In this last picture we can see what was the So Uk Estate - now largely demolished to make way for new apartments - famous for giving us the Hui brothers (Michael, Ricky and Sam) amongst others. Note the amount of hills in the background. Most of these had already been removed by the time Game of Death was filmed so that roads such as Lung Cheung Road and Cornwall Street could be put down.
You can just make out the hazy outline of Hong Kong Island in the background, to the right of Cosby's head is an island which I can only assume is probably Stonecutter Island - once part of the British Garrison but now occupied by the PLA. And AP has kindly stitched together some of the top screen grabs to give us a nice wide view of the hotel grounds.
The hotel was demolished some time in the 1990's to make way for Villa Carlton and Monte Carlton. You can still head up Tai Po Road to this spot but the view would be drastically different now courtesy of the proliferation of high rises in Kowloon below.
6 comments:
I remember having lunch in The Carlton Hotel sometime on the mid 70's with my parents and my uncle, who flew Tristars for Cathay Pacific.
The hotel building was also used - I believe - in one of the John Woo/Chow Yuen fat productions after it had stopped trading as a hotel.
It was one of those funny places, like the Shatin Heights Hotel, which, although off the beaten track, used to do reasonable trade as a hotel in the sixties and early seventies.
No Phil, it doesn't ring any bells. I'll have a word with my Dad, he may have some idea.
We stayed in the Shatin Heights hotel when back from leave in about 1970, before we moved to government quarters in Broadcast Drive. We used to have to catch a bus from there to the Kowloon Junior School, always a pretty hairy ride I seem to recall...
[repost due to spell errors] Hi Neil, did you ever hear of another hotel called the "Rose Garden". It caused me some headaches a few years ago when I was told (seemingly incorrectly) it was used by Bruce Lee as one of his locations in Enter the Dragon. I pinned it down eventually to Shui Pin Wai in Yuen Long but have yet to hear from anyone who had stayed there or have pictures of it.
Someone sent me a picture of the Shatin Height when it was being demolished in the early 1980's. I go past the Shatin Heights development quite a lot as my two older kids go to school in that part of Tai Wai.
did you make it back to Tai Wai to see how much it has changed? Gosh! even in the 5 or so years I have been going there, Li Ka-shing has managed to hoist up three 4-block phases of a development called Festival City - it now completely blocks the view from one side of the valley to the other. Really sad :-(
Simple answer is no. The whole place has changed, