Song Kang-ho stars in “A Taxi Driver.” (Showbox)

“A Taxi Driver” has become the first film this year to surpass the 12 million-ticket mark as of Saturday, according to the Korean Film Council.

The film has sold 12,023,670 tickets in total, becoming the 10th most-viewed Korean film in the country. It sold some 40,000 tickets on Saturday alone.

The ninth most-viewed Korean film is “King and the Clown” (2005) by Lee Joon-ik, with 12,302,831 tickets sold.

“A Taxi Driver,” directed by Jang Hoon, has been popular since it opened here on Aug. 2.

It stars Song Kang-ho as Man-seob, a widowed taxi driver who takes the German journalist Peter, played by Thomas Kretschmann, to Korea’s southern city of Gwangju to witness the May 18
Democratization Movement. The film also stars Ryu Jun-yeol and Yoo Hae-jin.

The movie was submitted to the 90th Academy Award for best foreign language film, its distributor Showbox said on Sept. 4.

(doo@heraldcorp.com)