Story in Taipei | 喜滿客夢時代影城, Dream Mall — The Best Seat in Town

The lettering curved around the wall above the box office on the eighth floor: THE BEST SEAT IN TOWN, repeated in yellow bands over the CINEMARK logo. This was the southern third of the release. When 《台北物語》 (Story in Taipei) opened on 19 May 2017, it played at two 喜滿客 sites in Taipei and at this one in Kaohsiung. That was the entire distribution — three screens, one week booked. 喜滿客夢時代影城 had opened in 2007 on the upper retail floor of 統一夢時代購物中心, the second Taiwanese site of the Cinemark venture with 威京總部集團. What turned the film into an event was not what came off the projector. Audiences laughed at the dialogue together, applauded when the lights came up, and went out and told other people to buy tickets. The room was the show. That is a specific claim about this kind of space, and it is the reason a badly made picture could outdraw its own reviews. A cult film needs a crowd in one place at one time. Streaming cannot manufacture it. The cinema closed on 30 April 2022 after fifteen years, the operator saying it had not reached terms with the mall. The mall is still here and still crowded. Ride up to the eighth floor and the screens are gone. The slogan promised the best seat in town; for a few weeks in 2017, the seat mattered more than anything shown from it. Cover photo: the 喜滿客夢時代影城 box office, November 2012, by Lumery, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.