Royal Theater

In a sleepy shopping arcade in Gifu City, stuck in the past, a retro moviehouse stands out with its nostalgic fare. Opened in December 1977 as the city’s brand-new cinema, the Royal Theatre has stood the test of time while the rest of the world grows increasingly digital.

About as retro as can be, the Royal is a world apart from the typical, often sterile multiplexes, maintaining comfortable character once common among Japanese cinemas. Its entrance is vividly adorned with handmade standees of stars of the past, such as Toshiro Mifune, Setsuko Hara, Kiyoshi Atsumi, and Audrey Hepburn.

With its retro theming and lineup, it may seem a little out-of-character of it to address Hollywood cinema, but the Royal was not always such a nostalgic revival house. In fact, when it opened in 1977, the first film it screened was The Spy Who Loved Me, the then-latest hit.

The moviehouse’s history also goes back even further, having its roots in a theater that opened in the area in 1926. It fully became a cinema three decades later and had a total of 700 seats during its heyday. It was only recently, in 2009, that it started doing re-releases of Shōwa-era hits, to set itself apart from modern cinemas.

The Royal Theatre now enjoys its daily screenings of past classics using 35mm film reels, sparsely attended, but a golden palace of memories to those who remember the time.