Over 50% of Moviegoers Opted for Korean Movies in May

Korean movies for the first time occupied more than 50% of the market share.

IM Pictures issued a report yesterday and analyzed the movie market in May. Based on the tallies made in Seoul, 50.3% of the viewers chose Korean movies over imported ones. In other words, Korean movies accounted for more than half of the market share in May of 2003.

Korean movies first attracted more than 50% of the viewers in a month where more than 3.5 million people visited the cinema. In the past, Hollywood blockbusters used to lower down the Korean movies` market shares during summer.

From January to May of this year, Korean motion pictures occupied 46.2% of the market share. During the same period last year, 44.6% of the Koran moviegoers chose domestic ones. If the trend continues, the Korean movie industry can cut out more than 50% of the annual market share on average.

A total of 3.941,340 people took in movies in May, a 58.8% increase from that in April. The increase was in large part made by the success of Memories of Murder. IM Pictures says, "Basically, the movie is somewhat different from regular thrillers. Maybe the topic of it has attracted people in 30s and 40s." Matrix also contributed to the uprising. It opened on May 23rd, but has attracted more than 850,000 people.

CJ Entertainment, which distributed Memories of Murder, tops the market share with 32.8% occupation rate, followed by Warner Brothers` that distributed Matrix, and Cinema service, the distributor of Wild Card.

Hee-Kyung Kim susanna@donga.com