Film fans elated as cinemas reopen after virus closure
Print Edition
TICKETS sold like hotcakes and audiences burst into cheers as cinemas in most parts of the Chinese mainland reopened yesterday, ending a months-long closure amid the COVID-19 epidemic.
The China Film Administration, in a circular last week, allowed cinemas in low-risk areas to resume operation with effective epidemic prevention measures in place.
Online ticketing websites show that more than 300 cinemas in over 120 cities, including Shanghai, Chengdu and Hangzhou, have reopened, with screenings of both new and classic movies.
“A First Farewell,” an award-winning movie revolving around two children in Xinjiang, and the documentary “Bright Torch” were released on the first day of the reopening.
Movies, including the animated fantasy “Ne Zha,” the comedy fantasy “The Mermaid,” action flick “Wolf Warriors 2” and crime film “Sheep Without A Shepherd,” are also on the screening list.
Cinemas in Shanghai reopened with strict measures to guarantee the health of moviegoers.
Officials from Shanghai Film Group said that 33 of its theaters have reopened, of which 21 are located in Shanghai.
Each cinema has special teams for COVID-19 prevention. Theater facilities are being thoroughly disinfected, too.
The group has asked the cinemas to reduce daily screenings to half of normal levels. Intervals between screenings have been prolonged for intensified sanitation and cleaning. Cinema staff are required to undergo special training for the reopening.
The first batch of the group’s reopened theaters will offer free or discounted screenings to medical staff this year.
A guideline issued by the Chinese Film Circulation and Projection Association asked cinemas to limit their attendance per show to 30 percent capacity and sell non-adjacent tickets in every other row.
Moviegoers must make real-name reservations, wear masks and those who do not know each other should keep a distance of at least 1 meter, the guideline read.
But none of that prevented 25-year-old movie fan Lu Yonghao taking a day off from his human resources job at a Shanghai company.
“I’m very excited. I haven’t watched (a movie) in more than half a year, so I just decided to take today off and come experience it,” he said before taking his seat in a largely empty theater.
“I need to watch at least one movie a week to ease the pressures of life.”
Before opening, the cinema — an outlet of the SFC chain, one of China’s largest movie-theater franchises — underwent a thorough cleaning, with staff painstakingly wiping down seats and 3D glasses with disinfectant-soaked cloths.
The cinema’s manager Bao Yaopei said viewers had been regularly calling the front desk, asking when it might reopen. “Audiences have really been looking forward to this ... to be able to enter cinemas, sit together with others and feel the happiness that movies bring.”
The Shanghai Film Art Center has opened three of its nine screening halls. More than 200 tickets for nine films were sold yesterday.
“It’s beyond our expectations,” said Gu Yan, general manager of the center. “We believe that with the efforts of many, cinemas and the film industry will soon recover.”
Movie fans also voiced support for the reopening of cinemas.
Kitty Wu, a local movie buff, attended the afternoon screening of “A First Farewell” at the Shanghai Film Art Center.
“I love movies and I don’t miss any new release,” she said. “It has been a long time since I watched a film in the cinema. I am so excited and also grateful.”
Audiences in a local cinema cheered when the dragon-shaped screening license appeared on the screen, which marks the start of a movie in China.
The eastern metropolis also saw more than 100,000 tickets sold in 10 minutes yesterday morning for movies to be screened during the Shanghai International Film Festival, which will kick off on Saturday.
Since the occupancy rate for each film screening will not exceed 30 percent of theater capacity, tickets for many screenings were sold out within minutes.
The films will be staged at 29 cinemas during the festival. Many netizens shared the difficulty of snapping up tickets on WeChat Moments and social media.
Popular screenings
One expressed his frustration of failing to buy tickets for the Japanese animated films “Promare” and “Paprika,” although he stayed up from midnight to 8am. Tickets for such popular screenings were sold out within seconds.
In half an hour, scalpers were charging 1,200 yuan (US$170) for two tickets of “Paprika” on a secondhand goods trading website. The original cost was 120 yuan for two.
In Beijing, which lowered its COVID-19 emergency response from level II to III yesterday, cinemas were still in the process of reopening. Cinemas in some southern Chinese cities also said preparations had not finished after a really wet rainy season, as the prolonged closure had left their seats moldy.
China’s largest cinema owner Wanda Film, which manages over 600 theaters nationwide, said it opened 43 theaters yesterday, 10 of them in Shanghai.
As of mid-afternoon yesterday, 3.03 million yuan worth of tickets had been sold on the day, according to Chinese ticket sales platform Maoyan Entertainment.
China is the world’s second-largest movie market, but the film industry has been dealt a hefty blow by the COVID-19 epidemic after cinemas nationwide were closed from late January to slow down the virus spread.
China’s film box office revenue was 64 billion yuan in 2019. The National Film Administration forecast in April that the industry would lose more than 30 billion yuan in ticket revenue this year.
Industry recovery will be slow due to lingering COVID-19 concerns and restrictions placed on movie houses, said Chinese producer and screenwriter Fang Li, who has three productions stuck in the pipeline due to the virus.
“Even if commercial films are released after cinemas reopen, they will suffer more than 50 percent losses compared with before the epidemic,” Fang said, predicting it could take a decade for the industry to fully recover.
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