Korea Box Office: Steel Rain 2 Unseats Peninsula at No. 1 as Admissions See Healthy Uptick

Wartime action-thriller Steel Rain 2 topped the South Korean box office over the weekend, opening to ₩5,860,962,020 Korean won from 662,798 admissions. That knocked last weekend’s champ, Train to Busan sequel Peninsula, from the No. 1 spot in its third weekend of release.

Opening on 2,132 screens and representing over 62% of attendance for the weekend, Steel Rain 2 is the follow up to the first Steel Rain, which centered on tense negotiations between North and South Korean agents in an effort to avoid military action. That film opened to a much higher ₩11,489,945,816 from 1,392,076 admissions in December 2017, though comparisons between the two are unfair given the dampening effect the pandemic on overall attendance. That said, the entry of Steel Rain 2 into the marketplace, along with the continued success of Peninsula, resulted in a more than 30% spike in admissions over last weekend.

Again directed by Yang Woo-suk, the plot of Steel Rain 2 centers on an imagined three-way summit between North Korea, South Korea, and the U.S. to bring to an end the Korean War. Since opening last Wednesday, the film has grossed a total of ₩8,391,302,060 from 1,020,124 admissions.

Falling to second place was Peninsula, which grossed ₩2,677,031,840            from 303,270 admissions. That brings the total for the zombie sequel to ₩29,927,337,860 from 3,438,919 admissions—a sharp drop from Train to Busan at the same point in its run, though as mentioned previously, comparisons aren’t entirely relevant given the vastly different exhibition landscape of 2020.

Disney’s Aladdin finished in third place in its second weekend of rerelease, grossing ₩209,562,080 from 28,812 admissions for a total of ₩107,803,689,879 from 12,676,448 admissions. That number includes grosses from the live-action remake’s blockbuster original run in the country last year.

Opening in fourth place was the animated adventure Big Shark 3: Jelly Monster, which debuted to a mild ₩202,060,180 from 25,196 admissions.

Each of the films in the remainder of the Top 10 made up less than one percent of business over the weekend. They include:

• You as a Boy at No. 5 with ₩51,611,500 from 5,875 admissions for a total of ₩502,898,700/58,522 to date after four weeks of release;
• Disney/Pixar’s Onward at No. 6 with ₩38,100,600 from 4,577 admissions for a total of ₩3,524,246,300/409,374 after seven weeks;
• John Wick: Special Edition at No. 7 with ₩42,068,580 from 4,550 admissions for a total of ₩58,597,980/6,745 after one week;
• Bombshell at No. 8 with ₩36,493,560 from 4,123 admissions for ₩1,485,487,640/174,468 after four weeks;
• #Alive at No. 9 with ₩13,409,500 from 3,758 admissions for ₩15,946,095,420/1,900,339 after six weeks;
• And finally, the Michelle Monaghan legal drama St. Judy in tenth with ₩25,188,500 from 3,012 admissions, for a total of ₩38,468,880 and 4,709 admissions since opening last Wednesday.

Note: The Korean Box Office Information System (KOBIS) ranks films based on admissions, not grosses.