Following the success of the first instalment of Thai historical epic, The Legend Of King Naresuan, the second film in the trilogy, Declaration Of Independence, stormed the Thai box office on its four-day opening weekend, raking in a whopping $3.9m (130m baht) in Bangkok.

The second instalment, also directed by Prince Chatrichalerm Yukol, outperformed the first, Pegu's Hostage, by 30% although it opened on the same scale on a massive 270 prints nationwide.

Pegu's Hostage stayed at the top of the chart for four consecutive weeks since its January 18 opening. Its box office has since reached $7m (240m baht), making it the second-highest grossing film of all time in Thailand, behind the prince director's The Legend Of Suriyothai.

Currently still playing, Pegu's Hostage only slipped to the second place last week when Declaration Of Independence opened on February 15.

'We are extremely excited over the superlative success of both films. The second part is expected to do equally well if not even better than the first,' says Gilbert Lim of distributor Sahamongkolfilm International.

The second part is expected to work the audience even further with plenty of action-packed sequences including epic battle scenes.

The final episode is tentatively scheduled for release towards the end of the year.

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