It was early 2004, when Eagle Pictures finalized all the details for their new project, the historical Drama 왕의 남자 (The King and The Clown): it would be an adaptation of the popular play 이 (爾, Yi), and would be directed by Lee Joon-Ik, an established producer who came back to the film arena as a director with the 2003 Fusion Historical Drama 황산벌 (Once Upon a Time in The Battlefield). By that year's Summer, the casting was completed as well: Jung Jin-Young would play Prince Yeonsan (role which was set since the beginning) and Jang Hyuk would play Jang-Saeng, the 'leader' of the Clowns.
Jang, already well established in Korea and abroad, was involved in a draft dodging scandal which also included Song Seung-Heon -- who had to drop out of 슬픈연가 (Sad Sonata) because of the scandal. Blessing in disguise? -- Han Jae-Suk and many others, and had to drop out of the picture. Talented and severely underappreciated actor Gam Woo-Sung was brought in as his replacement in March 2005, and now the last piece of the puzzle was the role of Gong-Gil, which went to unknown Lee Joon-Gi. He debuted in the 2001 Japan/Korea co-produced Drama 별의 소리 (Star's Echo), and also appeared in Byun Young-Joo's 발레교습소 (Flying Boys), but few people knew him before this film. The casting was complete, now everything was ready to start.
Fast forward to December 29, the film's opening day, over 225 nationwide screens. Competing with Hollywood blockbusters and Chungmuro's counterpart -- Yoon Jong-Chan's 청연 (Blue Swallow) and Kwak Kyung-Taek's 태풍 (Typhoon) -- the film was supposed to have a rather quiet run at the box office, at least according to industry insiders. Despite the excellent reviews it received, few people ever expected it to have this success, and beat all its more 'prestigious' competitors with such ease. It reached the Million tickets in 4 days, became the most successful Korean Historical Drama of all time by January 13, and even President Roh Moo-Hyun decided to watch it on January 21. Now, a mere 45 days after release, this little film with no stars, a fraction of the budget of the usual Korean blockbuster, and a very pragmatic director, is on the verge of becoming the third Korean film to sell more than 10 Million tickets.
Distributors Cinema Service announced the film sold 9,720,000 tickets by February 8, and they expect to reach the 10 Million by tomorrow. The other two record breakers are 2003's 실미도 (Silmido) with 11,080,000 and 2004's 태극기 휘날리며 (Taegukgi) with 11,740,000, targets which are still far, but by now I wouldn't call it a surprise if the film beat those two as well. Who can stop the clowns?
[Source: Chosun Ilbo 1, Chosun Ilbo 2]
Wasn't Jang Hyuk supposed to play the role of Gong-Gil? I think Darcy mentioned it in his review at Koreanfilm.org. Good thing military duty called.
This film's become quite a phenomenon, I guess. Just a matter of short time before it takes the #1 domestic grosser crown, which is pretty mind-blowing.
Yes, indeed. Musa was awesome.
"...everything I've seen about this film makes me think this might be it."
Agree. I've been watching the mv over and over and there's something very special about the movie. It's just a 4-minute mv and I get teary just watching it. There's a joyfulness and playfulness about it that's very appealing, and there's also a peculiar sense of pain and heartache. This is the first time I want to watch a movie so badly. (OK, I admit I want to watch it for Lee Joon-ki too, hehe... He's so dang cute in My Girl. ^_^)
X, hope you're feeling much better and recovering well from your surgery.
Dug some info about the DVD Release.
Seems like the barebones rental will be out late next month, but Director Lee talked with a regular poster from DVD Prime about the DVD release, and said it's set for late Summer, because they want to do it right. Might be one of those super-duper editions with 3 Discs and a ton of extras, or maybe just a really solid DVD a la Lady Vengeance or all of enterOne's releases.
Now, previous info I had was late March/early April, but this was on magazines which are always late when it comes to release changes, and they certainly couldn't expect this kind of success.
Now I wouldn't completely trust Lee's date, as things can change, and I'm sure they're not gonna wait 8 months after release with the DVD market doing so badly, but he said they're gonna do a good job on this, as Lee is one of the many directors who's also a DVD Mania, but the wait is gonna be long.
Of course, if anything changes I'll let you know.
Does anyone know if this has sold to the U.S. already? I've heard that CJ Entertainment is selling it and the price is going really high.
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