A-listers flock back to big screen in June
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Yoo Hae-jin, left, and Kim Yoon-seok in a scene from “The Classified File” / Courtesy of Showbox
By Baek Byung-yeul
As Hollywood blockbusters “Avengers 2,” “Kingsman” and “Mad Max” dominated the box office this year, Korean film lovers have had little chance to watch local films except for “Ode to My Father” which pulled in more than 14 million viewers, “Detective K 2” and “Twenty,” which surpassed 3 million.
With two big-budget films, “Jurassic World” and “San Andreas,” out this month, domestic films featuring A-list stars will be screened to end the box office drought.
“Perfect Proposal” is the first to open fire.
Adapted from French novelist Catherine Arley’s 1954 novel “La Femme de Paille,” actress Lim Soo-jung features as Ji-yeon, a young bartender working in Macau to pay off debts after a friend’s betrayal.
Lim Soo-jung, left, and Yoo Yeon-seok in a scene from “Perfect Proposal” / Courtesy of CJ E&M
It all starts when the struggling woman receives an offer from Sung-yeol (Yoo Yeon-seok), an assistant to an old and ill casino mogul, Kim Seok-gu (Lee Geung-young), to seduce his boss and split the inheritance.
Directed by Yoon Jae-gu, known for the 2009 thriller “Secret,” the film shows how a timid and sorrowful woman, who stands on the verge of crisis, carries out the life-changing offer. “Perfect Proposal” began screening nationwide on June 4.
On June 18, a strong candidate expected to shake up the box office race this month will hit screens
star director Kwak Kyung-taek’s “The Classified File.”
Based on a 33-day kidnapping case in Busan in 1978, actor Kim Yoon-seok, best known for smash hits “The Thieves” (2012) and “Tazza: The High Rollers” (2006), features as veteran detective Gong Gil-yong.
Gong is on a quest to find a missing child, Eun-ju, but the more the investigation continues, the more it reveals there are no clues.
As the saying goes, a drowning man would clutch at a straw, so Gong visits renowned fortune-teller Kim Joong-san (Yoo Hae-jin). He is told that Eun-ju is still alive and that the kidnapper will attempt to contact her parents on the 15th day of the kidnapping.
When it happens, Gong starts to believe in what Kim says and shares the case with him to save the girl.
Another film based on a true story will also screen this month.
“Northern Limit Line,” which will hit the big screen on June 24, tells the story of a deadly naval skirmish between North and South Korea that killed six South Korean soldiers while the South was in the grip of World Cup fever on June 29, 2002.
On the day of the playoff for third-place between South Korea and Turkey, the two Koreas exchanged fire near Yeonpyeong Island, close to the Northern Limit Line (NLL), a maritime demarcation off the west coast of the Korean Peninsula.
The 130-minute film spends almost 100 minutes telling the life stories of the deceased soldiers, who were fathers, husbands, sons and brothers.