SHENZHEN: Even as movie watching is a popular culture, in this southern Chinese city watching a movie in theater is becoming so expensive that not many people can afford it at all.

Shenzhen has seen the movie ticket price soar by more than 200 percent from 30 yuan in early 2000 to around 60 yuan now.

"The ticket price is really bit too expensive for me," said Liu Ying, electronic engineer from a local IT company, "I would have gone to cinema more frequently if the price was cheaper."

A movie buff, who used to go to cinema at least four to five times a month, Liu now watches movies in theatre four to five times a year only.

"Twenty to 30 yuan would have been a fair price," Liu added.

Song Yu, a technician working for a telecommunication company, told China Daily that he usually goes to cinema "only when the movies to be shown are those big hits". "Otherwise I would watch movies on DVD at home."

Like Liu, Song watches most of the latest movies on DVDs now. "It costs me about 20 yuan only (to buy a latest movie's DVD) but if I go to the cinema, the cost will be three times as much or even more."

"Going to cinema hall is becoming not only a fashionable consumer behavior but also a luxurious behavior now," Wu Tao, an insurance company's sales manager said.

A senior official with the State Administration of Radio Film and Television admitted that the movie ticket's high price was the major reason for many movie goers staying away from the theater.

"In the late 1970s and early 1980s more than 27 billion people watched movies in theater in China but now the number has reduced to around 70 million only," said the official.

"The ticket price has surged from 0.1 yuan in early 1980s to more than 30 yuan now... growth of the ticket price has far outpaced that of people's yearly average salary."

However, Wang Zhongjun, president of the Chinese mainland's largest private filmmaker Huayi Brothers said filmmakers had to "rely on the box office revenue" to keep a film profitable.

"In overseas countries around 30 percent of a film's total profit is brought by the box office while the remaining is generated from the film's copy rights sold to media," Wang explained. "But in China the profit from selling a film's copy rights to media such as a TV station accounts for just 10 percent of the total or even below."

"It forces filmmakers to use box office as a major source to pump in revenue... it partially explains why the ticket price in the country has kept at a high level in recent years."

Though the total number of movie goers is declining, Shenzhen saw its total box office revenue leap by 43 percent year-on-year to 100 million yuan in 2006.

"In the next one to two years, total number of the city's five-star movie theaters are expected to increase from 6 to over 10," said Liu Qian, general manager of Shenzhen's renowned five-star movie theater New South China. "We expect Shenzhen's total box office revenue to reach 150 million yuan in 2007."

"Huge number of visitors especially from Hong Kong helped boost Shenzhen's box office," Liu added.

In Hong Kong, Shenzhen's neighboring city to the south, people pay around HK$60 to HK$70 to watch a movie in theater.