Thursday, December 1, 2011

Sunset - Paul Chin Pei (1971) - Perth Street, Kowloon

One of the benefits of going back over stuff I did a few years ago is that I have the chance to reassess some of the locations I did then. I do sometimes get stuff wrong and unless I go back or someone points out a mistake they tend to get left up here. Here's a perfect example that I initially put as Ho Man Tin Hill. After reviewing the film in better definition something struck me about the background and it turns out that although I had the angle from the mountain fairly well, I had gone south too far by about 300 metres.

It turns out that the hill that Ching Li runs up after visiting Zhongkang's house used to sit just to the north of King George V school on a plot of land now occupied by the Shun Tak Fraternal Association Seaward Woo College at the end of Perth Street.


A good clue is seeing the south facing checkerboard in the background (above) which gives a general impression of which way we are facing, but the detail I noticed second time around was the presence of the various Chinese-styled buildings of Kowloon Hospital in the background. You can see the ridge of a roof in the centre left background of the picture below and between the actors heads in the second photo below is the distinct shape of what I believe is Block A of the Kowloon Hospital buildings. This means that the building that can be seen behind the actors in both captures below is the precursor to today's The Astrid development. The address now is 180 Argyle Street, but I have no idea if that was changed when the plot was redeveloped.


Further confirmation can be found below when the two turn back to run down the hill and a few buildings seen in the background including St George's Court on Kadoorie Hill (immediately above their heads). In fact you can see some of the houses that line Kadoorie Avenue below it. Also the tall buildings on the left hand side are a development called Mount Trio. Far right is Kowloon Hospital West Wing.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi Phil,

If you're talking about the hill with a service reservoir on top, you may be either referring to King's Park (hill) which can be walked up from the street between the Lutheran Church and the Methodist/Wesleyan Church on Waterloo Rd. There is a weather station on top of the reservoir.

Another possibility is the service reservoir on the hillside close to Fat Kong St. But I don't know how well it will fit with the screen shots.


Arthur

Phil said...

Hi Arthur, i don't think this is as far over as King's Park hill. It's a while since i posted this so can't remember if i checked properly but i think the angle against Lion Rock and the checkerboard indicate what seems to be called Quarry Hill.
Cheers
Phil

Post a Comment