SINGAPORE - Rida Video Centre, one of Singapore's last video rental stores, is a bastion of a vanishing age.
"Netflix cannot chat with you, but we can. And we can chat about anything, not just movies," says Madam Khoo, a walking encylopaedia of film titles. She pulls out one card dating back to 1996."It still has a balance, so we can't cancel the membership or recycle the card number. We just keep it." "I don't rent. I'm just a collector," he says, pointing to his stack of films, such as Wonder Woman and Deadpool 2, at the payment counter.
"A lot of his friends were in the video business... Watching movies is a great pastime, if you ask me." Rida Video Centre in Jalan Serene drew many expatriates, but was also popular with locals who lived in the Bukit Timah area. It saw over 100 people a day, who rented titles such as Monty Python and TVB dramas, and carted off VHS cassettes by the dozen.
Fast-forward through the years, and the rise of online streaming has sounded the death knell for giants in home video-retailing: HMV, Laserflair, VideoEzy and TS Video.Madam Khoo has also seen a fair share of challenges this past decade.Another blow came in 2015, when Madam Khoo received word that Serene Centre would be hiking up its rent, which led to Rida moving to its current, much smaller premises.
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