'Swindlers' takes box office for third straight weekend

By Shim Sun-ah

SEOUL, Dec. 11 (Yonhap) -- Domestic crime film "The Swindlers" topped the box office for the third straight weekend, data showed on Monday.

The film starring Hyunbin and Yoo Ji-tae led all films, selling 417,534 tickets from Friday to Sunday, according to estimates from the Korean Film Council. It has been on top of the daily box office charts since it opened on Nov. 22 and is expected to surpass the 4 million mark in cumulative attendance this week. The tally was 3.722 million as of Sunday.

The movie revolves around a team of scam artists and a corrupt prosecutor teaming up to track down a notorious swindler for their own purposes.

Korean mystery-thriller "Forgotten" stayed in second place with 310,469 views on its second weekend.

Directed by Jang Hang-jun, the movie starring Kim Mu-yeol and Kang Ha-neul is about a man who loses his memory after being kidnapped and his younger brother who tries to find out the truth about the kidnapping.

In close third and fourth are two new animated films -- "Pororo, Dinosaur Island Adventure" and "Mary and The Witch's Flower." The Korean Pororo movie sold 298,034 tickets while the English language version for Studio Ponoc attracted 267,143 views.

Kenneth Branagh's remake of "Murder on the Orient Express" was at fifth in its second weekend with 144,074 in attendance.

sshim@yna.co.kr
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