\Middle school teacher Yuan Yan missed the old cinema in her town, where she saw the first film in her life. The cinema was closed in the mid 1990s and turned into a market.

 

"As there is no cinema in town, I have to travel 60 kilometers to Ganzhou city to watch a movie," said Yuan in her twenties from Xinfeng, a small county with a population of 180,000, in eastern Jiangxi Province .

 

"A bunch of good movies are to screened during the New Year and Spring Festival. It is really inconvenient to travel to and fro," she said.

 

China's film industry suffered serious setback in the 1990s when TV began to enter ordinary households and entertain the public. Cinemas in many small cities and towns like Xinfeng were shut down due to dwindling audience.

 

In Dangyang, a town of 140,000 population in central Hubei Province, the dilapidated old township cinema was covered with dust and had been neglected over the past decade.

 

However, in late December last year, a brand new cinema opened in Danyang with three halls to hold 800 people in total.

 

Huang Bin, a government official in Danyang, watched the much talked about film of director Zhang Yimou, "A Simple Noodle Story," with his girlfriend on the cinema's inauguration day.

 

"I am very glad that cinema is back to town. I no longer need to spend more than 50 yuan (7.25 U.S. dollars) on traveling to Yichang (where the nearest cinema is) just for a film," he said.

 

Chen Dunliang, general manager of Hubei film distribution company, a provincial distributor, said the cinema in Danyang was the first at the county level in the company's theater chain.

 

The company has moved into four medium cities in Hubei and is testing the water in small cities and towns. It planned to open five to six cinemas in county seats by 2015, he said.

 

"The cinema (in Danyang) may suffer loss in the beginning but I am confident of the market potential here," Chen said.

 

His confidence may arise from impressive box office increase nationwide. The country's box office reached 4.3 billion yuan (623 million dollars) in 2008, compared with 800 million yuan in 2002.

 

The figure is expected to reach 6 billion yuan (870 million dollars) in 2009, said Wang Taihua, director of the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television, in an Dec. 18 interview.

 

The number of screens nationwide increased from 1,834 in 2002 to 4,097 in 2008, according to a report by a research team headed by Prof. Yin Hong, deputy dean of School of Journalism and Communication, Tsinghua University.

 

The number is estimated at 4,800 in 2009.

 

As room for more screens in big cities became limited, small cities and even county-level towns were seen as the next engine, Yin said. "Such a trend has been seen in the consumer market as people's income has increased in cities of different sizes and rural areas."

 

"People are able and willing to spend more money on entertainment," he said.

 

China's gross domestic product (GDP) per capita was likely to hit 3,500 US dollars in 2009, according to a research report by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

 

The figure was 3,313 US dollars in 2008, a remarkable increase from 1,000 dollars in 2003.

 

The industry itself underwent deep changes.

 

Pi Suchu, a moviegoer for 18 years, said he has much more choices now.

 

"When I was in college in the early 1990s, we had an open air cinema screening films once a week. Most films were about China's revolutionary past," he said. "Now we have drama, comedy, thriller, cartoons of various topics. Every one could find his favorite."

 

Prof. Zhang Yiwu, with Peking University and also a film critic, considered cinema part of a lifestyle that has been embraced gradually by urban Chinese.

 

"Like galleries, theaters, cafes and pubs, cinemas grew to be a place for people to socialize, date or hang out with friends. Home is no longer the center of social life for younger generation," he said.

 

In Xinfeng, Yuan often hung out with friends at cafes, karaoke bars or restaurants. Recently a culture center was added to her list as it sometimes put on films.

 

"I'm looking forward to the comeback of a real cinema," she said.