‘Snowpiercer’ on record-breaking pace

Bong Joon-ho’s latest film “Snowpiercer” drew 1 million viewers in just two days since its release, the state-run Korean Film Council said Friday.

According to the organization, the dystopian sci-fi flick drew 1.03 million viewers as of Thursday, just a day after its Korean release on July 31. This makes the film the fastest movie to smash the 1-million mark in weekday sales.

The record beats last year’s box office hit “The Thieves,” which hit the 1-million audience mark in three days after its release, and Bong’s 2006 hit monster flick “The Host,” which did the same in four days.

In June of this year, local heartthrob Kim Soo-hyun’s North Korean spy thriller “Secretly Greatly” drew more than 1 million viewers in less than two days ― one of them a national holiday ― after the release.

Coproduced by Korea’s CJ Entertainment and director Park Chan-wook, among others, “Snowpiercer” tells the story of the remnants of humanity living on a train where each cabin is labeled by social class in the post apocalyptic world.

The movie, featuring a star-studded international cast including Tilda Swinton, Ed Harris, Chris Evans and Song Kang-ho, is Bong’s first English-language film. Major American film studio The Weinstein Company secured distribution rights for the movie in North America, the U.K., Australia, New Zealand and South Africa last year.

The film is expected to hit the 2 million mark by the end of this weekend.

By Claire Lee (dyc@heraldcorp.com)