South Korea’s box office has topped a record 200 million admissions, according to the Korean Film Council (KOFIC) integrated ticketing website.

Korean cinemas on Dec 9 had already broken 2012’s record of 194.89 million admissions. Last year’s record was up an impressive 21.9% from 2011, with box office gross up 17.7% to $1.3bn.

This year, local films are credited again with pulling in audiences. Three top films alone accounted for over 31 million admissions. Heartwarming prison comedy Miracle In Cell No. 7, the year’s only film to get more than the landmark 10 million admissions with 12.81 million tickets sold, led the pack. Bong Joon Ho’s Snowpiercer [pictured] brought in 9.34 million admissions while Song Kang-ho-starring historical drama The Face Reader took 9.13 million.

Ryo Seung-wan’s gritty espionage thriller The Berlin File starring Ha Jung-woo accounted for 7.16 million admissions. Another spy film, Secretly Greatly – a teenage comedy/drama – filled 6.95 million seats.

Three more films also went over 5 million admissions each: the so-called “real-estate thriller” Hide And Seek, the Ha Jung-woo starring radio-show terrorist thriller The Terror Live and the surveillance thriller Cold Eyes - based on Hong Kong original Eye In The Sky.

Two foreign films in the top ten, Iron Man 3 with 9 million admissions and World War Z with 5.23 million also added to the box office record.

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