AsleepWatcher

Err, he was vaping on a filming set with colleagues/staff around. It's illegal to smoke indoors (and inconsiderate obviously since it's working hours), which is why koreans lash out at celebrities who were caught doing so. I think JCW is a fine actor but he did deserve criticism for that. And what does that have to do with this particular article anyway?

I don’t think there’s any particular incident that “made her this way”, she was a socio/psychopath from the start. Trying to sell your intellectually disabled sibling is pretty telling of that, so other than disgust, I don’t think we’re meant to feel anything for her. Rather than making you understand why she (or the male lead) is this way, I think the movie is trying to show how someone with no morals and hungry for money can use social media as a tool to their advantage, and easily manipulate others to take a liking to herself, all while rationalizing her own behaviors. But I agree that the FL's part was glossed over compared to the ML's which it shouldn't have been.

I have no doubt that many of those stray cat/dog rescuers online do things similar to the FL just for the views/money. If it's once or twice, okay maybe it's genuine. But one person bumping into several different injured animals? Nope, I don't believe that.

In a way, it felt like a combination of many different movies (One hour photo, gone girl, searching/missing). It's not a very original plot and can be quite predictable if you've watched enough movies, but as a whole it was pretty well made in terms of pacing, acting and the overall message. I mostly liked it because it's told from the perspective of the criminals themselves, a pervert and a psychopath, and touches on some societal problems rampant in Korea/the internet. If it had been perfected a bit more and went a little bolder, I would have loved it.

Wow thanks, you're the MVP 👍

Actually I was referring to the word 'blockbuster' lol. Blockbuster applies to something like Exhuma that earned several times the budget and set records. The scale of success is just different

Its performance exceeded expectations but it's not a blockbuster lol. Financially it's a small/moderate success. Though this is still a significant achievement as it was an underdog and the theaters didn't give it much seats (and it's hard enough to not flop in the current climate).

Oh right, and that too. Dude's career is thriving.

They're similar but somehow HJW seems more like a commercial star to me while HJM feels more critically acclaimed. I might be wrong though. HJM's last movie was like the saviour of last year's box office lol. And his second Veteran movie looks very likely to be a hit.

It's pretty common to have back-to-back flops in the current climate but sadly I think HJW might have started losing some appeal. Some people think he's been acting in almost the same way in his movies for a while now (which I kinda agree).

That's a pretty modest budget for such a movie but yeah it will still be tough to break even. IO2's box office is literally insane and already heading towards highest grossing film of 2024. The timing of the release is unfortunate.

Yes, Following is at 1.2 million tickets now. It didn't top the box office throughout its run, but it has the best reviews out of the recent korean releases so good word-of-mouth got it a steady audience.

It was a bad idea to release Wonderland a week before Inside Out 2, but tbh its numbers were already low after a few days. It might have had a chance to hit 1 million without IO2 but it would still be a flop. No matter how many A-listers are in the cast, koreans won't get their butts in the theaters if the movie doesn't have decent to good reviews. This has been consistent for the past few years.

2 weeks in, it has sold 600k tickets and is doing very low numbers now especially with Inside Out 2 taking most of the screens. It will probably end with ~700k at max, which is barely one quarter of breaking even. It's a huge box office flop.

Inside Out 2 is eating up the theaters so that will be very hard. I think getting to 3 million would already be a good result.

Damn, and she's only 12 years old. At that age I was lying on my bed reading comics all day.

I agree that I would prefer not to see LJW on my screen but where was this criticism when he was getting cast in Sweet Home and Bulgasal, even Squid Game 2? Dude has been booked for so many high budget and big scale projects after his scandal, and people seemed fine with that. But now y'all are up in arms when he's cast in an ENA romance drama? Lmao, what are these standards.

Alienoid was a shame because I think CDH is a good director. He took a huge risk, maybe got too greedy making 2 parts and the timing did it no favours. I watched the first part and it wasn't too bad, just incoherent. Meanwhile The Moon was like a Hollywood knockoff that didn't need to exist imo.

After reading some reviews for Wonderland, I think people have issues with the movie itself rather than the sci-fi element. A lot said it was shot like a long commercial/MV (I thought so from the trailer lol), lack of focus because of too many characters, boring etc. But people who liked it found it emotionally touching.

Yeah this didn't look high budget from the trailers at all. I guess they splurged on the CGI and actor fees. You're right, going straight to Netflix like Space Sweepers probably would have been better. All of SK's sci-fi movies and dramas have flopped. Not just The Moon, Alienoid parts 1 & 2 were also some of the biggest flops of all time despite the big name director (and all were distributed by CJ ENM, ouch!).

Apart from some outliers like Exhuma, most korean movies have been flopping after covid. This movie is sci-fi, which isn't a popular genre. I don't think SK has ever made a single successful sci-fi movie actually. Plus the mixed reviews. A good thing is the leads are internationally famous so it's already been sold to Netflix, though I'm not sure if that's been accounted for in the BEP.

The tickets sold on the first Saturday are already under 100k, and Inside Out 2 is coming in a few days... Break-even point is 2.9 million tickets but it might not even get half of that at this rate, unfortunately.