Lunar New Year Box Office; Korea's Current Malaise & Upcoming Films

Streamlined has only been offline for one month, but in that time, it's become clear that we're having a challenging start to the year: war and politics are casting a shadow over the on-going Berlin film festival; global streamers are continuing their great local-language contraction, with Amazon Prime Video scaling back production in Asia, Middle East and Africa (while Netflix adds insult to injury by announcing a slew of local-language slates); US studios continue to shed employees as rumours swirl about further consolidation; one of the big proposed Indian media mergers has fallen apart; and exhibitors across the planet, following years of pandemic and Hollywood strikes disruption, are staring at release schedules that look disturbingly bare.

Here in Asia, territories celebrating the Lunar New Year holidays actually had something to cheer with a seasonal uplift in box office, which was never a sure thing given the strained economies and lack of consumer confidence in the region. But…