I’ve had my eye on the Palace Cinema for a while, I’ll admit. It’s different enough to all of the other modulars I’ve built, that I was very interested to see the sorts of building techniques utilized in converting some elements of Chinese architecture into brick toys. I am also a big fan of Chinese architecture, and love the sweeping eaves and ceramic tile roofs that characterize a lot of buildings. Of course, the Palace Cinema is an Americanized version of Chinese architecture. For more authentic Chinese building styles, I’ll be soon building and reviewing Xingbao’s traditional Chinese theatre, Xinya Palace, and silk market.

As we begin our review of the 15006 Palace Cinema, I’ll compare the packaging: the replica box is quite a bit larger than the major brand original (set 10232), which I also happen to own:

Somehow, the clone version also contains 210 more pieces. I have never been inclined to verify piece counts, to be honest, but almost 10 percent more seems a bit strange. Some of the increased piece count is no doubt accounted for by the state in which the minifigures arrive:

With a hairpiece, a head, a torso, two arms, two hands, a hip piece, and two legs, each minifigure in Cloneland is 10 pieces, so these guys account for 60 pieces total. Perhaps the Danish company counts them as one each? Who knows? At any rate, the minifigures are well built: sturdy, with each bit going together nicely. Printing on faces and torsos was all excellent quality. These guys will blend in very well with their major brand counterparts.

We get a photographer, a couple cinema staff, an actress (apparently a child?), a chauffeur, and some moviegoers.

Taking a couple steps back, the inside of the large box holds two smaller boxes. The bags are numbered individually as in the quantity of bags included in the set, but the bag numbers are not coordinated with the building instructions. There are no stages with grouped, numbered bags here, as in newer sets. So, the parts for any step could come from any of the about 39 or so bags. I recommend using some plastic containers to sort parts for ease of finding throughout the build.

The stickers are taped inside the instruction booklet, and arrived flat and smooth. They are also printed very nicely, with even colour throughout. The stickers are printed on a nice, glossy, thicker sort of paper, and all adhered well to the pieces.

One of the first cool things in this set is the limousine:

The base plate is red, so that internally we can have a red carpet inside the cinema. The pavement outside also includes some paving stones with brick stars on them, our very own Clone-Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Those grabby claws on the corners will eventually hold some very cool doors for the cinema entrance. These are not your average doors. They are brick-built and simulate heavy oak doors in older, fancier buildings.

The staircase is another cool build. All of the modulars include stairs to make them more realistic (unlike more kid-oriented sets which have different levels that your minifigures have to fly to). The staircases are always cleverly designed. This one uses some 2×4 tiles rotated at an angle to each other.

Fun details inside the ground floor include a snack bar (with a popper full of overpriced popcorn, a shelf of candy, and a soda fountain) and ticket windows with two cashier stations. As I have commented in the past, many clone windows are a bit cloudier than their major-branded equivalents. The large ticket windows here fall into that category, though they aren’t bad. As always, one could source TLG-manufactured parts if one needed clearer windows.

Cloneland citizens, including Giraffe the Brick Separator, queue to see “Three Clicks and a Snap”

The movie posters on the large windows are clever and cute. I’ve seen custom-designed versions based on real blockbusters on eBay that will allow your cinema to have different movies on offer from time to time.

“Change? You think you’re getting change from this $100 bill? When’s the last time you visited the cinema snack bar, mister?”

The next floor is where the magic happens: the silver screen, the projector, and the luxurious recliner seats. The seats are brick-built, rather than the usual molded chairs. The large screen has brick-built curtains and fits the part nicely for our mock-1930’s cinema, showing a black-and-white musical flick of some sort.

Everything has been completely solid. The large plates used to build the second floor and the roof are of great quality. No bowing whatsoever, and all of the plates together hold fast.

Once the first two floors are done, we get to build the incredible marquee and sign. The genius is in the use of bricks and plates to create letters, and to do so on both sides of the sign. Using the technic-style bricks with holes for the “p” and “a” is brilliant.

The marquee seems like a great candidate for an LED kit, especially one with chasing LEDs that could go up and down and around the marquee. I may have to investigate if such a light kit exists, or maybe build one from scratch if I get to feeling adventurous.

The final building details, on the roof, add the distinctively Chinese style, with a gong mounted in the middle, and the ceramic round tile roof being built of three rows of red and dark red cylinder bricks, terminated on the bottom with round tiles. The look is perfectly accented by the flying eaves. The colour scheme looks very traditional Chinese.

Lastly, we have two spotlights that are free-standing, and can be placed on the pavement in front of the cinema for added effect. Popping an LED into those should be pretty simple, if one wanted to actually illuminate the facade.

In all, this build went very smoothly. All the parts fitted together perfectly. The minifigures add a lot of play and display value to the set. The design is distinctive and unique among the modular series. Having a corner building will work nicely in my arrangement, as this is my first corner building. I love all the little details that have been included in this set. The use of some white round studs and the red postbox element with a clear door as a popcorn maker is very clever and looks very convincing.

I highly recommend the addition of the Palace Cinema to your Cloneland city. Building Toy Store.com has it for about $68. It’s a fun build, and adds some unique cultural nods to a city layout that may have mostly traditional American architectural features. Our friends at Building Toy Store have offered a $5 off coupon for readers of Alt-Blocks.com. Simply enter the coupon code WY5UGBJZ at checkout to automatically deduct $5 (USD) from your order, in addition to any other coupons offered on their site.

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