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Japan & Korea 2025 First Half Box Office & Upcoming Films

Liz Shackleton

02 Aug 2025 — 10 min read

'Kokuho' has grossed more than $50m at the Japan box office

This edition of Streamlined is looking at 2025 first half box office and upcoming films in Japan and South Korea. Following this newsletter, Streamlined will be taking a two-week break to finish the final stages of its platform upgrade. If you experience any problems accessing the newsletters, the new website or your account during this period, please message me directly and either me or the tech genius who is helping me will figure it out.

Japan’s Summer Heats Up With 'Demon Slayer' & Live-Action 'Kokuho'

Japan’s industry bodies do not publish half year box office figures, but it’s safe to say the country had a healthy January to June period with hits including anime feature Detective Conan: One-eyed Flashback, currently the highest-grossing film of 2025 with $97m (JPY14.4bn) since its April 18 release.

The second half also got off to a strong start with Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba – The Movie: Infinity Castle, released by Toho and Aniplex on July 18, which broke box office records on its opening weekend and at the time of writing was on course to overtake Detective Conan with $87m (JPY12.9bn) after ten days.

The film is the first in a trilogy that concludes adaptations of the blockbuster manga series that also yielded Japan’s highest-grossing film ever, Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba – The Movie: Mugen Train, which raked in $274m at the Japanese box office and $507m worldwide in 2020. Sony and Crunchyroll are planning a huge international rollout for Infinity Castle starting this month in Asia and with North America and some European territories joining on September 12.

**'Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba – The Movie: Infinity Castle'**

But it’s not all been about anime at Japan’s box office this year as the third highest-grossing film of the year is a prestige live-action drama, Lee Sang-il’s Kokuho, which has surprised the local industry by grossing a hefty $51m through Toho since its June 6 release. The film, which premiered in this year’s Directors Fortnight in Cannes, stars Ryo Yoshizawa as the son of a gangster who is taken in by a kabuki master, played by Ken Watanabe.

Anime has been powering Japan’s box office recovery since the pandemic, so it’s encouraging to also see a local live-action film gross big numbers in its domestic market. And looking at the release schedule for the rest of the year, there seems to be no shortage of prestige drama coming out of Japan, which had six features across the major sections of this year’s Cannes film festival.

Cannes competition title Renoir, directed by Chie Hayakawa, was also released theatrically in Japan on June 20 and will be followed by Genki Kawamura’s Midnight Screenings title Exit 8 (August 29); Kei Ishikawa’s Un Certain Regard entry A Pale View Of Hills (September 5); and Yuiga Danzuka’s Directors Fortnight title Brand New Landscape (October 10). Koji Fukada’s Love On Trial, which played in Cannes Premiere, is being lined up for release early next year.

Other noteworthy live-action films scheduled for the second half of the year include Toei’s first English-language drama, New York-set Dear Stranger (September 12), directed by Tetsuya Mariko and starring Hidetoshi Nishijima and Gwei Lun-Mei; A Light In The Harbour (November 14), about the bond between a blind orphan and an ex-yakuza, directed by Michihito Fujii whose 18x2 Beyond Youthful Days sold well internationally; and Yoji Yamada’s Tokyo Taxi (November 21), a remake of the 2022 French film Driving Madeleine starring Takuya Kimura and Chieko Baisho.

Japanese drama also has a strong showing over the upcoming autumn festival season starting with two features in Locarno competition – Yakushima’s Illusion, directed by Naomi Kawase and starring Vicky Krieps, and Sho Miyake’s Two Seasons, Two Strangers, starring Korean actress Shim Eun-kyung as a scriptwriter reassessing her life.

Yakushima's Illusion © Cinefrance Studios, Kumie Inc — **'Yakushima's Illusion' [©Cinefrance Studios, Kumie Inc]**

In addition, two films from Japanese directors will premiere in the Horizons section of Venice – Akio Fujimoto’s Lost Land and Akihiro Hata’s Grand Ciel – while Mamoru Hosoda’s latest anime Hateshinaki Scarlet will play in an Out Of Competition slot. Neither of the two Horizons entries are set in Japan – Lost Land follows two Myanmar refugees undertaking a perilous journey in Southeast Asia, while Grand Ciel is a French production set on a deadly European construction site. Japanese cinema is continuing to become more international and collaborative.

Hollywood has yet to come roaring back in Japan, but at least this year the pipeline has started moving again. In 2024, Japan’s overall box office was down by 6.5% to $1.38bn (JPY207bn), compared to the previous year, with the decline attributed to a slowdown in the number of Hollywood tentpole releases. So far this year, Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning was reportedly the first film since Moana 2 in December 2024 to pass the $30m mark.

Jurassic World Rebirth is opening in Japan next week (August 8) but of course will be going up against Demon Slayer in its third weekend as well as the opening of the latest installment in yet another hot anime franchise: Crayon Shin-chan The Movie: Super Hot! The Spicy Kasukabe Dancers (can these anime titles get any longer?).

