Provided by Showbox
The film ‘The Man Who Lives With the King’ (hereafter ‘Wangsanam’) is, quite literally, on a ‘crazy box-office tear’.
According to the Korean Film Council’s integrated computer network and distributor Showbox on the 8th, ‘Wangsanam’ surpassed a cumulative 11 million admissions as of this morning, the 33rd day of release. This handily outpaces the benchmarks set by the phenomenon-level ‘Exhumation’ (40 days), ‘Seoul’s Spring’ (36 days), and the period-genre peer ‘Gwanghae, the Man Who Became King’ (48 days). It is effectively keeping pace with ‘Crime City 4’, an astonishing clip for a non-series stand-alone film.
Particularly noteworthy is the film’s ‘reverse-trajectory box-office pattern’. Unlike tentpoles that front-load in the opening week and then gradually decline, ‘Wangsanam’ has been adding more viewers with each successive weekend.
Buoyed by word of mouth that keeps intensifying, reaching the 13 million mark as soon as next week is now within sight. Audience and industry attention is moving beyond the symbolic ‘10 million’ threshold toward a level that could rewrite the history of Korean cinema.
All-time rankings of Korean films by admissions. Provided by Naver
The all-time No. 1 Korean film by admissions is ‘Myeongryang’, released in 2014, with 17.61 million. It is followed by ‘Extreme Job’ (16.26 million), ‘Along With the Gods: Crime and Punishment’ (14.41 million), and others. If the current ‘fifth-week resurgence’ momentum holds into week six and beyond, it has a solid chance of entering the all-time top five.
In particular, ‘Wangsanam’ is working as a cross-generational ‘tear button’ thanks to the tragic yet warm narrative of Danjong (played by Park Ji-hoon) and Eom Heung-do (played by Yoo Hae-jin). Director Jang Hang-jun’s signature crowd-pleasing touch and the cast’s passionate performances are creating synergy and fueling an ‘Nth-viewing’ craze, making a long run with little decline likely.
The success of ‘Wangsanam’ is also significant as the first Korean film in 22 months to cross the 10-million mark since ‘Crime City 4’ in May 2024. It has also reignited the period-epic boom that had waned after ‘Myeongryang’, proving the power of the Korean-style blockbuster.
As the small echo that began at Cheongnyeongpo in Yeongwol, the site of exile, now shakes the entire theater market in Korea, all eyes are on how high ‘The Man Who Lives With the King’ can climb and whether it will claim a new throne in Korean film history.
