Asian Movie Theater Will Open in Garden Grove : Refurbishment: The facility, which replaces the 800-seat Edwards Westbrook, will offer Vietnamese, Chinese and French films.

Orange County’s Asian community gets a new movie theater Saturday, as the Thu Do (Capital) Cinema opens in Garden Grove, taking over the 800-seat Edwards Westbrook Theater near the corner of Westminster Avenue and Brookhurst Street.

The theater will offer Vietnamese, Chinese and French films, according to Bob Lee, a spokesman for the Vietnamese partners who will operate the theater, bakery owner Van Hong of Westminster and Monterey Park businessman Steven Tran.

Hong, who was supervising workers at the theater earlier this week, said she hoped the refurbishing will be completed in time for the opening. So far, new carpet is being laid at the theater and the concession counter is being refaced. Old posters, for previous features “Misery” and “Home Alone,” were still in display cases.

The opening bill has yet to be set, Hong said, but a French film will play on one side and a Chinese film on the other. The Chinese films, from Taiwan and Hong Kong, will be subtitled in English. Hong said that eventually she wants all of the films to be subtitled in Vietnamese as well.

Hugh Randolph, property manager for the Newport Beach-based Edwards chain, said the two-screen Westbrook had not been profitable for some time.

“A small theater in an Oriental neighborhood--American films just didn’t do too well,” he said.

Randolph said the foreign-language films should do well in the area, which is not far from Little Saigon.

“There’s a need for those types of films,” he said, “but we didn’t have the expertise in obtaining them.”

The arrangement is a long-term sublease, Randolph said, “for as long as they make money. . . . We’d like them to stay there a long time.”