(Joy N Cinema)

The American action-comedy "Hitman's Bodyguard" topped the South Korean box office on its opening weekend by selling 556,100 tickets, data showed Monday.

According to the computerized box office figures from the Korean Film Council, the R-rated film starring mega-stars like Samuel L. Jackson, Ryan Reynolds and Salma Hayek outdid its South Korean rival, "Midnight Runners," which gathered 286,097 views.

The Korean comedy-action movie, starring Park Seo-jun and Kang Ha-neul, revolves around two cadets at Korean National Police University who witness a kidnapping and track it down. Released on Aug. 9, it has sold a total of 5.37 million tickets.

French filmmaker Luc Besson's latest space epic "Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets" debuted third, drawing 249,514 cinemagoers.

(Showbox)

It was closely followed by South Korean historical drama "A Taxi Driver" about a pro-democracy uprising in the southwestern city of Gwangju seen from the eyes of two outsiders, which sold 238,044 tickets. The accumulated number of views for the movie starring Song Kang-ho reached 11.86 million in its fifth weekend in the box office.

"V.I.P.," the previous lead, slipped four notches to the fifth with only 135,532 admissions.

The R-rated action noir film is about a South Korean police detective who stubbornly tracks down a high-profile North Korea defector as the prime suspect of a serial murder case in South Korea, and South Korean and U.S. intelligence officials who try to hinder the investigation for their own agendas. The film, with a star-studded cast that includes Jang Dong-gun, Kim Myung-min and Lee Jong-suk, has collected 1.3 million views since its release on Aug. 23. (Yonhap)