[463 Clip] Daehan Cinema Closes in September, 66 Years After Opening

   Chungmuro is the birthplace and the center of the Korean film industry. Film producers, actor's offices, distributors, and movie cinemas were all gathered. As the film industry flourished back in the day, the audience came to Chungmuro, and Chungmuro has become a symbolic place for Korean films. Daehan Cinema, which remained in Chungmuro, closes its business on September 30th, 2024, 66 years after opening. Daehan Cinema opened in 1958 as the largest theater in Korea and built a building based on the 20th Century Fox design, becoming a representative movie theater in Chungmuro.

   Daehan Cinema led to the heyday of Korean films in the 1960s along with the era of “Pildong Filming Station” in Chungmuro, with Skara Cinema, National Road Cinema, Myeongbo Cinema, Eulji Cinema, and Central Cinema. People could watch the masterpiece like <Ben-Hur>, <Gone with the Wind>, < Lawrence of Arabia>, <The Sound of Music>, <The Killing Fields> in 70mm original films at the Daehan Cinema back in the 1960s and 1970s. It attempted to reopen in 2002 to compete for multiplexes. However, it eventually ended its business due to continuous deficit resolution due to a paradigm shift in the movie screening business, the efficiency of company-owned assets, and business structure improvement. After closing, Daehan Cinema will operate as a venue for the immersive performance “Sleep No More.”

   Ha Jung-hyun, a professor of film studies at Dongguk University, left the following opinion on the closure of the Daehan Cinema

   “My personal memory of Daehan Cinema, since I was born in the 1980s, is not that special. The memories of the childhood that everyone has experienced, the movie, and the memories of the sudden change felt in the place, cannot be fully ‘mine’ through the mouth of the senior generation or the parents’ generation. However, someone will tell their memories today as part of their condolences over the news of the closing of Daehan Cinema. It will be said even after September 30th, 2024. I can sense the most cinematic moment here. As you can see in the movie, the time of Daehan Cinema, which I did not know well, is added to the atmosphere of the day and accumulated in my current memory. So, I think we should remember the memories of Daehan Cinema, which are passed down in and out of the screen through someone’s mouth, along with the time of the “Korean movie.” Even now, when walking around Chungmuro, people often encounter phrases such as “rent” and “closed shop.” Some places still have black “rent” letters on white paper that we first saw six years ago. A part-timer disappears and a kiosk stands at the place where the story of living was put up. We are standing in that 2024. Daehan Cinema in 2024, including Chungmuro, also faced a change in its interface again. Then we have to talk about what to smell, what to show, what to face, and what to do again.”

   As the professor mentioned, many things are changing with the development of the technology. The industry and art field of film that we knew before will also change in this process. The venue for the immersive performance “Sleep No More” which takes place after the closure of Daehan Cinema is a new attempt for a change. These changes do not mean the downfall of the Korean film industry. We can recognize many Korean films being popular all over the world through platforms such as Over-the-Top (OTT). As the OTT platform increases, cinema and traditional film industry will decline. The closure of the Daehan Cinema is just the starting point. It would be nice to see this as the emergence and development of a new industry, not simply as the fall and decline. It should be met with new expectations rather than vague fears for a brighter future.