A stellar performance from local comedy Sirens in the Aegean has left Greece as the only European territory other than Italy in which King Kong failed to storm the box office.

To the astonishment of many, the comedy managed 200,000 admissions in its second week, leaving King Kong a distant second with 82,000 admissions for its first week.

Sirens, directed by veteran Nikos Perakis, is a follow-up to his 1984 hit Loafing and Camouflage, another comedy inspired from by the director's experiences during his military service.

It is a humorous portrait of the tense Greek-Turkish relations arising from territorial disputes in the Aegean sea which more than once brought in recent times the two countries to the brink of a military confrontation.

It has accumulated more than 450,000 admissions during its two weeks release on 22 screens, beating the previous two-week record held by John Cameron's Titanic.King Kong launched on 30 screens during its first week.

UIP local general manager Mariliza Totomi sounded optimistic about Kong's box office prospects pointing out that "this is the kind of material expected to do well during the end of the year holidays."

The success of Sirens was a pleasant surprise for the producing/distribution company Odeon S.A.

Two ambitious comedies co-produced and released earlier this year by the same outlet failed to meet the expectations.

Sirens, now in its third week in release, is expected to reach the 1 million admissions mark, beating Pandelis Voulgaris' The Brides (750,000 admissions in 2004) and challenging the record of the Tasos Boulmetis' Touch of Spice (1,6 million admissions in 2004)