Wednesday, 11 Sep 2002

New life in reel estate
- The Straits Times Interactive

Many of the cinemas set up during pre-Golden Village multiplex days now have a new lease of life housing entertainment hubs like football clubs and arcade gaming halls.

BUSINESS development executive Aylwin Pang remembers a time in the 1980s when Liberty cinema along Marine Parade Central Road was a thriving movie hall.When I was in primary school, my Mum would bring my younger brother and me to watch scary Chinese kong tao movies,' says Mr Pang, 28, referring to films featuring black magic.

"In my teens, I watched Eddie Murphy's Coming To America with my friends. The seats had a musty smell."

Today, he goes there to pray.

In 1992, Faith Community Baptist Church took over the cinema's premises.

"Pews now replace the circle seats upstairs, and carpets replace floors once strewn with peanut shells," he says.

He adds, a touch dramatically: "I used to see the world through the movies here, and now I see the world through God in this new church."

It's a scene taking place all over Singapore. In a competitive movie industry, cinemas come and go. Some, however, have been resurrected with different functions.

Between 1998 to May this year, 26 cinemas were shut down. Totalling 64 screens, these cinemas are mostly in the suburbs.

Some, like Eng Wah Organization's Mandarin theatre at Kallang Bahru and Shaw Organisation's Changi Theatre at New Upper Changi Road, remain vacant.

Most of the others are now occupied by churches and, more recently, pool and arcade halls and football clubs.

The billboards at the old Republic Theatre along Marine Parade Road, for example, do not feature movie posters any more.

Most are blank. But one bears a garish neon sign announcing Balestier United Recreation Club, which opened two weeks ago.

The club has pool tables, jackpot machines and karaoke rooms.

Inside the Republic's fading pink and green walls also reside a pool centre, a LAN gaming centre and a kopitiam.

And in nearby Tanjong Katong Road, the old Hollywood cinema now houses a G'Value super-market outlet. Run by Cold Storage Singapore, it opened three months ago.

Retiree Lim Kim Long, 70, used to watch Chinese swordfighting films with his wife at Hollywood in the 1960s.

Now, he buys groceries from the supermarket there.

"This place is nostalgic. It's sad to see the theatre go," he says.

THE ORIGINAL SUBURBAN MALL

WHEN Singaporeans started moving into new HDB estates in large numbers in the 1970s, cinema operators sensed a market there.

In 1972, Chinese film distributor Eng Wah Organization opened a 934-seat cinema at Toa Payoh Lorong 6.

Executive director Cynthia Goh, 50, says: "We were probably the first to move into the heartlands. Back then, there were a few halls and few forms of entertainment."

"The theatres were so packed that we had to call in the ang chia (riot police) to control the crowds when tickets ran out."

In 1979, Cathay Organisation built the 1,224-seat Broadway Theatre in Ang Mo Kio Avenue 6 for a then princely sum of $3.5 million.

The next year, it opened Bedok Theatre at New Upper Changi Road, which accommodated 1,248 people.

Shaw Organisation also went into the suburbs, building its $1.6 million Changi Theatre at New Upper Changi Road in 1980.

These suburban cinemas thrived until the early to mid-1980s, when videotapes appeared and drew the crowds away from the cinemas.

In the mid-1990s, computer games such as Counter Strike became common, leading to a further drop in cinema attendances.

Video piracy and the 1997 Asian economic crisis dealt another blow to these theatres.

The figures are telling: In 1979, cinema attendances stood at 46.1 million. In 1982, it dropped to 35.8 million. Last year, attendances were a mere 13.5 million.

In 1981, seven theatres closed, including the 2,000-seat Kallang cinema at Stadium Walk, considered then to be the biggest theatre in South-east Asia.

Two years later, another 10 cinemas folded.

Mr Mark Shaw, 33, senior manager of Shaw Organisation, says the rise of new HDB town centres drew the crowds away from the older theatres, which were located in more traditional areas.

"Population centres are shifting," he says. "Tampines, for instance, has become the eastern centre for Singapore, and shopping and entertainment have followed. Changi and Republic theatres, as a result, have become less important movie satellites."

RISE OF SUBURBAN CINEPLEX

THE arrival of Golden Village in 1992 hastened the demise of the old suburban theatres.

A joint venture between Australia's Village Roadshow and Hongkong's Golden Harvest, Golden Village set up the island's first multiplex - Yishun 10 - that year.

It offered a new movie-going experience, with plush seats, quality sound systems and an intimate setting.

It also offered more films compared to the old one or two-screen theatres.

GV went on to set up multiplexes at Bishan, Tiong Bahru, Boon Lay, Tampines, Marina, Plaza Singapura and Great World City.

Not to be left behind, the older boys on the block rushed to build multiplexes in shopping malls at HDB estates.

In 1996, Shaw revamped its old Hoover theatre at Balestier Road into the six-screened Balestier cineplex, and opened it in 1999.

