The Golden Harvest Theatre stands shuttered on
Smith Street in Chinatown.
Photo by Craig T. Kojima, Star-Bulletin

The Golden Harvest movie theaters closed quietly last fall in Chinatown, a victim of poor attendance and changing viewer habits.

The corporate owner of the complex - two 250-seat theaters totaling about 6,000 square feet - is asking $1.68 million for the Smith Street property.

"We're selling it fully equipped," including projection equipment and popcorn machines, said Joe Haas, a senior associate with CB Commercial, which is handling the sale. "What you see is what you get."

Although there are several potential buyers, "we're not near closing" a deal, Haas said. However, "a theater operator makes sense."

In fact, the Hawaii International Film Festival "explored the possibility" of acquiring the theaters, said director Christian Gaines. Although "the idea is not dead yet," budget problems preclude any kind of action for now, he said. However, Gaines said he hoped there was some way of saving the theaters as an "alternative venue" to commercial, first-run films.

"There are a paucity of independent theaters in Honolulu," he noted, listing the Honolulu Academy of Arts theater, the Movie Museum and the University of Hawaii-Manoa as being among the handful of alternative film venues in town. "The theaters are in great shape," Gaines said of the Golden Harvest.

Attorney Galen Leong, representing owner Golden Harvest Hawaii Ltd., said the theaters have been closed at least since Dec. 1, 1995, but he wasn't sure when the last movies were shown. The theaters were operated by a lessee, Golden Reserves Hawaii Ltd.

"I was told there was not enough business to justify running" the theaters, Leong said, in explaining the curtain call.

Besides the film festival organization, interested buyers are said to have included church groups.

In January, 1995, a Star-Bulletin article described how the Golden Harvest, built in 1980, was the last of the ethnic theaters in the state, catering primarily to a Chinese-speaking audience. Although the theaters thrived in the beginning, the manager said then that they had been losing money the last two years.