Yeon Sang-ho’s new film "The Ugly" cleared its break-even point in just three days.
According to the Korean Film Council’s box-office tracker, from Sept. 12 to 14 "The Ugly" drew 281,924 admissions nationwide, landing at No. 2 over the weekend. Its cumulative tally stands at 317,242.
Made on a shoestring budget of about 200 million won, the indie recouped its costs within its opening weekend. It couldn’t unseat "Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba - The Movie: Infinity Castle," which held onto No. 1, but "The Ugly" is off to a promising start. For Yeon―who scored a phenomenon with "Train to Busan" before the more modestly received "Psychokinesis" and "Peninsula"―it’s a welcome return to box-office momentum.
"The Ugly" centers on Im Young-gyu (Kwon Hae-hyo), a blind master of seal engraving, and his son Im Dong-hwan (Park Jung-min) as they dig into the 40-year-old mystery surrounding the mother’s death. The film adapts Yeon’s 2018 graphic novel of the same name.
(SBS Entertainment News | Kim Ji-hye)