Veteran artist recalls time when people fought for cheap tickets at old KL cinema

'We couldn’t afford the first class tickets (at Rex cinema), so we had to always fight and squeeze our way through the crowd for these cheaper ones, ' says Long. Photos: The Star/Azman Ghani

When Long Thien Shih was a teenager, a bystander once shrieked dramatically that he was going to die when she saw him flailing in a sea of bodies in the mad rush that always happened whenever movie tickets went on sale at the old Rex cinema in Kuala Lumpur.

“I was maybe 12 or 13 years old. Fortunately I escaped with just a bloody nose and could still watch the movie with my brothers and our cousin, ” remembers Long, with a chuckle.