Hong Kong Holiday - Gloria Romero (1957) - The Zoological and Botanical Gardens

After spotting her dad's two servants at the Peak and running away, the date abruptly ends when Ana takes a dive into a dirty pond to avoid them (the film here is quite funny because the jump into the water was a poorly inserted edit of the actress jumping into a nice pristine swimming pool replete with lane markings). After convalescing back at Ric's house for a while, the pair go out on another date to the local gardens.

Hong Kong Holiday - Gloria Romero (1957) - The Peak Cafe

After their little walk around Lugard Road, the pair head to the Peak Cafe.

Hong Kong Holiday - Gloria Romero (1957) - Lugard Road, The Peak

The pair go for a wander around Lugard Road. Anyone who has walked around here will recognise the general scenery, but the one bit I can definitively pinpoint is the switchback seen in the top image which show the path from Lugard Road up to Mount Austin Road next to #25 Lugard Road. 

Hong Kong Holiday - Gloria Romero (1957) - The Peak Tram

The pair head into the lower Peak Tram Terminus and ride the tram up the mountain. Disembarking at the top. We get to see both older versions of the two terminus stations at either ends of the line.

Hong Kong Holiday - Gloria Romero (1957) - Garden Road, Central

Ric takes Ana out on a date and first they make their way up Garden Road towards the lower Peak Tram Terminus. In the background of the first image you can see the St John's Cathedral Lodge building behind their heads and on the left background is the East Wing building of the former Government offices. Both buildings, perhaps rather surprisingly, are still around today.

Hong Kong Holiday - Gloria Romero (1957) - Dragon Inn, Tuen Mun

Formerly famous venue, Dragon Inn, (the name is still around but it's not the original venue) can be seen a couple of times in the film. First the front garden is used to portray Ric's opulant mansion. We see the group pull up in Ric's car and park before making their way up his front steps to his main door (first two images). Later on in the film, as Ana is running away from her father's two male servants, she runs along the front of the building and it is quite clearly the Dragon Inn once again.

Hong Kong Holiday - Gloria Romero (1957) - The Tai Pak

Robert (Ric Rodrigo) turns up with his rather obnoxious girlfriend and wants a lift over to the floating restaurants on the family's sampan. They go for lunch on the old Tai Pak.

Hong Kong Holiday - Gloria Romero (1957) - Aberdeen Harbour

Despite editing to create the impression that the family's boat is moored at the end of the street in Staunton's Creek, when we seee the environment around the boat, it is obvious that we are much further west along the waterfront. My guess is this was filmed further west, opposite the entrance to Old Main Street. Older maps show there were steps/a ramp here running down the waterfront. In the lower image we get the view east and can quite clearly see that the Aberdeen Seminary promontory that was so close to the last location, is actually in the far background now.

In the background the (old)  Tai Pak is on the left

Hong Kong Holiday - Gloria Romero (1957) - Staunton's Creek, Aberdeen

Ana runs away and ends up falling asleep on a sampan at the end of Staunton's Creek. The boat owner is a rickshaw puller played by famed Filipino comedian, Dolphy. The initial shots shows him pulling the rickshaw down a small side street as his trousers fall down. This street is no longer around but was located on the west side of the Aberdeen Govt Primary School campus. The same street features later when Ana's future love interest, played by Ric Rodrigo, pulls up in his car. It appears, judging by the surroundings, that this street and the sampan scenes were filmed in slightly different locations. The street was located where the Aberdeen Tennis and Squash Centre now stands.

In the background is a white building that, according to a 1965 topographical map (see hkmaps.hk) was a "Fish Gravy, Preserved Fruits Canning Factory". The Jing Hui Garden residential development now stands on that site.

The last image below shows what I believe is the end of the small road with the promontory containing the Aberdeen Seminary in the background.

Fish Gravy, Preserved Fruits Canning Factory in the background

The wall on the right belongs to the Aberdeen Govt Primary School

Hong Kong Holiday - Gloria Romero (1957) - King Yin Lei, Stubbs Road

Ana's dad lives in a very opulant mansion in Hong Kong. In fact, the property used for his home is one familiar to this blog, it's king Yin Lei on Stubbs Road. This isn't the first appearance of the home on film, Soldier of Fortune pipped it to the post when it was released in 1955, but it's interesting to note that the owner at the time was up for movies being shot in and around the grounds.

In this film we see Ana's car go in through the gate but then the scene switches to what is obviously a studio set (Wader or Yung Hwa? I don't know). In 1955, when this was filmed, you can still see the previous version of the main archway - although perhaps it is clearer on this shot from Soldier of Fortune. The gate was later replaced or enhanced to look more like an ornate Chinese pai-lau with Chinese style roof tiles.

Hong Kong Holiday - Gloria Romero (1957) - Kai Tak Airfield

I have yet to delve the history of Pinoy cinema, but in my long on-going search for a copy of Hong Kong Honeymoon, starring Zaldy Zshornak, I came across a vintage Filipino cinema channel on Youtube that has some great old movies on it: Chiechay Channel. One of them is Hong Kong Holiday (you can tell by the title why I was drawn to it) which is a 1957-released (although apparently filmed in 1955) romantic comedy about a young Filipina, Ana (Gloria Romero), who returns home to Hong Kong from abroad and is immediately told by her overbearing father that he has arranged a marriage for her. She runs away and takes refuge with a local boat family in Aberdeen.

According to an online interview with Ms Romero that is linked in the film's wikipedia entry, the film was lensed in Hong Kong in one month during 1955 and the credits also mention at the end that both Yung Hwa and Wader Studios were used for the filming. Yung Hwa, for those not aware of local film history, were the original occupiers of the Hammer Hill studios later taken over by Cathay/MP&GI and then, ultimately, Golden Harvest. The studios had only just been taken over by Yung Hwa in 1955 and I believe only held it for a couple of years before the Cathay Organisation took it over.

I digress, the opening scenes were shot on the, then, old Kai Tak Airfield when it was being run from afew concrete buildings in the middle of what is now known as "Kai Tak North". Sadly, as you'll see from my screengrabs, the picture quality is not very good and there is the channel's rather large watermark on the top right that hinders some of the views. However, there are some decent locations to see despite this and, of course, I enjoy including films from as many foreign countries as possible.

If you want to see some better images of the Kai Tak Airfield as it was back then, then you can see similar views in Love is a Many-Splendored Thing and The Night my Number Came Up.

Lung Cheung Road - Now and Then

Here's an old one from Golgo 13: Assignment Kowloon. The screencap shows a view of Lung Cheung Road at the section between what is now Beacon Heights (of camera to the left, but at the time of filming it was a hillside squatter settlement) and the Shek Kip Mei Reservoir Park on the right. The shot was taken from a pedestrian bridge that still spans this section of road. I know this bridge very well because I lived, until recently, at Beacon Heights (for 14 years) and crossed this bridge on an almost daily basis.

The view has changed, of course, as Kowloon has become increasingly highrise, but the immediate vicinity of the screencap remains fairly similar. The only difference of note is a flyover (off/on ramp) has been constructed at the far end of the park that connects Lung Cheung Road with Tai Po Road.