Chuseok delivers a market surge
South Korea’s box office jumped from $7.6 million to $19.6 million over the Chuseok holiday frame, according to KOBIS data cited by Variety. The surge was driven by two newly released local titles that took the top two slots and together claimed roughly 62% of weekend receipts.
The Assassin(s), Hur Jin-ho’s political crime thriller, opened with $8 million from 1,119,156 admissions across 1,532 screens over Sep. 25–27. It captured 40.9% of the weekend market. Since its Sep. 23 release, the film has accumulated $11.2 million from 1,566,222 admissions.
The film centres on the 1974 National Liberation Day assassination attempt on President Park Chung-hee that killed First Lady Yuk Young-soo. It follows a detective played by Yu Hae-jin, a veteran newspaper society desk chief played by Park Hae-il, and a rookie reporter played by Lee Min-ho, as they investigate missing ballistic evidence that contradicts the state’s lone-gunman verdict.
Franchise and prestige titles fill the frame
Tazza: The Song of Beelzebub opened second with $4.1 million from 566,526 admissions across 1,045 screens, or 21.3% of the market. The fourth instalment in the gambling franchise, directed by Choi Kook-hee and starring Byun Yo-han, Noh Jae-won and Ayaka Miyoshi, has earned $6.1 million since Sep. 23.
The Odyssey added $3.2 million in its eighth weekend and now stands at $96.3 million in cumulative gross. The Intern, a Warner Bros. Korea comedy remake with Choi Min-sik and Han So-hee, earned $1.5 million in its second frame for a $5.3 million total. Lee Chang-dong’s Venice Grand Jury Prize winner Possible Love debuted fifth with $557,981 from just 195 screens.
- Obsession: $542,493 weekend, $6.6 million total.
- Avengers: Endgame Encore: $550,939 weekend, $941,892 total.
- Resident Evil: $291,213 weekend, $1.4 million total.
- Spider-Man: Brand New Day: $154,701 weekend, $67.4 million total.
- Octonauts: $89,565 opening weekend.
Why the surge matters
Chuseok is one of South Korea’s peak moviegoing windows, and this year’s frame shows how quickly screen capacity concentrates around local event titles. The Assassin(s) played on 1,532 screens for a weekend average of roughly $5,200 per screen; Tazza 4 played on 1,045 screens. The Odyssey, despite being in its eighth weekend, still held 843 screens and earned $3.2 million. The top two openers did not just win the weekend—they re-set the chart’s centre of gravity.
For media planners and entertainment marketers, the lesson is that holiday frames reward release timing, not just campaign scale. Prestige titles can still find space, as Possible Love showed with a 195-screen launch, but volume screens go to films that can convert festive audiences immediately. The next question is holdover strength: whether The Assassin(s) and Tazza 4 can sustain demand after the holiday, or whether this is a front-loaded spike.
Source: Variety
