'Fabricated City' tops weekend with strong 896,606 debut

Starring Ji Chang-wook, Shim Eun-kyung and Ahn Jae-hong, the film is about a jobless young gamer who is jailed after being framed as a rape-murder suspect but is determined to unearth the truth with help from other members of his online gaming group.

Backed by the film's rave reviews and strong performance in the box office, its distributor CJ Entertainment increased the number of theaters showing it from 771 on the first day to 1,019 on Sunday.

The runner-up, also from CJ Entertainment, was the comedy-action flick "Confidential Assignment," which drew 543,372 viewers over the weekend.

Released on Jan. 18, the movie exceeded the 7 million mark Sunday, the 25th day of its run. The pace is faster than "Miss Granny" (2013) and "The Berlin File" (2012), two of the most-viewed Korean films of all time among those released in January. The two films reached the milestone on the 27th and 34th day of their runs, respectively.

Starring Hyun Bin and Yoo Hae-jin, "Confidential Assignment"

tells the story of two cops from South and North Korea who team up for a joint covert operation to hunt down a North Korean crime ring that has sneaked into the South.

The top two CJ films dominated a combined 60 percent of ticket sales at the box office.

"xXx: Return Of Xander Cage," an American action thriller starring Vin Diesel, landed at No. 3 with 254,903, pushing "The King" to fourth place.

The Korean political-crime thriller made a bullish debut soon after it was out in theaters early last month but garnered only

114,190 viewers on its fourth weekend. It was followed by the American sci-fi film "Arrival," seen by an audience of 89,939. (Yonhap)