Sunday, April 7, 2013

Double Impact - Jean Claude Van Damme (1991) - Canton Road, Kowloon

An easy one to identify the street but very difficult in [pinpointing the exact spot along, what is, a very long and similar road. Canton Road to be precise. The signboard clutter has been cleared up significantly in the intervening years but Canton Road is still very popular for 1). its Jade Market at the southern end and 2). its metal workshops (usually containing the two characters 五金 'five metals', which is Chinese for 'metal work').

Look closely on the screen grab below and you will see several signs with these two characters included in the shop name.


However, luckily for us there is an English signboard that still exists. Look right and you can see a blue sign for "BONS DRY CLEANERS" - it's obscured but it's there.

Look at the screenshot below from Streetview and you can see this is one of the only remaining signs - the blue rectangle centre right. There are a few remaining white signboards but in general these have pretty much all gone - the Govt had a much publicised crackdown on them a couple of years back but I have no idea when Canton Road was 'tidied up'. Anyway, it looks like the circular cornered building in the left of the screen shot above (with the bat-holding-coin-shaped pawnbrokers signboard) may have been removed to make way for a 'sitting out area' (HK's ubiquitous drab concreted 'gardens' with seats for oldies to sit on) and a municipal toilet/refuse collection building.



Oh, I forgot to mention this is the section of Canton Road sitting between Nelson Street and Shantung Street in Mongkok.

Double Impact - Jean Claude Van Damme (1991) - Garden Road Flyover, Central

An easy one to identify here but still worthwhile including 'cause you never know when a building may disappear...

It's just an establishing shot with no actors on screen and is used a couple of times in the movie (though both times at slightly different angles). The first one shows a good view of what is now called the Lippo Centre, but at the time of filming was only a few years old (completed in 1988) and still called the Bond Centre.


The second time the shot is used we see it from a location slightly further to the south so that the front part of the Bank of China building can be seen on the right.