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‘Host’ Breaks 6-Million-Viewer Mark

By Kim Tae-jong
Staff Reporter

Homemade sci-fi blockbuster The Host by director Bong Joon-ho is breaking records at an unprecedented pace, where it Sunday marked 6 million viewers.

The record comes just 11 days since the movie premiered nationwide on July 27.

The previous record was set by "Taegukgi: The Brotherhood of War" in 2005, which reached the mark in 17 days.

According to Show Box, the film's distributor, the movie sold some 5.99 million tickets nationwide as of Saturday and broke the 6 million-viewer-mark on Sunday morning, coming in 8th among the top 10 list of most viewed films of all time.

The distributor expected that the film, even considering a seat occupation rate that will be slowly lowered over time, will break the 10 million-viewer-mark around Aug. 15. Only three domestic movies have done so _ "Silmido" (2004), "Taegukgi: The Brotherhood of War" and most recently, "The King and the Clown" (2005).

Showing on 620 screens, the largest number of screens ever and almost half of theaters nationwide, the film has attracted moviegoers at an unprecedented pace.

It maintained a high seat occupation rate in its second weekend, selling some 0.8 million tickets on Saturday alone. With the rating of "12 and over", the film's popularity is also attributed to child audiences, currently on summer vacation.

The film, with a production budget of 15 billion won, is a story of a family, who fights against a mutant rising from the Han River after the daughter of the first son in the family is captured by the monster. The film is acclaimed for superb computer graphics, which realistically render the monster as well as its interesting story.

Many are now posing a question of whether it can break the record set by last year's historical piece "The King and the Clown", which sold the largest domestically recorded number of tickets at 12.3 million.

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