The South Korean film industry is living through strange times. It remains mired in its post-pandemic slump, and 2025 was a year that most filmmakers would probably prefer to forget. Box office has continued to fall, and with investment shrinking, people in the industry have come to accept the idea that Korean cinema is in the middle of a long, slow decline.
And yet, how to explain the beginning of 2026? After several mid-sized releases in January performed better than expected, in February a period drama called The King’s Warden, which had garnered little attention before its release, turned into box-office gold. Capturing viewer sympathy with its tragic story of a deposed young king, the film steadily built up word-of-mouth from week to week, until before long it had passed the 10-million admissions mark. But still, it showed no signs of slowing down. By late March, the film had sold over 15 million tickets, set a new all-time box office record in terms of revenue, and continued to occupy the number 1 spot at the box-office.
This was obviously welcome news for theatres and the film industry in general, but what does it mean for Korean cinema? Is The King’s Warden a rare one-off that will soon pass, after which the vast majority of viewers will go back to consuming their content at home, rather than at the theatre? Or is this a sign that perhaps the industry’s future prospects aren’t quite as bleak as they seem? Korean filmmakers might be forgiven for feeling confused – relieved that something is finally connecting with the local audience, but not sure whether it justifies any optimism.
Before delving further into this question, first let us go back and review what happened in 2025. The first few months of the year (discussed in last year’s catalogue essay) had few high-profile releases outside of Bong Joon Ho’s Hollywood project Mickey 17, which fell somewhat short of expectations with 3 million admissions. Only two Korean films from the early part of the year managed to stand out at the box office. The Match, starring Lee Byung-hun and Yoo Ah-in as two famous Go players from the late 20th century, had an unusually complicated path to reaching its audience. Shot in 2021 during the pandemic, and acquired by Netflix for direct release on its streaming service in 2022, the release was nonetheless delayed after a drug scandal involving Yoo Ah-in.
It was only in March 2025 that the production company and Netflix agreed to release it in theaters prior to its streaming debut. As it turned out, the film was well received by viewers and rode positive word-of-mouth to a quite respectable 2.2 million admissions. The other success story of the spring was Yadang: The Snitch, a political thriller by director Hwang Byung-guk that amassed 3.4 million admissions in April.
As the summer season arrived, two high-profile projects – both based on bestselling webtoons or web novels – lined up for a late July release. My Daughter Is a Zombie would prove to be the more successful of the two: a comedy/family melodrama about a father caring for his daughter who gets infected during a zombie outbreak. Starring Cho Jung-seok, who also headlined the comedy Pilot, the top summer release of 2024, My Daughter Is a Zombie sold 5.6 million tickets despite lukewarm reviews. This would ultimately rank as the top-grossing Korean film of 2025.
Meanwhile a much tougher fate awaited the big-budget Omniscient Reader, based on singNsong’s highly popular web novel Omniscient Reader’s Viewpoint. As the Korean film industry has come to rely more and more on adaptations of existing IP (particularly webtoon adaptations and film remakes), the popular backlash against Omniscient Reader illustrates the risks that come with taking on a project with a passionate global fan base. Although bringing such a complex, long-running serial narrative to the screen would inevitably involve some simplification, fans disparaged the director’s creative choices, the changed tone of the story and the re-imagining of several key characters. Despite its wide release and major marketing campaign, the film struggled with negative word-of-mouth and ended up with just over a million admissions.
More broadly, summer 2025 was also notable for the small number of high-profile releases. This was mostly a result of retrenchment on the part of Korea’s major studios. CJ ENM, for example, used to be the country’s most prolific studio, but it released only two Korean films in all of 2025: the mid-budget romantic comedy Pretty Crazy in August (which ended up with a lacklustre 400,000 admissions), and Park Chan-wook’s No Other Choice.
Indeed, as summer transitioned to fall, No Other Choice was the one Korean film to attract significant attention from the general public. After premiering in competition at Venice and screening at the Toronto Film Festival, it was also selected as the opening film at the Busan International Film Festival in September. The story of a family man who, after getting laid off, decides the best way to get re-hired is to eliminate his competition, the film had a highly successful international run, even if it was overlooked for major awards by Venice and the Oscars. Nonetheless, its reception in South Korea was decidedly less enthusiastic. Whether the result of inflated expectations, or a sense that Park’s storytelling at this stage of his career is not well-matched with local viewers’ tastes, the reviews in Korea for No Other Choice were mixed. It ended up with just under 3 million admissions – short of expectations, but still ranking as the third-highest grossing Korean film of 2025.
For the rest of the year, mainstream audiences mostly stayed at home, but fans of Korean independent cinema did find some films to get excited about. Some low-budget works that premiered at the Busan or Jeonju film festivals, such as The Final Semester (the story of a boy at a vocational high school who gets a factory internship) or 3670 (about a North Korean defector trying to integrate into Seoul’s gay community) were warmly received by cinephiles on their general release.
But one independent film in particular had an unusual impact upon its release in October. Director Yoon Ga-eun’s third feature The World of Love (following The World of Us [2016] and The House of Us [2019], which both screened at FEFF) marked a new advance for a director who was already considered a standout among independent filmmakers. The film has a plot which is best not to spoil with too many details, but it centres around a high school student named Joo-in (played by the talented newcomer Seo Su-bin) whose troubled past is slowly revealed during the course of the film. Emotionally intense and deeply humane, the film was rapturously received in Korea and screened widely abroad as well. Ultimately it sold 200,000 tickets, which for an independent film of its scale is one of the strongest performances of recent years.
