Mei Chiu Theatre / 美照戲院. [1924-1935]

Submitted by OldTimer on Wed, 02/22/2017 - 05:59
Current condition
Demolished / No longer exists
Date completed
Date closed / demolished

There is very little available information about Mei Chiu Theatre except that it was located somwhere in Hung Hom in Kowloon, Hong Kong.  Google search does not show any building in Hung Hom by this name.  Please ignore the location marker on this map.

[Edit February 25, 2017: According to Cinema Treasures, it opened at an unknown date before January 25, 1934.  Also, an advertisement published in the Kung Sheung Daily News on March 1, 1935 asked that anyone who wanted to lease the theatre in Hung Hom to contact Mr. Tsang Chun Hing.  It appeared there was no show up so I estimate its last business date (or was it screening date?) to be June 1, 1935, a 90-day window.]

[Edit February 25, 2017: Thanks to the search by reader breskvar (see comments below), another source makes reference to some business records related to this theatre dating in the 1920s which might point to an earlier opening date.  Perhaps both sources contain factual information, perhaps one has a mistype, I cannot be sure. Based on the above discussion, the opening date for the purpose of this page is January 1924, until new information becomes available proving otherwise.] 

While I was living in Kowloon, we had Kung Sheung delivered to our Leve-3 flat.  At one renewal day in about 1960, the delivery-woman discussed the rates with my grandma for various papers.  When asked, she replied "Kung Sheung salm mun" meaning $3 HK,  per month paper and labour.  Some quotes you heard stay with you for life. That was one physically demanding job at low pay.  On one day each month, all the delivery men and women in the neighbourhood gathered at Ki Lung and Boundary Street to settle their business account with the newspapers representative.

Source: Cinema Treasures: http://cinematreasures.org/theaters/32772 

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Hello OldTimer,

A google book search gave this information from a Chinese book published eighteen months or so ago <<香港戲院搜記>> written by  黃夏柏  (http://www.cp1897.com.hk/product_info.php?BookId=9789888366163&cl=english).  The screen capture below is from the appendix on page 197.

page.jpg
page.jpg, by breskvar

The book claims that there is operational information from this place in the 1920s, and the name of the owner is 譚鳳石.  If we believe this author then the opening date should be pushed forward to some time in the 1920s.  

breskvar