‘Steel Rain 2’ Dominates Korean Box Office, Knocks Reigning ‘Peninsula’

Steel Rain 2: Summit, the sequel to the Korean hit Steel Rain, took the South Korean box office by force in its opening weekend. In its dominance, it knocked zombie-thriller Peninsula off from its reign at the top for the past two weeks.

Lotte Entertainment released the action thriller on Wednesday which to date has accumulated $7.03 million from 1.02 million ticket sales. Earnings over the weekend alone contributed $4.92 million to the total from 663,000 admissions.

Steel Rain 2: Summit, directed by Yang Woo-suk, presents a three-way summit meeting between South Korea, North Korea and the U.S. to negotiate a peace treaty that would finally end the Korean War that occurred during 1950-53. In the midst of talks between the three nations’ leaders, they are kidnapped and stowed away on a nuclear submarine by a zealous North Korean general who opposes the peace treaty. 

Jung Woo-sung and Kwak Do-won return to the sequel, however play different lead roles than their previous roles in Steel Rain. Jung plays the South Korean leader with Kwak playing the North Korean general. They are also joined by Yoo Yeon-seok who portrays the North Korean leader and Angus MacFadyen as the U.S. president.

Steel Rain, released in 2017, centers on North and South Korean special agents who must cooperate with each other in order to avert a military confrontation between the two Korean nations. From 4.45 million admissions, it earned $29.7 million.

Steel Rain 2: Summit accounted for 62% of the cinema market, while Peninsula contributed 28%. In its third week in the box office, the Peninsula earned $2.24 million, a drop of 50% from $4.51 million. Since its July 15 release, it has accumulated a total of $25.1 million.

Elizabeth Yoon: Currently a second-year student at Northwestern University, Elizabeth is majoring in Journalism and Asian American Studies. On campus she writes for the North by Northwestern online magazine and works on the tech team for the Northwestern News Network, a student-run broadcast organization. She is a lover of Korean dramas and enjoy all kinds of films, especially comedies and action movies.
Related Post
Leave a Comment