In 2020, the total box office of Korean films fell by 74%, and "The Ministers of Namsan" became the annual champion

Oriental Network Zhongxiang news reporter Chen Chen

Although the 2020 Bong Joon-ho film "Parasite" won the Oscar for Best Picture, it created a new history for Korean cinema. But for the entire Korean film industry, 2020 is still a year of despair.

According to an official report released by the Korea Film Promotion Council (KOFIC), due to the impact of the epidemic, the box office revenue of Korean films in 2020 was 510 billion won (about 3.02 billion yuan), down 74% year-on-year. Released on January 22, "The Ministers of Namsan" became the annual box office champion, with a box office receipt of 415 million won (about 240 million yuan).

South Korea is the world's fourth-largest box office market, after North America, China and Japan. In 2019, the annual box office revenue hit a record high of 2.27 trillion won. Now, under the epidemic situation, due to factors such as the withdrawal of films, the restriction of cinema flow, and the reduction of people's willingness to watch movies, box office revenue in 2020 has plunged sharply.

Due to the lack of new commercial films, "1917", "Alive", "Tenet" and the local Korean comedy "Oh! Films such as "Wen Ji" have been extended to two months or more. Re-screenings also increased from 95 in 2019 to 250. Previously, the average number of Korean re-releases from 2016 to 2019 was 86.75 per year.

Major theatrical films have been postponed or cancelled due to the pandemic, and independent films and art films have gained more opportunities to be screened in 2020. Compared to 353 films in 2019, which received 415699 screenings, the number of independent films and art films in 2020 was smaller, at 320, but received more views, with a total of 514814 screenings.

In 2020, the number of moviegoers in South Korea was 60 million. KOFIC noted that when there are more than 5,000 cases per month in South Korea, the number of moviegoers drops by 50% the following month. Moviegoers in December 2020 decreased by 92.7% from December 2019 to about 1.64 million.

2020 Korean cinema box office TOP5:

1. "Ministers of Nanshan" (January 22) $37.8 million

2. "Save Me from Evil" (August 5) $35.4 million

3. Busan Trip 2: The Peninsula (July 15) $30.3 million

4. Comics Veyron's Big Talk Agent (January 22) $18.9 million

5. Creed (August 26) $16.85 million