“The Battleship Island,” a Korean film about the dark history of Japan’s Hashima Island off the coast of Nagasaki during World War II, has been showing promising box office results in the U.S., its distributor said Tuesday.

According to the distributor CJ E&M, the film by director Ryoo Seung-wan earned US$400,000 the first weekend since it was released on Aug. 3 in the U.S. The revenue ranked fifth in terms of per-screen average, surpassing “Dunkirk” and “The Dark Tower.”

Song Joong-ki stars in "The Battleship Island." (CJ Entertainment)

Portland-based Rentrack, which tracks box office figures, said the first weekend ticket sales for “The Battleship Island” outperformed “other Korean movies that were shown in the U.S. such as ‘Ode to My Father’ with $320,000, ‘Assassination’ with $280,000 and ‘Train to Busan’ with US$270,000.”

“Mr. Ryoo adroitly moves his camera through vast, crowded settings, and the climax sweeps you up in its ineluctable intensity. Its aftermath vividly conveys the pain of a national wartime trauma whose scars clearly have not healed,” wrote the New York Times in a review.

The movie is playing at 42 places on the North American continent, including New York, Washington, Toronto and Vancouver. (Yonhap)