Dingjun Mountain, an excerpt of Peking opera believed to be the first Chinese film, was screened at this historical cinema back in 1905. Remarkably, you can still catch a film on the same spot, although the cinema itself was largely rebuilt in 1987 and again in 2005. The Old Cinema Cafe on the ground floor has a free exhibition on Daguanlou's history.
Shanghai might have been where the movies first arrived in China – courtesy of a Spanish showman who set up a projector in a teahouse in 1896 – but Dashilar was the site of China's first proper movie theatre.
Daguanlou was opened by Ren Qingtai, a pioneer photographer before he discovered moving pictures. Ren, whose statue stands by the entrance, would go on to direct China's first film, and to found the country's first movie studio in southwest Beijing's Fengtai district. Appropriately, given the significant role he played in China's cinematic history, he was the inspiration for the 2000 Chinese film Shadow Magic, which chronicles the early days of cinema in the capital.
In the 1960s, Daguanlou became the first widescreen cinema in Beijing as well as the first to show 3D movies. Its projectors were built in the northern province of Heilongjiang and its sound equipment was made at 718 Factory – now the 798 Art District.