'Memoir of a Murderer' soars on debut weekend

"Memoir of a Murderer," starring actor Seol Kyung-gu, got off to a promising start over the weekend, data showed Monday.

The Showbox crime-thriller, which received mostly positive reviews, attracted a solid audience of 899,986 on its opening weekend, according to real-time box office figures from the Korean Film Council. The movie's accumulated number of views reached 1.191 million.

Based on Kim Young-ha's best-selling novel of the same name, the Won Shin-yun-directed film has topped the daily charts since its release Wednesday. It depicts the story of an aged former serial killer with Alzheimer's who strives to keep his only daughter safe during a wave of murders that strikes his neighborhood.

"Memoir of a Murderer" (Showbox)

"It," an American horror movie, sold 418,454 tickets over its first weekend. The Stephen King adaptation has been watched 572,469 times since its release in South Korean theaters.

The Hollywood action-comedy "The Hitman's Bodyguard" came in third, two steps down from the previous weekend, with audience figures of 275,321.

It was followed by the Korean movie "A Taxi Driver" about an '80s pro-democracy people's uprising in the country. The film starring Song Kang-ho added 106,944 to its total of about 12 million on the sixth weekend of its run.

Coming in fifth is "Midnight Runners," the Korean police comedy-action movie which gathered 98,376 views on its fifth weekend. (Yonhap)