Last reel for capital's oldest cinema

A bigger replacement theatre will be built in a shopping plaza

Beijing's oldest cinema will be demolished on Friday and rebuilt on a larger site across the street.

The Capital cinema, which opened in 1937 and has hosted 73 million people, will disappear from its site in Changan Avenue, where it has six screens and an audience capacity of 640.

The new cinema, which will feature 10 screens and twice the seating capacity, will open in about four years in a shopping plaza at the Xidan subway station.

About 150 people, mostly regular movie-goers, attended a farewell ceremony yesterday that featured firecrackers. They lingered at the cinema to take photographs.

'We'll miss it,' said Zhang Shuhua, who has brought her family to the cinema for 26 years, mostly to see war films and foreign movies. 'We would like to see some of the old atmosphere in the new cinema.'

She and her husband, Liu Ningzhang, posted poetic 'we'll miss you' notices outside the cinema before the farewell ceremony.