Worldwide smash The Lord Of The Rings has scored an impressive opening in South Korea, where it has drawn $6m and over a million viewers in its first six days. Distributed by local major Cinema Service, the film opened on January 1 on 184 screens nationwide, earning $1.44m on its opening day.

Despite being limited to four screenings per day because of the film's running time, Lord Of The Rings joins local hits Friend, My Sassy Girl and My Wife Is A Gangster as the only films to draw a million viewers in six days (My Wife Is A Gangster accomplished the feat in five days in September 2001). The movie filled seats to a spectacular 97% capacity on its opening day, and continued to sell seats at a strong 79% capacity on its first weekend.

The Lord Of The Rings replicates the earlier success of Harry Potter in cracking the difficult Korean market, in which Hollywood films are estimated to have taken less than a 40% market share in 2001.