bodyType

customContents

entityId

entityUuid

articlePageQuery

filter

article

articleBaseAdvertisingInfoArticle

articleListArticle

articleSeoArticle

helpersCheckIsPostiesArticle

hooksArticleAcknowledgementGateOverlayArticle

hooksTrackPageViewArticle

hooksContentInterestArticle

articleLinkingDataContent

hooksAmpRedirectArticle

articleSchemaContent

liveArticle

advertZone

sentiment

contentLock

topics

types

sections

moreOnThisArticles

urlAlias

commentCount

authorLocations

authors

paywallTypes

corrections

sponsorType

displaySlideShow

multimediaEmbed

printHeadline

seriesContainer

socialHeadline

headline

flag

firstTopic

glossary

flattenTypeIds

publishedDate

additionalInfoBoxes

images

image

relatedLinks

relatedNewsletters

__typename

createdDate

sponsor

pdfFiles

seriesReverseOrder

series

disableOffPlatformContent

published

updatedDate

summary

subHeadline

body

keywords

readingTime

customTimezone

liveContents

Jake Van Der Kamp

With high rents forcing many cinema operators out of business, they are calling for the addition of a provision to commercial land-use zoning regulations to guarantee a cinema in all districts.
SCMP, January 20  
 I regret the loss of cinemas, too. It seems nothing can withstand this tsunami of 'Guccicide' and 'Versacefication' now overwhelming our town centres.
First pushed aside by property agencies and now by Italian-themed rip-offs  preying on mainland tourists, what has happened to a night at the movies?
It can't be blamed solely on landlords. The consumer price index shows ticket prices for cinemas declining over the last two years, even while the overall level of prices has risen. The audience is  sadly not showing up in  droves.  
Cinemas were also given a break from rent pressures a few years ago when fire regulations were relaxed to allow them to share fire exits with other building  tenants, allowing them to move from the ground level to  cheaper higher floors.
But something else has happened to a night at the movies - and it's illustrated  by my favourite cinema in my district, Repulse Bay.
This cinema has a wide screen just the right distance from a seat I can always reserve.  The screen has the best and latest high-definition  technology and the seat is sofa-sized, with  virtually unlimited leg room. There is top quality bar and food service, including any alcoholic beverage,  and I can conveniently  choose my own screening times.
This cinema is my home.
 I have an ever wider selection of films I can watch - far more than those showing in  commercial cinemas at any given time. 
'Ticket prices' for my home theatre have declined steadily.  I still buy or rent  DVDs, but my old-fashioned practices are increasingly scorned when Hollywood offerings can be downloaded for free from the internet even before they are released in cinemas here.
It's illegal, yes, but so widespread a practice as to make a mockery of the law. Given the  recent defeats of copyright holders in America, this will not change. Best change the law instead.
We forget sometimes that cinemas are a comparatively recent innovation. They came into existence little more than  100 years ago, reached the peak of their patronage perhaps 60 years ago, and have since been in relative decline under the pressure of television, advances in recording media, and now the internet. It is entirely conceivable that they will go the way of the music halls that preceded them.
But synchronised audio and video as a form of both communication and entertainment won't go away; it will evolve. Already, the cinema's latest counter-move, 3-D, is being stalled by 3-D television sets.
I don't know any more than you do where all this will take us, although I will regret it if it leads only to  the inside of one's home,  making the social aspect of movie-going disappear. There is magic  in shared laughter and popcorn, and being part of the crowd.  
If others don't value it as much, however, this side of watching a movie could vanish and nothing I can do will stop it. Standing in the way of these elemental changes is like defying a tsunami: you just get washed over and rolled way.
My point here is that the same fate awaits the Hong Kong Film Development Council  or the Hong Kong Theatres Association  if they try to tell the future what the future must be. Putting a cinema in every district is not to accommodate the evolution of the industry, but to freeze it in its past.
The inevitable result will be a waste of public  resources as cinema sites are sold for less than what they might fetch under more open leases. There will also be an even greater squeeze on remaining shop space,  leading to higher rents and more shops 'Vuittonised'.  
 If the future of film and cinemas will be vastly different from the present, then so be it. Let's just stay  quick on our feet and adapt.  
 We've done this before by abandoning a huge stock of industrial space when manufacturing moved across the border. We didn't try telling the garment industry it had to stay. We made the change and our reward was a booming services sector.
Preserving cinemas will bring us a cultural desert, not a cultural flowering.




Hold the heroics in saving HK's silver screens