Occult horror ‘Exhuma’ has swept the Korean box office, emerging as one of the highest grossing films of the year. Its domestic gross collection stands at $2 MN USD, according to box office mojo. The film hit the screens in India on May 3, despite being ready for release a month ago. Speaking about the process, Ashwani Sharma of Impact Films, who is distributing the Korean movie in India, said, “We always had that option to release the film directly to OTT, but we generally like to create market for niche foreign language films and that’s the reason we always try to release these films theatrically.Same holds true for Exhuma as well; where we wanted to release the film even in dubbed languages particularly Hindi but the market forces make it financially unviable as the system is currently not conducive enough to be financially viable.” He further added, “In the entire chain everyone earns except for us. There are enough challenges right from getting posters and trailers being screened to getting the reviewers write about the film since it’s in Korean language.”
The switch in the Bollywood release calendar affected the release of Exhuma in India. Despite films like The Fall Guy, Maidaan, Crew and Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire among others running in theatres, Exhuma has managed to clinch over 100 daily shows across the country. Ashwani added, “The film was ready with certification, since the first week of April but we didn’t get a proper date as several Bollywood and Hollywood films were already lined up. Moreover there were several Horror films from Hollywood releasing every week. But with several films failing to perform, we got a good chance to release Exhuma in as many cinemas as we wanted. But that comes with additional costs, in the form of Virtual Print Fees and unfortunately there is no level playing field here. So Exhuma has been released in 75 theatres with 107 daily shows. I am happy that we were able to get to places like Pondicherry, Aizawl, Imphal, Itanagar,etc. but I would have loved to release it in several other cities like Dehradun, Jaipur, Lucknow, Bhubaneshwar, Jorhat, Calicut, etc. from where we are getting requests on our social media platform.”
In the heart-pounding Korean thriller ‘Exhuma’, four strangers find themselves bound by a dark secret. Shaman Hwa-rim (Kim Go-eun) and her protégé, Bong-gil (Lee Do-hyun) join forces to delve into a curse haunting a wealth family. They unearth the family’s grave atop a remote mountain and set in motion chilling revelations, unleashing forces beyond their control. Led by stellar performances from Choi Min-sik, Kim Go-eun, Yoo Hae-jin, and Lee Do-hyun, the film delves into the murky depths of human nature.
Interestingly, Impact Films also released Oscar winning Korean film Parasite in India a few years back. Stating that the Indian market is opening up for Korean movies, Ashwani added “Parasite in January 2020 was a huge success. Building on the Oscar buzz it carried at that time, the film ran for eight weeks before cinemas were shut due to Covid. Thereafter, we also released Broker in 2023 and it received a reasonably good response. After watching the Exhuma’s promo last year in Busan; I was confident that it could work in India as it had a stellar cast of Choi Min Sik and it was visually also very good. But we never expected it to do so well in Korea and several other Asian countries like Vietnam, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, etc. where It has broken several records.”
The switch in the Bollywood release calendar affected the release of Exhuma in India. Despite films like The Fall Guy, Maidaan, Crew and Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire among others running in theatres, Exhuma has managed to clinch over 100 daily shows across the country. Ashwani added, “The film was ready with certification, since the first week of April but we didn’t get a proper date as several Bollywood and Hollywood films were already lined up. Moreover there were several Horror films from Hollywood releasing every week. But with several films failing to perform, we got a good chance to release Exhuma in as many cinemas as we wanted. But that comes with additional costs, in the form of Virtual Print Fees and unfortunately there is no level playing field here. So Exhuma has been released in 75 theatres with 107 daily shows. I am happy that we were able to get to places like Pondicherry, Aizawl, Imphal, Itanagar,etc. but I would have loved to release it in several other cities like Dehradun, Jaipur, Lucknow, Bhubaneshwar, Jorhat, Calicut, etc. from where we are getting requests on our social media platform.”
In the heart-pounding Korean thriller ‘Exhuma’, four strangers find themselves bound by a dark secret. Shaman Hwa-rim (Kim Go-eun) and her protégé, Bong-gil (Lee Do-hyun) join forces to delve into a curse haunting a wealth family. They unearth the family’s grave atop a remote mountain and set in motion chilling revelations, unleashing forces beyond their control. Led by stellar performances from Choi Min-sik, Kim Go-eun, Yoo Hae-jin, and Lee Do-hyun, the film delves into the murky depths of human nature.
Interestingly, Impact Films also released Oscar winning Korean film Parasite in India a few years back. Stating that the Indian market is opening up for Korean movies, Ashwani added “Parasite in January 2020 was a huge success. Building on the Oscar buzz it carried at that time, the film ran for eight weeks before cinemas were shut due to Covid. Thereafter, we also released Broker in 2023 and it received a reasonably good response. After watching the Exhuma’s promo last year in Busan; I was confident that it could work in India as it had a stellar cast of Choi Min Sik and it was visually also very good. But we never expected it to do so well in Korea and several other Asian countries like Vietnam, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, etc. where It has broken several records.”
