Over the last few years South Korea has seen a boom in it’s movie production, with many new directors entering that market and producing films that were critically acclaimed and that made a lot of money, not only in Korea but also in other Asian markets. That boom came to a cume last year, which saw, among others, the release of The Host (reviewed here) which become the highest grossing South Korean movie of all time.

And then this year things went kaboom. Film after film underperformed and exportation to key countries such as Japan fell off precipitously. Up until very recently the year had no home grown bona fide hit to speak of.

Things starting to look a little better last week, when historical drama “May 18″ opened to good numbers. And they took a definite turn for the better this week with monster movie D-War opening to an outstanding $20.3 million, which amounts to 2.95 million admissions. This is only slightly worst than what the record breaking opening of The Host from one year ago. And “May 18″ continues to post some solid numbers.

Now for the bad news. D-War was really expensive to produce by South Korean standards. At least $35 million dollars, and possibly as much as $70 million. So it’s still not clear that the movie will even be profitable. A lot is riding on the upcoming U.S. release. After all the movie was shot in English, and a large part of it takes place in L.A., and both of these things were meant to give the pic a better chance of competing in the American market, where it will open in September under the name Dragon Wars.

I’m not sure that was such a smart idea tough. Getting a foreign film to make some real money here, even one in English, is very hard, especially if you don’t have the money to do the sort of carpet bombing marketing that most blockbusters engage in. But I wish the pic well. And a hope that the South Korean movie industry finds its footing again, specially if that means they get to make more truly good movies like The Host.