The first of a new chain of community cinemas offering movies for as little as five yuan (0.62 U.S. dollars) per show opened Friday in south China's Shenzhen city.

Yatu Digital Cinema Chains opened its venue in Futian District on Friday, the first of what it hopes will be a chain of 500 across the Pearl River Delta.

"We sell 30-yuan membership cards for three months and 90-yuan cards for a whole year. Members can enjoy movies for between five and 10 yuan per show, depending on the schedule and movies they choose," said Xu Jinqiang, publicity official of Acto China, the company behind the chain.

Non-members will pay 20 yuan per movie on weekend nights, still much cheaper than the average 80 yuan charged by upmarket cinemas in downtown Shenzhen.

The community cinema, with 102 seats, occupies about 300 square meters in the Meilinyicun housing estate.

"To open such a cinema costs half a million yuan, much cheaper than upmarket cinemas downtown. We will launch a website, www.yatu.com.cn within a month to offer movie schedules," Xu said yesterday.

The official attributed the low prices to the digital projection equipment it has developed. "Compared with imported equipment which costs more than 2 million yuan, our equipment costs just one-10th of that figure," he said.

"We are strategic partners with Time Antaeus, China's leading digital cinema equipment provider."

Time Antaeus will launch China's first digital cinema server using the international standards in June, which will reduce movie ticket prices and increase the export of Chinese films globally, the China Daily reported.

Xu also said his company ensured it obtained legal copies of movies through the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television.

The company is planning to open six more such cinemas in the city's communities in the near future and have around 200 in two years' time. It also has an ambitious goal of opening 500 cinemas across the Pearl River Delta.

However, Wang Lei, vice general manager of Golden Harvest, one of the top cinema chains in the city, said he did not consider Yatu a competitor.

"We target different customers. We show new movies at the earliest opportunity, simultaneously with cinemas around the world, say, in the case of 'Da Vinci Code'. We offer the most comfortable seats, high-resolution images and hi-fi sound effects. Apart from that, we are located in a big mall in downtown, where young people shop, dine out and enjoy other forms of recreation." he said.

Editor: Donald