artist." Lee's character in the G.I. Joe movies, Storm Shadow, is a Japanese-American who used to serve in the US Army's special operations group. "He seems cold and cynical, mostly because of this traumatic experience he had in the past," Lee said. "And there is this scene in the movie where he simply explodes with all the suppressed emotions. That's one of the scenes that I considered the most important." Lee's co-stars have nothing but respect for him. "His acting style is very strong and he can be very intense," said Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, who stars in the movie with Lee. The actor said he was unaware of Lee's stardom in Asia until director Chu "educated him" about it. "One of the most impressive things about Lee is that he is a very, very disciplined actor who takes his job incredibly seriously. Even in our world of cosmic mythology, he brings a very nice way to perform (his role). I'm very impressed with the guy. A nice guy, too." – The Korea Herald/Asia News Network ■ G.I. Joe 2: Retaliation opens in cinemas nationwide on March 28. |
| 'Oz' conjures up more North America box office magic Posted: 17 Mar 2013 06:14 PM PDT LOS ANGELES - Big-budget 3D fantasy adventure flick "Oz the Great and Powerful" for a second straight weekend was the top film at North American movie houses, earning $42.2 million, industry estimates showed. Starring James Franco as a circus magician who ends up on the Yellow Brick Road, "The Wizard of Oz" prequel had a two-week total of $145 million, according to box office tracker Exhibitor Relations. Second place went to "The Call," which debuted with $17.1 million in sales. The film thriller stars screen siren Halle Berry as a 911 operator trying to rescue a young girl who has been abducted. In third was a comedy, "The Incredible Burt Wonderstone," starring Steve Carell as a washed up magician who joins forces with street performer Jim Carrey, a street performer. It earned $10.3 million in its first weekend in theaters. Fourth place went to was "Jack the Giant Slayer," which stars Nicholas Hoult in the title role as a young farmhand battling giants to save a princess. It brought in $6.2 million in its third week. "Identity Thief," a comedy starring Melissa McCarthy and Jason Bateman, was fifth, with $4.5 million in receipts. Action film "Snitch" starring Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson came win sixth place with $3.5 million in takings. Seventh place went to "21 & Over," about three carousing colleges students celebrating a birthday milestone. It earned $2.6 million. The Oscar-winning "Silver Linings Playbook" came in eight place with $2.6 million. "Safe Haven," a romantic drama adapted from a novel by Nicholas Sparks, earned $2.5 million for the ninth spot. To round out the top 10, animated kids movie "Escape from Planet Earth," earned $2.3 million. - AFP |
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