Friday, December 22, 2006

Park Chan-wook's new movie 'Cyborg' fails to appeal at box office

SEOUL, Dec. 21 (Yonhap) -- Acclaimed South Korean director Park Chan-wook's new movie will be pulled from most local screens before the lucrative Christmas holiday due to disappointing box office results in its first two weeks, its distributor said Thursday.

The romantic comedy "I'm a Cyborg But That's Okay" has so far drawn only 780,000 viewers, a marked disappointment for the internationally-renowned director whose previous works topped well over 3 million. The film will be removed from about 280 screens nationwide and on most screens will be replaced by "The Restless," a martial arts epic set to be released this evening, CJ Entertainment said.

"Cyborg" had drawn international attention with the combination of a director who received the Grand Prize at Cannes in 2004 with "Old Boy" and Asian heartthrob Rain as its lead.

"Usually, when we have an audience rating like this so far, it certainly won't pass one million," CJ Entertainment publicist Kim Yun-jeong said. "And there are many new movies being released this week." CJ distributes both "Cyborg" and "The Restless."

Park himself said the film was the "kindest" movie he has ever produced, with the star casting and simple plot. Set in a psychiatric ward, it tells the story of two patients -- a girl who believes she is a cyborg and a boy who falls in love with her.

Critics praised his experimental storytelling and stylish presentation, but audiences considered it too abstract and unapproachable to follow. In light of Park's fame, "Cyborg" topped box office charts for the first weekend, but it was now not even among the top 10 on Internet reservation sites. Hollywood blockbuster "Night at the Museum" led the box office chart, followed by "Holiday" and Korean epic "The Restless" according to Interpark.com.

hkim@yna.co.kr (END)
Source: Yonhap News
http://english.yna.co.kr/Engnews/20061221/...21153609E3.html
credits: Soompi Forums

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