Kokueikan Theater

Opened by Nakayama Kokichi on September 1, 1950, the Sekaikan Theater (or the World Gallery Theater in English) was the second ever post-war movie theater to open in Okinawa and was the first in the prefecture to have a concrete roof. The theater first opened with a joint play by Sho Gekidan, Daishinza, and Kotobukiza, called Sugata Sanshiro. The first movie screened at the Kokichi however didn’t occur until 18 days later on September 19, 1950.

In 1954, Kokuba-gumi acquired the management rights to Sekaikan, which led into major renovations. On September 1, 1955, five years after the original Sekaikan opened, it was renamed the Kokueikan Theatre and reopened its doors by the Kokuei Kogyo chain, featuring a dome-shaped roof and curved exterior reminiscent resembling Tokyo’s Hibiya Cinema, and became a beloved landmark in the area.

During the earlier days, the Kokueikan was notable for the retirement of the third High Commissioner of the Ryukyu Islands, Paul W. Callaway, and had a special celebration being held at the Kokueikan on June 26, 1964.

Ever since the United States made the deal to return control of the Ryukyu Islands and the Daitō Islands to Japan in 1971, a lot of first-run smashes were played at the Kokueikan such as “Jaws”, “Star Wars”, and “ET”. However, in the midst of the ET boom on Christmas Day 1982, the management received a fantastic idea by adding a second 120-seat small theater on the first basement floor called “Cinema Oscar”. Two years and seven months later on July 13, 1985, the second floor of the Kokueikan was renovated to add a third screen called the Kokuei Academy, and eventually became a triple-screen theater.

On January 16, 1990, the nearby Okinawa Toho Theater located inside the Okinawa Mitsukoshi department store closed, and the Kokueikan and Kokuei Academy began screening Toho films that same day directly from the Nichigeki Toho and Nichigeki 2 series. On September 1 of the same year, Orion Kogyo, which operated Grand Orion and other theaters in the area, merged with Kokuei Kogyo to become the Kokubagumi Film Business Headquarters. A full-page advertisement in the Ryukyu Shimpo newspaper on the day of the launch featured a speech by Kokubagumi’s then-president, Yukinori Kokuba, along with visuals of films being released that month through the end of the year including “Rocky V” and “Total Recall”.

Since the opening of Warner Mycal Cinemas Ebina on April 24, 1993, multiplexes have proliferated across Japan and the downtown theaters are on high alert. Four years later, on July 12, 1997, Kuniba-gumi opened the prefecture’s first multiplex known as the Mihama 7Plex in Chatan Town. Since then, the Kokueikan had screened a mix of aforementioned Toho films and first-run American films. But unfortunately, the nine-screen Cinema Q played a major factor when it opened on October 1, 2002 in the San-A Naha Main Place shopping complex in Omoromachi. Unfortunately this led to the closure of the Kokueikan and its two other auditoriums for the final time on September 20, 2002, running a special showing of “Titanic” as its last film on the main auditorium, which had already played at the Kokueikan in its original run in early-1998.

On May 11, 2006, three years and eight months after the closure, Lisa Partners announced that it would team up with Kokuba-gumi to begin a redevelopment project on the site. In collaboration with the architectural magazine “Shinkenchiku”, a competition for redevelopment plans was held, titled the “Public Proposal Competition - KOKUEIKAN PROJECT.” After a public hearing and review on December 3 of the same year, a designer was selected from a total of 341 applicants. Tenant recruitment began with the aim of completion by the end of 2010 but however due to a combination of circumstances, such as the Lehman Shock that occurred during the recruitment process and the transfer of Kokuba-gumi’s movie theater business, which continued even after the transition to the Cinema Q to its affiliated company, Terrace Hotels, the plan with Lisa Partners did not come to fruition.

The Kokueikan building was demolished later in 2006 to make way for a parking lot. However in June 2014, it was reported that Chia Shin Cement, a major Taiwanese cement company, had acquired the former Kokueikan site and adjacent land for 2.185 billion yen. Construction began on November 1, 2017, and on January 6, 2020, a 13-story city hotel called “Hotel Collective” opened at the site of the former theater, operated by Chia Shin Ryukyu Collective, a subsidiary of Chia Shin Cement.

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