Cathay opened a 10-screen cineplex at Causeway Point in 1999.

Eng Wah opened a six-screen cinema at West Mall in Bukit Batok in 1999. It launched another six screens at Sun Plaza in Sembawang the following year.

Ms Goh says that while the initial outlay for multiplexes might be high because of additional film projectors and sound systems, profits can be about 75 per cent higher than the one to two-screen halls.

Mr Shaw adds: "Let's say you have 50 people turning up for a movie in your 1,000 seater. But if you have instead a six-screened hall with six movies, and 50 people turn up for each movie, you're going to have more people. It's all about economies of scale and making good use of your capacity."

But with attention focused on multiplexes, the traditional one to two-screen theatres were left to languish.


ENTER NON-CINEMATIC OPERATORS

NEW uses, however, were found for these ageing halls.

Small businesses such as Internet cafes, billiard halls and bowling alleys started moving into the premises.

Mr Danny Yeo, 49, executive director of retail for property consultancy Knight Frank, says that their uses are restricted by their layout and low rentals.

Cinema rents can go for about $1.50 to $3 per sq ft, compared to $4 to $6 psf for the upper and more unpopular floors of suburban shopping centres.

"Cinemas have sloping terraces, poor efficiency in terms of space, and most of its useable retail space is found on the upper levels, which are not easily accessible," he says.

"That's why they're quite hard to sell. It's also very costly to tear down and re-convert." he says.

But churches find the cinema interiors ideal for their purposes.

Mr Samuel Wee, 35, corporate communications manager for Faith Community Baptist Church, says: "Disused theatres have large auditoriums with sizeable seating capacities, which we need because of the size of our congregation."

"They also come with ample parking facilities as well as other amenities that church members can benefit from."

He says that his church has a weekly attendance of about 10,000 people.

Movie exhibitors have also been renovating their older suburban halls.

Eng Wah pumped in about $30 million to redevelop its Toa Payoh and Jubilee cinemas into one-stop entertainment and retail centres.

Both theatres, which re-opened in the late 1990s, expanded their number of screens and boast comic bookstores, optician shops and eateries.

It has submitted plans to redevelop another of its theatres, Empress at Clementi.

Although the Republic at Marine Parade has not received any makeover, Shaw rents out its floor space.

The Hoover along Balestier Road was torn down and replaced with the $175 million Shaw Plaza, which has six screens.

Mr Alban Lee, 27, sales manager of pool equipment house Cue Junction, thinks there is life yet in these old premises.

He runs Pool Junction hall at the old Republic cinema, and his 16 pool tables are usually booked throughout the weekends.

"I used to watch films like Robocop with my friends here," he says.

"Back then, the seat springs were not working and there were rats running around. When the screen blanked out, my friends and I would jeer. It was fun."

"Our pool hall is making Republic come alive again."

HALLS OF FAME

Life! looks at some of the cinemas of yesteryear and what they have become now

Hollywood

Where: Tanjong Katong Road

Built: 1959

Last screening: It used to show mostly Chinese movies, and stars from the 1960s such as Josephine Siao made appearances there. It closed down in 1995. That year, City Harvest Church rented the premises from Wee Thiam Siew & Company. The church left in December last year.

Sneak Preview: Supermarket G'Value opened an outlet there three months ago.

Majestic

Where: Eu Tong Sen Street

Built: 1928

Last screening: Built as a Cantonese opera house by businessman Eu Tong Sen for his wife. Cathay Organisation acquired the theatre in 1956. The 1,194-seat theatre played Bruce Lee movies and other Hongkong blockbusters, and closed in 1998.

Sneak preview: Undergoing an $8-million revamp and will re-open at the end of the year. The three-storey shopping complex will have tenants like Lao Beijing restaurant.

Hoover

Where: Balestier Road

Built: Early 1960s

Last screening: In the early 1980s, it was converted into a live theatre featuring Cantonese and Hokkien skits. It then morphed into a cinema showing Indian films but closed in 1996.

Sneak preview: Shaw Organisation has torn it down. In its place is the $175-million Shaw Plaza, which includes the six-screen Balestier multiplex.

Republic

Where: Marine Parade Central

Built: In the early 1970s

Last screening: It was turned into a live entertainment theatre in early 1984 and jostled for customers with rival Hoover and Rex cinemas, which also adopted the live show concept when box-office receipts fell. Stars who performed at Republic included Taiwanese heart-throb of the 1980s, Chin Han. The complex became a three-screen theatre in 1988, but closed a year later.

Sneak preview: It currently houses entertainment venues such as a pool hall, a LAN gaming centre and kopitiam.

Paramount

Where: Serangoon Gardens

Built: Late 1950s

Last screening: It screened sword-fighting films and second-run English movies. Closed in the early 1980s and now houses eateries.

Sneak preview: Currently the epicentre of the Serangoon Gardens Village food and beverage hub.