No place like Joe's for the homesick

BUY a packet of dried cuttlefish, turn off the mobile phone and settle down for the latest double-feature action on the widest screen in town, thanks to Hongkong film-maker and distributor, Joe Siu.

But this isn't Hongkong - this is downtown Melbourne, where every week more than 5,000 people, 90 per cent of them Chinese, are flocking to the city's new Chinatown Cinema complex.

The complex, which opened on March 31, is the latest and largest venture of Joe Siu International Films Ltd's wholly-owned Australian subsidiary, Chinatown Cinemas Pty Ltd.

After 25 years of screening Hongkong films in Australia and New Zealand, and with cinemas in Sydney, Brisbane, Canberra, Adelaide, Perth, Auckland and Wellington, Mr Siu paid A$5.5 million (HK$30.5 million) earlier this year to move from the one-screen, rather scruffy cinema on the edge of town he opened 12 years ago, to this new complex in central city Bourke Street.

He has paid another A$1 million to fit out its three cinemas, which were stripped bare by the previous owners, local distributors Hoyts.

Cinema 1, presently screening the hit All's Well, Ends Well Too, which showed in Hongkong in early March, plus Pantyhose Hero, seats 600, has surround sound and the largest movie screen in Melbourne - perhaps Australia.

Cinema 2, showing First Shot, also a March release, plus Once A Thief, seats 350. There will also be a 120-seat art-house cinema, screening non-commercial films and some from China, opening within two months.