'Extreme Job' attracts over 3 mil., renews daily ticket sales records

A scene from "Extreme Job"/Courtesy of CJ ENM

By Kang Aa-young

The cop-comedy film “Extreme Job” has sold over 3.1 million tickets as of Sunday, five days after it hit local theaters.

According to the Korean Film Council (KOFIC), the movie sold over 1 million tickets on Sunday alone and broke the daily admissions record held previously by the box office-hit “Along With The Gods 1” with 916,652, Jan. 1, 2018.

The pace at which “Extreme Job” has attracted audiences is remarkable in that it is considered the off season. In Korea, summer, Chuseok and New Year holidays are the three peak times for films and for this reason many big budget films open around those times.

The Lunar New Year holiday will begin this weekend, and this will help the comedy film pack even more theaters. It remains to be seen whether it can reach 10 million in ticket sales, a criterion for a hit in the film industry here.

The movie started out with 392,635 tickets on its opening day, last Wednesday ― but word of mouth has since spread rapidly and given a major boost to the film.

Directed by award-winning filmmaker Lee Byoung-heon, who made "What a Man Wants" in 2017, the movie delivers a message about the tough life of cops with a hilarious touch.

Starring Ryu Seung-ryong, Lee Ha-nee and Jin Seon-kyu, the movie tells the story of five cops involved in a drug enforcement team. Due to their poor performance, the team is about to be dissolved. The cops seek a last-minute reversal of this by opening a restaurant selling fried chicken, as an undercover ploy, near a hideout of an organized drug king. Their business goes extremely well, causing the undercover cops to be distracted from their initial goal of cracking down on drug gangs and leading them to seriously ponder whether they should focus on the business to make money.

A scene from "Extreme Job"/Courtesy of CJ ENM