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Roaring Currents became the No. 1 film in the all-time Korean box office in 18 days since its release. The film topped the all-time Korean box office by recording 13,627,153 in total at 11:30 am on August 16 (Sat.) The film crossed 14 million audiences on August 17 (Sun.) and since then, has been making new records.  Who has been watching Roaring Currents?  We looked into what made the film so successful.  

 

Male audiences in their 40s (18.2%) eclipse other audience groups in reserving tickets for Roaring Currents. They are followed by female audiences in their 40s (16.3%).  The third-ranked group is women in their 30s (16.1%). By gender, male and female audiences are nearly fifty and fifty. By generation, audiences in their 40s (34.5%) enjoyed the lion’s share. They are followed by those in their 30s, 20s, teens and 60s. Generation gaps among main audience groups are much wider than the gender gap between them. A high internet ticket reservation rate among audiences in their 50 and 60 is characteristic of Roaring Currents unlike another 2014 box office hit, Frozen. In addition, a ticket reservation rate among audiences in their 50s towers over a ticket reservation rate among audiences in their teens. Taking into consideration the fact that audiences in their 50 and 60s buy tickets offline, the phenomenal box office run of Roaring Currents was fueled by mid-aged audiences who are in their 40s or older quickly responded to the film.  

 

The even gender ratio and the high reservation rate among audiences in their 40s exemplify the fact that Roaring Currents is a great family movie. In particular, 48% of the audiences in their 40s or older purchased two or more tickets, showing the composition of typical family audiences. Among audiences of Roaring Currents, the most of the respondents said that they came to watch the film with their children. They are followed by those who came with their parents, sweethearts and friends.  Among them, 56.2%, more than the half of all of the respondents watched the film with their family members such as their spouses, children and parents.

 

This demonstrates that family audiences are a major contributor to the unprecedented success of Roaring Currents. Usually, family films are divided into films that parents watch together with their kids as their kids want and films that kids watch together with their families as their parents want.  While Frozen belongs to the successful case of the former and Roaring Currents to that of the latter. Educational effects really matter when parents select contents for their children.  Roaring Currents based on the story of a hero in Korean history, Yi Sun-shin, successfully appealed to parent audiences who helped launch the film to the top of the all-time Korean box office standings. 

 

The rate of re-watching stood at 4.97% on August 12 the film hit ten million audiences. The percentage is lower than 7%, the average of Korean films that drew over ten million spectators. But thinking about the fact that the film crossed ten million audiences in only 12 days since its release, the rate is high enough. In addition, the low rate of re-watching means that Roaring Currents dwarfs other Korean films that drew over ten million spectators in the number of first-showing audiences.  That is to say, Roaring Currents attracted a higher number of unique audiences to theaters. It means that Roaring Currents drew more potential audiences than usual. In particular, 81.7% of the respondents said that after watching the film, they recommended it to other people.