'Hard Hit' tops S. Korean box office over weekend

The South Korean actioner "Hard Hit" topped the local box office over the weekend, recording the biggest opening-weekend score for homegrown movies this year, data showed Monday.

The film, released Wednesday, attracted 253,000 people over the Friday-Sunday period, taking the No. 1 spot at the South Korean box office on its first weekend, according to the data by the Korean Film Council.

The figure was the largest first weekend admission record set by a South Korean film throughout 2021, outnumbering the 163,000 tickets sold by the sci-fi action film "Seobok," released on April 15.

Its first-day admission of 55,000 also broke the previous record of 45,000 owned by Seobok.

"Hard Hit," a local adaptation of the Spanish action thriller "Retribution" (2015), depicts a life-or-death struggle of bank manager Sung-kyu (Jo Woo-jin), who gets a mysterious call about a bomb threat in his car, while driving to work with his daughter.

The US action comedy "Hitman's Wife's Bodyguard," a sequel to "Hitman's Bodyguard" (2017), placed second at the weekend box office with 135,000 moviegoers. It was closely followed by Disney's "Cruella" with 132,000 and "A Quiet Place: Part II" with 130,000. (Yonhap)