Spring is finally here!  This weekend, the national news reported when the cherry trees and forthysias will begin blooming so festivals throughout the country can prepare to welcome them. The local news reported that the frogs have awoken while the spice bushes, snowdrops and helleborus are all blooming (Sometimes, I love the news).  In my village, the annual Strawberry Festival has started..even though they are all greenhouse raised, it’s still nice to have fresh fruit. There were some strange stirrings in the box office over the weekend. While movies sliding, shifting and even plummeting down the ranks of the box office is quite common, it is far less common for the movies to move up. But that is exactly what happened. The first was no surprise as the Black Swan moved up one spot from last week to take the tip spot away from the falling Children…  Nationally, Black Swan took home almost a quarter of the box office totals. However the surprise was with I Love You which rose from number 10 where it opened last week on 322 screens, to number 4 on just thirty additional screens.  A romance featuring senior couples might seem like an unlikely choice for word-of -mouth to propel upwards, but the reason lies in the acting of the vertran cast which includes Lee Soon-jae, Kim Soo-mi, Song Jae-ho and Yoon So-jeong. Keep Kim Soo-mi in mind.. I saw one of her earlier movies last weekend and will prepare a review of it for here this week.  Below, I have listed the new movies that will grace Korean theaters later this week.

1. BUTTERFLY EFFECT 3 (us)– d. Seth Grossman, starring Crhis Carmack, Rachel Miner

2. DRIFTING AWAY (kr)– d. Kim Dong-won, starring Lee Kyeon, Ko Joon-hee

3. FIGHTER (us)– d. David Russell, starring Mark Wahlberg, Christian Bale www.thefighter.co.kr

4. SARNAGI MOOSEOWEO (kr)– d. Jeong Woo-cheol, starring Im Chang-jeong, Kim Gyu-ri www.sarangi.co.kr

5. SOUTHERN JUSTICE (us)– d. Wayne Rose, starring Steven Seagal, Warren Christie

6. TIMER (us)– d. Jac Schaeffer, starring Emma Caulfield, John Amedori

7. WORLD INVASION 9us)– d. Jonathan Liebesman, starring Aaron Eckhart, Michelle Rodriquez www.world-invasion.co.kr