Thanks to strong word-of-mouth, local comedy Dragon Loaded 2003 held on to the top spot for the second week in a row, beating off four openers - including US films Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over, Bad Boys II and Down With Love.

The film's success has surprised the local industry as it doesn't feature major stars in the lead roles and marks the first producing effort of music industry veterans Paco Wong and Abba Chan. According to Wong, the film was devised as a vehicle to launch Canto-pop singer Ronald Cheng as a comedy star in the mold of Stephen Chow.

Highlighting the popularity of Korean movies in Hong Kong, three currently

feature in the top 10, led by comedy My Tutor Friend which had a strong launch this week, showing off a better screen average than US rival openers, Down With Love and Bad Boys II. Korean horror title A Tale Of Two Sisters and romantic drama The Classic followed in the later stages of release.