According to the Korean Film Council, after its release on July 23, the fantasy action film Omniscient Reader by director Kim Byung Woo officially surpassed Brad Pitts Form 1 (F1) to top the box office.
The film sold 122,491 tickets on its first day of release, and reached 127,431 tickets sold (as of noon on July 24), with a booking rate of 20.9%, earning nearly 1.2 billion won (about 22.9 billion VND).
Adapted from the famous webtoon (online comic) of the same name, "All Readers" tells the story of Kim Dok Ja (Ahn Hyo Seop) - the only reader of the fantasy novel "Three Ways to Survive in a Destructive World" that has been published for many issues over 10 years.
The day the novel ends, the events in it begin to happen in real life and Kim Dok Ja is the only one who knows how this world will end. Along with the main character of the novel Yoo Joong Hyuk (Lee Min Ho), Kim Dok Ja and her accomplices begin a survival struggle, determined to save the world from the end of the world.
After the first day of broadcasting, "All Readers" received mixed reviews. According to Korean media, in addition to reviews of films are not so bad, suitable for entertainment, a part of the audience, especially fans of the original work, believe that the film still has many loopholes in script, acting, CGI (computing image simulation technology), despite having a production budget of more than 30 billion won.
Previously, talking about the changes in the plot and characters that caused controversy because of the difference compared to the original, director Kim Byung Woo shared that he wanted to focus on what was most suitable for the scope of the film and bring a work that even those who are new to the original novel could enjoy.
Our goal is to help audiences unfamiliar with the original webtoon feel this story is complete. Some controversy may arise based on the image or video clip, but when the film is released, I believe the audience will understand the reason behind these changes.
According to the director, the core of the story is about Kim Dok Ja learning to solve complex problems through collaboration. The story ended not with a resounding victory, but with the characters together creating a small but meaningful step forward.
Meanwhile, Ahn Hyo Seop admitted that adapting only the first part of a 551-episode, more than 7,000-page webtoon into a 117-minute film was a big challenge.
"We had to " Suppress" this massive story down to 2 hours. Building a world may be a bit rushed. I understand that. But we have tried to grasp the plot, and hope the audience will "huge".
All Readers is currently showing in Korea and will be released in Vietnamese theaters on August 1.