Looking back on 2025 as a whole from a commercial perspective, the numbers do not inspire confidence. Total admissions for local and imported films added up to 106.1 million, which was 14% down on the previous year, and also less than the totals for 2023 or 2022. Going back farther, admissions were less than half (47%) the level of 2019. For the first time since the depths of the pandemic in 2021, no Korean film sold more than 10 million tickets – and in fact, only two Korean films managed to pass 3 million admissions. In the yearly top 10, there were just three Korean releases, compared to five Hollywood films and two Japanese animated films (the latest features in the Demon Slayer and Chainsaw Man franchises).
So it’s not surprising that film studios and financiers have become more cautious about their investments. Apart from slashing production slates, a preference for existing IP seems to be ever more prevalent, with a significant percentage of new films being remakes. Finding investment has always been difficult for Korean filmmakers, but in the current environment, films without a major star, or not based on famous IP, face major challenges in getting financed.
If there is one comparative bright spot in the current situation, it is that the current government is more open to providing support and encouragement to the local film industry. President Lee Jae-myung was elected to a five-year term in June 2025, after the impeachment and removal of the previous president Yoon Suk-yeol, who made an unprecedented grab at dictatorial power with his declaration of martial law on December 3, 2024 (an event that is depicted in all its terrifying drama in the gripping documentary The Seoul Guardians, part of this year’s programme). Whereas former president Yoon slashed funding for local film festivals, independent filmmaking and more during his two-and-a half-years in power, the Lee administration has initiated a more collaborative relationship between the government and the film industry. (Nonetheless, some filmmakers argue that the amount of actual support provided by the current government for cinema is less than it has been in previous left-leaning administrations).
If 2025 ended in disappointment, the start of 2026 has been comparatively upbeat. An early positive sign in the new year was the performance of the relationship drama Once We Were Us, released on December 31. A remake of the 2018 Chinese feature Us and Them by Rene Liu, Once We Were Us stars Koo Kyo-hwan and Moon Ga-young as a couple who become good friends, and eventually lovers, before meeting again by chance years later. The strength of the script and performances made an impression on viewers, such that after a week in theaters it took the top spot in the box-office, and would remain there for four weeks in total. The film’s final tally was 2.6 million admissions, quite impressive for a drama of this type.
Established hitmaker Ryoo Seung-wan, who in recent years has directed the highly ambitious and successful films Escape from Mogadishu (2021), Smugglers (2023) and I, The Executioner (2024), released his latest work Humint in early February. Set mostly in Vladivostok, the spy thriller once again showcased the director’s talent for staging elaborate action sequences. Ultimately, the film somewhat underperformed expectations with 1.8 million admissions, with The King’s Warden likely stealing much of the film’s momentum. Subsequently it was announced that Netflix had picked up the film, so Humint will bypass the international festival circuit and debut directly on TV screens worldwide.
So amidst the various challenges faced by the local film industry, from Netflix’s outsized power in the market to declining audience interest, what explains the phenomenal success of The King’s Warden? To be sure, the film is entertaining, well-acted, funny and tragic in turn. It is the sort of story that appeals to a wide spectrum of viewers. Still, in a country of 51 million people, to have a single film sell upwards of 15 million tickets is quite extraordinary. It was startling when the historical war epic Roaring Currents sold 17.6 million tickets in 2014, and also when the comedy Extreme Job sold 16.3 million tickets in 2019, but both of those runs took place at a time when the Korean film industry was booming. This time, it feels like a bolt out of the blue.
Nonetheless, this film’s success may teach us something about how films can succeed in South Korea’s current market, namely: (a) Word of mouth is everything. A film does not have to dominate screens in its first week; if viewers are enthusiastic about a film, there is plenty of time to gradually build up a massive audience. (b) A film need not have a large budget or a blockbuster aesthetic in order to succeed. There is very little in The King’s Warden that could be described as spectacle; instead, a dramatic story is its primary selling point. (c) Stars matter, but they are not everything. There’s no question that the appeal of the cast contributed a great deal to this film’s success, but it may be a case of “effective casting” being more powerful than “star casting.” Having an experienced, talented actor like Yoo Hai-jin in the leading role certainly gave the film credibility (this the fifth time he has appeared in a film that has passed 10 million admissions, after Exhuma, A Taxi Driver, Veteran and King and the Clown). But the other leading role in the film was taken by Park Ji-hoon, in his first major appearance on the big screen. A deep, experienced cast of supporting actors also contributed much to the film’s success.
One of the key challenges faced by the Korean film industry after the pandemic is the fact that revenues dropped at the same time as the cost of making films continued to increase. With a budget of ten billion won (US$6.7 million), The King’s Warden is not a low-budget production, but it is considerably less than the budget of many other high-profile Korean films of recent years. Could it be that going forward, Korean film companies start to emphasize story over spectacle and star power?
However things play out going forward, there remain enough appealing projects in the pipeline that 2026 should be an interesting, and perhaps even successful year for Korean cinema, at least by recent standards. Director Na Hong-jin’s long-awaited Hope, said to be one of the most ambitious Korean films ever made, is expected to reach theaters later this year. Acclaimed auteur Lee Chang-dong is readying Possible Love, his first feature since 2018’s Burning – though being a Netflix production, it may be difficult to catch on a big screen. Director Yeon Sang-ho (Train to Busan) has no less than two films lined up for 2026: the big-budget zombie thriller Colony and the low-budget Paradise Lost. There are also intriguing new projects from established directors like Kim Jee-woon and Hur Jin-ho. All of these films will be opening in a market that is growing ever more challenging, but if even a couple of them manage to entice the general public, this year could end on a more optimistic note.
Darcy Paquet