From Bedok to the Barbican – why I’ll never stop going to the movies

In the 2003 Taiwanese art-house film Goodbye, Dragon Inn, the elderly actor Shih Chun sits in a dilapidated cinema theatre, watching his younger self on screen. He remarks: “No one goes to the movies any more, and no one remembers us any more.”

Oh, but I do, I do. Going to the movies was a formative part of my childhood. Growing up in Bedok, my family used to take me to the old Princess Theatre to watch Chinese wuxia films like Dragon Inn. It was the one genre that had something for everyone in my family – swordplay for my dad, chivalric ideals for my older sister, and a dash of romance for my mum.

But this ended when the iconic pink building shut its doors in 2008. I was six.

As a teenager, I continued to go to the movies, but now it was mainly with friends instead of family. The Cathay Cineplex at Cineleisure was our favourite haunt. After CCA every week, we would treat ourselves to Eighteen Chefs on the fourth floor and invariably take the escalator up to catch the latest blockbuster at the fifth-floor cinema. 

Then, I moved overseas for university, and going to the movies transformed from an afterthought into the main event, movie theatres from cold, desolate halls into bustling sites for cultural exchange and preservation.

As a student in Cambridge, I enjoyed visits to the Barbican in London, which introduced audiences to lesser-known films, directors, and traditions from across the globe. I joined a community of avid moviegoers who brought these spaces to life with lively chatter and unabashed laughter.

The fact is, the joy of going to the movies has never been and can never be replaced. What is unique about movie-going is, as French philosopher Roland Barthes put it, “what exceeds (the image); the texture of the sound, the hall, the darkness, the obscure mass of the other bodies, the rays of light, entering the theatre, leaving the hall”. 

Scents, sounds and textures

There are, of course, the films themselves. Nothing compares with watching a film for the first time in a movie theatre. Colours feel more vivid or subdued, close-ups feel bigger and wide shots smaller, jump cuts feel choppier and long takes longer. 

When I first saw the 1994 Hong Kong art-house film Chungking Express at indie cinema The Projector, the neon lights, the sound of California Dreamin’ on the radio, the suspension of time as Faye and Cop 663 savour each other’s company by the food store even as the rest of the city rushes by – all these textures and emotions felt close enough to touch, as if I’d stepped into their world and experienced them myself. 

But it is more than that. Going to the movies forces us to attune ourselves not only to the film on the big screen, but also to the scents, sounds and textures of our dark surroundings, the aroma of popcorn or contraband chicken rice wafting from the row behind, my friends’ mortified screams during the horror movies we would watch after school, the plush softness of a GV Gold Class chair at maximum recline.

It is not just seeing but also smelling, hearing, touching, tasting and, above all, feeling beyond the limits of one’s lived reality. All this is lost if we watch a movie at “2x” speed on the train, glancing up periodically to make sure we haven’t missed our stop.

I still remember my awe the first time I entered a theatre at the original Golden Mile Tower venue of The Projector. I took in its greenish interiors and the rows of slightly worn seats, whose scruffiness and creakiness transported me back into the charmingly ramshackle Princess Theatre of my childhood. 

I could almost feel the lingering presence of the countless spectators who had shuffled along those same aisles and fidgeted in those same squeaky chairs since its construction in 1973. In that hall, I felt a sense of connection not only with those “other bodies” beside me in the darkness, enraptured, just as I was, by the images flickering across the screen, but also with all those who had come before us. 

Post-film community

The cinematic experience doesn’t end when the final credits roll. Leaving the theatre, breaking out of that all-engulfing state of sensory activation, is part of what makes going to the movies so special. Our eyes squint at the sudden brightness of the overhead lights, our legs wobble as we stand up and stumble towards the exit, our ears prick up at the snippets of conversation we catch between other moviegoers. And, if we’re with friends or family, we, too, find ourselves involuntarily turning towards them to ask, “So, what do you think?” 

If we happened to be at The Projector, we would continue our conversation on one of the colourful, threadbare sofas outside, a drink from the bar in hand, our voices overlapping with the indie rock tracks playing in the background.

The lively discussions and heated debates I’ve had post-screening – be they about the credibility of Tom Holland’s anguish in Avengers: Infinity War or the cultural significance of Singapore-South Korean co-production Ajoomma – remind me that going to the movies is always a communal experience, a shared joy. 

Even alone, we’re connected to the strangers around us through the range of emotions we experience together, if only for those few hours in that sacred space. When the lights dim, we fall into a reverent silence and surrender ourselves fully to the story unfolding before us.

Going to the movies doesn’t just offer escapist entertainment; it brings us closer to ourselves and the people around us, introduces us to new ways of seeing and being in the world, and opens our minds and our hearts. 

At the end of Goodbye, Dragon Inn, the camera lingers on a sign outside the theatre that promises that it is only “temporarily closed”. 

The historic cineplex at Golden Mile Tower – which housed the Golden Theatre from the 1970s to 1990s before The Projector came along in 2014 – has upheld this promise, and this time, it is no different.

Another independent cinema, Filmhouse, has taken over the venue, with members of The Projector’s core team returning. Old patrons are finding their way back, new visitors taking their seats. A once-dispersed congregation is reunited. 

As this sanctuary comes alive again with the buzz of expectant spectators, so too do our memories of the cinema. Family outings to the Princess Theatre, after-school hangs at the Cathay Cineleisure, post-exam trips to the Arts Picturehouse... The past resurfaces as tangible sensations, in the darkness that envelops me and the scent of sweet popcorn that fills my nose and calls to mind simple childhood pleasures.

As the doors to this beloved movie theatre open once more, I hope we continue going to the movies, remembering our cinematic heritage, and finding joy in this community that comes together in the dark.