Huangpu Theater In Shanghai, China Editorial Image

Originally built in 1933 by a family of shipping magnates and opened to the public in 1934, this place used to be a popular modern film theater. Back then it was called the Jincheng Grand Theater. It`s credited as being the first place the Chinese national anthem, March of the Volunteers, was played to an audience, as part of the film `Fengyun Ernu” Children of Troubled Times, back in 1935. It underwent some renovation in the 50`s before becoming the home theater of the Shanghai Huaiju Opera Troupe in 1957, and being renamed the Huangpu Theater by Zhou Enlai, who wrote the new name with his own brush. It had a rough couple of decades after that, turning back into a cinema in the 1970s, languishing again in the 1980s, and getting partially turned into a hardware department store in the 1990s, with only the the second floor for small film screenings and performances. Finally, after a period of renovation in 2016, it was reopened as the Huangpu Theater, with two theater spaces with between about 350 and 500 seats.