Korea Box Office Down 33% In First Half But Market Looks Set For Government Support

Much has already been written in Streamlined and other sources about Korea’s flagging box office and the various reasons for the slower than average post-pandemic recovery, so I won’t go into details here, except to quickly report first half figures and look forward to the rest of the year.

According to a recent report from the Korean Film Council (KOFIC), total admissions from January to June declined 32.5% to 42.5 million, generating $293m (KRW407.9bn) in ticket sales, a decrease of 33.2% compared to the first half of 2024.

Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning was the highest-grossing film of the first half, earning $23.66m from 3.39 million admissions, followed by local title Yadang: The Snitch with $22.77m from 3.38 million tickets sold. Bong Joon-ho’s Mickey 17 came in third with $21.14m from just over 3 million admissions. The market share of Korean films declined by 8.8% during this period to 50% of total box office.

Last year, Korea had a couple of big hits in the first half – supernatural horror Exhuma, released in February, which pulled in 11.91 million admissions, and The Roundup: Punishment, starring Don Lee (Ma Dong-seok) and released in April, which sold 11.5 million tickets. Admissions for 2024 as a whole ended up on 123.12 million admissions, but that was still way down on the 2019 pre-pandemic peak of 226.67 million.

However, this weekend is bringing some cheer as N.E.W. and Contents Panda just announced that zom-com My Daughter Is A Zombie pulled in 430,000 admissions on its opening day on July 30, marking the biggest debut for any film so far this year. The film also surpassed the opening day admissions of past hits including Extreme Job, Exhuma and 12.12: The Day.

**'My Daughter Is A Zombie' pulled in 430k admissions on its opening day**

These strong results coincide with the government’s move last week to encourage cinema-going by issuing 4.5 million movie discount vouchers, each worth $4.30 (KRW6,000) per ticket. The immediate impact of the vouchers suggests that rising ticket prices and the cost of living crisis has definitely been a factor in declining admissions, along with the rise of streaming and inconsistent film supply, so it will be interesting to note how cinema chains react.

Korea’s second and third biggest circuits, Lotte and Megabox, recently agreed to merge, which means there are effectively just two big players in the market along with CJ CGV. This is a similar situation to India where PVR merged with Inox and rising ticket prices have also been cited as a major factor hampering box office recovery. Industry consolidation does not usually lead to lower pricing but cinema chains will need to figure out next moves to keep audiences coming back after government support ends.

Looking ahead at the Korean release slate, CJ-distributed romcom Pretty Crazy, starring Im Yoon-ah and Ahn Bo-hyun, is scheduled for August 13 and Showbox comedy drama The First Ride is expected in October. However, it’s not clear at this point which films will be released over the key Chuseok holiday box office period (October 5-7). A big issue for the Korean industry is that the backlog of pandemic-delayed films has finally cleared, but production levels have not returned to pre-pandemic levels.

Still there are reasons to be optimistic with the recent change in government. Following the political turmoil of the past year, Korea now has a new culture minister, Chae Hwi-young, who is making the right noises about supporting the country’s creative industries, although it remans unclear how much emphasis will be placed on film rather than streaming, K-pop and AI.

And after a very quiet Cannes, with just one (albeit award-winning) short film in selection, Korea will have a strong presence during the autumn festival season with Park Chan-wook’s No Other Choice in Venice competition and four features in Toronto.

An adaptation of Donald Westlake’s novel The Ax, No Other Choice stars Lee Byng-hun as a laid-off middle-aged man who starts bumping off rival job candidates to secure employment. Produced by CJ ENM, the film is being lined up for Korean release in September. CJ ENM was also a co-producer on Yorgos Lanthimos’ Venice competition title Bugonia, an English-language remake of Jang Joon-hwan’s 2003 cult classic Save The Green Planet.

The four Korean films in Toronto are Barunson E&A’s The World Of Love, a coming-of-age story directed by Yoon Ga-eun, selected for Platform, and three titles in Special Presentations including Netflix-produced hijacking drama Good News. The other two Special Presentations are both being handled internationally by Plus M Entertainment – Yeon Sang-ho’s The Ugly, adapted from his graphic novel about a man investigating the disappearance of his wife, and Lee Hwan’s Project Y, about two female friends planning a heist.

Korean filmmakers have been heavily courted by Hollywood agents for some time, so following Bong Joon-ho’s Mickey 17 and Park Chan-wook’s HBO series The Sympathizer we can expect to see more international collaborations, although probably not this year. Na Hong-jin’s Hope, starring Alicia Vikander and Michael Fassbender alongside Hwang Jung-min and Zo In-sung, is now being lined up for a summer 2026 release, while Lee Sang-yong’s English-language Pig Village, starring Don Lee, Michael Rooker and other international cast, is currently in post-production.

**'The World Of Love' will premiere in Toronto's Platform section**

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Japan & Korea 2025 First Half Box Office & Upcoming Films

Liz Shackleton

Japan’s Summer Heats Up With 'Demon Slayer' & Live-Action 'Kokuho'

Korea Box Office Down 33% In First Half But Market Looks Set For Government Support

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