'The Bad Guys' storms to local box office over holiday

Sep 16, 2019

A scene from action film "The Bad Guys: Reign of Chaos," which topped the local box office over the holiday weekend from Sept. 12 to 15.

"The Bad Guys: Reign Of Chaos" topped the local box office over the four-day Chuseok holiday weekend.

The action-packed film saw 2.68 million ticket sales in the five days since it hit theaters Wednesday, surpassing the film's break-even point set at 2.55 million, as of Sunday.

The movie is a spinoff of local broadcaster OCN's drama, "The Bad Guys," broadcast in 2014. The series fascinated viewers with its storyline ― police hiring ex-convicts to catch criminals ― becoming OCN's highest-rating show at the time. The movie features the same two main characters Oh Gu-tak, played by Kim Sang-joong, and Park Woong-cheol, played by Ma Dong-seok.

Kim expressed how thrilled he was to feature in both the series and the film in a recent interview with local outlets. "I really wanted the drama to be made into a movie, as films have a larger scale with more action sequences. Dong-seok and I talked about a movie version a lot of times when we were shooting the drama."

"It is uncommon to play the same character in two different media, so I had no reason to hesitate to take this role," he added as he expressed his excitement and satisfaction with the film.

This action-packed film picks up on the drama's phrase "Unleash the mad dogs for a perfect hunt." The film starts with high-profile prisoners escaping from a transport convoy. To fight these criminals and the mastermind behind them, detective Oh Gu-tak forms a special investigation force, once again, including ex-convicts ― former mob member Park Woong-cheol, former cop Yoo-sung (Jang Ki-yong) and ex-convict Kwak No-Soon (Kim Ah-joong).

"Oh Gu-tak solves cases even if, in some sense, he doesn't always abide by the law in the process. Our society has a lot of cases that have not been solved under the current system," Kim said. "I felt a catharsis from acting out things that wouldn't have been possible in real life. And I think the audiences will feel the same from watching them."

Posters for "Tazza: One-Eyed Jack" and "Cheer up, Mr. Lee." Courtesy of Lotte Entertainment and NEW Entertainment

Two other films, also released for Chuseok ― "Tazza: One-Eyed Jack" and "Cheer up, Mr. Lee" ― were in second and third place at the holiday box office.

The third outing in the gambling series "Tazza" had been highly anticipated from its reputation, topping the box office on its opening day, Wednesday. But this latest addition faced a rather disappointing outcome with split reviews from moviegoers, including a large amount of negative reviews that compared it to the previous films.

"I would've watched Tazza 1 again rather than spending my time watching this one," one reviewer wrote.

Another reviewer wrote "the film did not make the best use of the main character Aekku (Ryoo Seung-bum)… the poor storyline filled with bloody scenes was uncomfortable to watch. This was terrible not only compared to the first one but also the second."

Despite the disappointment "Tazza" fans expressed, some moviegoers still found the crime-action drama enjoyable. "This is the first time I saw any in the series but I fairly enjoyed it. Those who are new to the series will probably find it interesting," one reviewer wrote.

"Tazza 3" saw 1.3 million in ticket sales over the holiday with a total of 1.68 million accumulated as of Sunday.

Though "Cheer Up, Mr. Lee" aimed to draw family moviegoers during the holiday with the father-daughter story, the comedy-drama didn't seem to be as successful as was hoped. The film's accumulated ticket sales recorded 880,000, a little over one third of that for "The Bad Guys."

Renowned actor Cha Seung-won took on the lead role of Cheol-soo who finds out that he has a daughter and that she has leukemia. The film follows the journey of Cheol-soo and his daughter as be takes her out of hospital to meet a famous baseball player.