Chinese people's memories of watching films are not always associated with luxurious theatres and costly tickets. Open-air cinemas, exclusive cinemas for privileged audiences, and the so-called "home cinema" are worth a mention for their roles cultivating China's movie fans.

Open Air Cinema

In the eyes of viewers accustomed to modern, true-to-life audio and video effects, the era of the open air cinema could be considered the worst of times for movie-goers.

The open-air cinema became popular in the 1950s, 30 years before TV sets would occupy the living rooms of Chinese families.

Images on the screens were often blotted out when people near the projector stood up. Dialogue had to be carefully picked out from among the buzz of insects and neighbors chatting.

But for Sarah Wang, a 26 year-old movie fan in Shanghai, the most extraordinary experience of watching movies was associated with an open air cinema. From the army camp where she lived, it usually took an hour to drive to the open-air cinema.

"Once, a jeep designed to carry five people had to hold 11 eager moviegoers, even the spaces below the seats were stuffed," she said.

"Life at that time was so isolated from the outside world, lacking the entertainment which is common now."

"At that time, even the technician who screened the film was often wooed by young girls, because they knew so much more about the world," Sarah said.

Privileged audience

For a long time after the 1950s, war heroes and leaders of the revolution dominated China's screens as films featuring love and foreign countries were deemed improper for public viewing.

In the late 1970s, movies touching on those forbidden topics surfaced in a handful of cinemas in large cities like Beijing and Shanghai. Audiences were required to be senior government officials or intellectuals, who were said to be "able to view the films with critical eyes".

As most foreign movies screened in those cinemas were not dubbed, simultaneous interpreters were a necessity for the audience.

"Some of the interpreters were amazingly skilled, even able to translate the actor's lines into Beijing dialect," said Alex Chen, a 36-year-old Beijinger who frequented the exclusive cinemas in the 1980s.

"Even with a less skillful interpreter, audiences would stay put to the end of the film since no one was willing to waste such a rare privilege," Chen said.

Home cinema

Since the 1990s, downtown cinemas began to lose their audiences to the home-cinema facilities, as Chinese audiences viewed the latest Hollywood stunts and Honk Kong kung-fu, often on pirated video tapes, VCDs and DVDs, in the comfort of their living rooms. The price for a DVD is only 8 yuan (US$1) while a cinema ticket costs at least 30 yuan (US$3.60).

"You never have to queue for hours for a seat in the cinema and make wildly guesses about the parts lost to censoring," said Zhang Jie, a local film fans who has a collection of more than 500 DVDs.

(Shanghai Star June 28, 2005)