Big 4 Korean movies for this summer

Despite the recession in the first half of this year, the hope is still in the Korean movie industry as Korean public tends to watch Korean movies mainly in summer. According to a public survey, the majority of them answered that they wanted to watch Korean movies between the end of July and the beginning of August.

To the question “Which movie released this summer excites you most?” 67.3 percent (multiple choices were allowed) chose "Deokhye Ongju" that will be released next month. Deokhye Ongju (1912-1989) was the last daughter of King Gojong and lived rather a dramatic life. The movie is based on the same-titled novel (written by Kwon Bi-young, published by Dasan Chaekbang), which has been in the top-eight most read books over 10 years.

Director is Heo Jin-ho, one of the best romance movie directors in Korea who directed ‘Christmas in August (1998)’ and "One Fine Spring Day" (2001) among many others. The movie is starred with Son Ye-jin and Park Hae-il. “This historical movie has everything to be successful with the story of historic figures and the excellent casting,” said Kang Yoo-jeong, a movie critic. “The key point is going to be how the movie portrays the main female character differently from the book.”

Another Korean modern history movie, "Battle of Inchon" (aka Operation Chromite, to be released on July 27) was ranked number two (63.3 %) after Deokhye Ongju. The movie is about the famous mission to Inchon on Sep. 15 1950 led by General Douglas MacArthur (1880-1964) of the U.S. Army. The main story is a secret intelligent mission of a navy agent (played by Lee Jeong-jae), who risks his life for his mission. For the Gen. MacArthur role, Liam Neeson was casted, exciting movie fans. Critic Kang remarked, “The movie’s success depends on whether it is unique not resembling similar genre movies such as ‘Battle of Yeonpyeong’ and whether it satisfies fans’ expectations for action and dramatic elements. In the same chart, "Train to Busan" (44.4 %) and "Tunnel" (33 %) followed the history movies, indicating that fans have high expectations for Korea movies in general.

On the other hand, experts gave more score to Train to Busan that will be released on July 20. In separate interviews, 10 experts mentioned that movie when asked about a movie with the most potential to be successful this summer. Train to Busan is a blockbuster with zombie outbreaks, which is not common for a Korean movie. This movie is the first long live-action movie of the director Yeon Sang-ho, who has a high reputation in the animation industry with "King of Pigs" (2011) and "Hypocrite" (2013) among others.

Train to Busan was invited to the 69th Cannes Film Festival’s non-competition section and received favorable reviews. Tunnel that will be released on Aug. 10 is also a disaster movie that fans look forward to watching. The director is Kim Seong-hoon, who also directed "A Hard Day" (3.45 million viewers) in 2014. Ha Jeong-woo, Bae Doo-na and Oh Dal-soo are starred in the movie.

이새샘기자 iamsam@donga.com