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Posted: Mon., Jun. 23, 2008, 7:33pm PT

S. Korea's 'Enemy' gets hero's welcome

'Panda' rewrites animated box office history

SEOUL -- "Public Enemy 3," the third installment in a series helmed by Kang Woo-suk about a righteous, but weird cop, took a boffo $8.82 million in its opening four day weekend at the South Korean B.O.

Produced by Cinema Service and released by CJ Entertainment, pic locked up 1.4 million admissions at 764 crime scenes.

Score is the second best arrest record this year behind "Indiana Jones: The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull," which locked up 1.6 million tickets in its opening frame. And it is the first time in eleven weeks that a local picture has topped the chart. Last was "GP506."

"Enemy 3" also enjoyed the biggest opening day by a Korean film this year, taking $1.2 million from over 200,000 ticket sales. That exceeded the opening day scores of this year's biggest hits "Women's Handball Team" and "The Chaser".

Scripted by multi-hyphenate Jang Jin, pic again features actor Sul kyoung-gu ("Oasis") as detective Kang Chul-joong, this time fighting against a teenager serial killer.

"Kung Fu Panda" slipped to second spot, but it also rewrote a piece of Korean box office history. Distributor CJ announced that "Panda" took $3.76 million on 582 screens during the weekend, taking its cume to $20.7 million from 3.3 million admissions, which is the largest total ever for an animated film in Korea.

Among other new releases, Steve Carell-starrer "Get Smart" ranked at No.5 grossing $690,000 on 244 screens. Casino crime movie "21" played a weaker hand ranking at No.6 with a $410,000 take. It was followed by helmer Neil Marshall's horror "Doomsday" which grossed $380,000 and placed at No.7.


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