The recent Korean movies are really not up to the mark. Japanese animations such as “THE FIRST SLAM DUNK” (The Man Is Into the Bottle/Slam Dunk), “Demon Slayer: Blade Winding Assembly, Advance to Swordsmith Village” and “Journey to Suzuya” etc. While the works occupy the domestic box office, Korean movies have been in a downturn.
All three Japanese animation films were among the top ten in the domestic box office and successfully attracted a large number of audiences to watch in theaters, including “THE FIRST SLAM DUNK”, which refreshed the top box office box office of South Korean animated films, and “Demon Slayer: Blades of Demon Slayer: Assemble, Go Forward” Village” and “Journey to Bell Bud” released on the 8th.
“THE FIRST SLAM DUNK” became the box office champion of Japanese animation movies after it was released in South Korea because of the original work and the rave reviews of fanatic fans (read it more than once). From its release to the present (16th), more than 4.04 million viewers have gone to the theater to watch it, and it continues to maintain a long-term hit status.
On the other hand, the equally popular animation series “Demon Slayer: Blade Movie” also ranked first at the box office on the first day, and the number of viewers has exceeded 460,000, and it is still increasing.
Director Makoto Shinkai’s latest work “Journey to Bell Bud” following “Your Name” has maintained its position as the box office champion after its release, and has become a dark horse in theaters. On March 13, 6 days after its release, the number of viewers exceeded 1 million. This is the fastest record for a movie released in 2023 to reach 1 million viewers, which is shorter than “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantum Mania” (8 days) and “THE FIRST SLAM DUNK” (14 days).
(Source: Movie Promotion Poster)
Unlike the upsurge of Japanese animation, Korean movies seem to be hard-pressed to avoid a bitter struggle. Movies such as “Dark Showdown”, “Count” and “The Perfect Dog Nanny” have all failed to break the 1 million threshold despite their ambitious forays into theaters. Among them, “Super Perfect Dog Nanny” even chose to go live on IPTV 17 days after its release, and was troubled by the poor box office.
The movie “Soul Mate”, which was released on the 15th, was no exception. It only got 20,239 viewers on the day of its release, which was only a quarter of the number of viewers on the first day of “Journey to Bell Bud”. On the 16th, the number of single-day viewers of “Soul Mate” dropped by nearly half, and the gap with “Journey to Bell Bud” also widened by more than 5 times. If the trend continues, there is also a chance that “Soulmate” will match the same box office results as previous Korean films.
At present, Japanese animation films are popular in theaters, and the downturn in Korean films is not known how long it will last, which is worrying.
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