“The Attorney,” loosely based on the early years of the late President Roh Moo-hyun, set a Korean box office record for attracting more than 540,000 movie goers on Saturday, the highest gross attendance for a single day in December.

According to the Korean Film Council, the directorial debut film of webtoon artist Yang Woo-seok drew 541,614 movie watchers on the day, far outnumbering its competitors “The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug” and “About Time,” which marked 151,839 and 132,722, respectively.

The film, which opened on Dec. 18, stars Song Kang-ho as a Busan-based tax lawyer named Song Woo-seok. He ends up taking on a human rights case ― based on the famous “Burim case” argued by former President Roh ― defending young students who have been framed and tortured by the state for the illegal possession of banned literature and suspicion of being communist sympathizers during the authoritarian Chun Doo-hwan regime.

“The Attorney” had already topped the local box office just two days after its release, and accounted for 34.6 percent of the movie reservations over the weekend. In four days, the film has sold more than 1.2 million tickets and continues to climb.

By Julie Jackson (juliejackson@heraldcorp.com)