The first theater of a new chain* of community* theaters offering movies for as little as five yuan (US$0.62) per show opened on Friday.

Yatu Digital Cinema Chain opened its theater in Futian District on Friday, the first of what it hopes will be a chain of 500 theaters 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, with Acto China, the company which owns the chain.

Non-members will have to pay 20 yuan per movie on weekend nights, which is still much cheaper than the 80 yuan charged on average by upmarket* theaters in downtown Shenzhen.

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

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

The company has pledged to offer free movies to families on government welfare.

He attributed* the low prices to the digital projection* equipment developed by the company. “Compared with imported equipment which costs more than 2 million yuan, our equipment costs just one tenth of that figure,” he said.

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

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 our customers the most comfortable seats, high-resolution images and hi-fi sound effects,” he said.