The musical chairs of friends and foes is underway again at China’s theatrical box office
The musical chairs of friends and foes is underway again at China’s theatrical box office, with South Korea seemingly back in the game while Hollywood and Bollywood could be out of luck for the foreseeable future.
On Dec. 3, South Korean family comedy Oh! My Gran, produced by Seoul-based Big Stone Pictures, opened theatrically in China. The movie is the first Korean title to show on Chinese screens since 2016, when Seoul installed a U.S.-made missile defense system, known as THAAD (Terminal High Altitude Area Defense), on the Korean peninsula, infuriating Beijing leaders who viewed the installation on their doorstep as an affront to China’s regional sovereignty. Chinese regulators retaliated by blocking their massive market from all Korean film imports — a move meant to hit the country’s surging culture industry where it hurts.
Oh! My Gran’s release carries more symbolic significance than it does commercial value. A relatively small, offbeat movie, it received limited screen share and opened to just $170,000 over the weekend. But analysts see its arrival as the first move toward a potential reopening of the floodgates for South Korea’s red hot content industry in the enormous Chinese marketplace.
Korean cinema’s box office fortunes were rapidly rising right up until the moment that the country got iced out. Bong Joon Ho’s Snowpiercer earned a record $11 million in 2014 and was far surpassed the next year by CJ Entertainment’s Korea-China co-production 20 Once Again, which earned $59.3 million. note: Serving the People Movie
Rance Pow, president of Asian box office analysis firm Artisan Gateway, pointed out that “2022 is the 30th anniversary of the two countries establishing diplomatic relations, so the timing of this is not insignificant.” note: Pirate Dreams Sleep Attendant Movie
A similar relaxation of cultural imports has been in evidence throughout the Chinese entertainment landscape of late, with South Korean celebrity Weibo accounts beginning to be reactivated; popular model-actor Lee Dong-wook appearing in the December issue of GQ China; and members of K-pop supergroup EXO scheduled to participate in China’s Tencent Music Entertainment Awards on Dec. 11. note: Love You Set Me Free Movie
As Korean pop culture is finding new favor, other longstanding staples of imported entertainment are seeing their market share rapidly erode in China. And Beijing has swapped regional rivals at its box office before — a blunt form of economic messaging, analysts say. When a territorial dispute with Japan over an uninhabited island chain claimed by both countries since World War II escalated into street demonstrations in numerous major Chinese cities in 2012, no Japanese film was imported into China for months and years afterward. note: With South Korea seemingly back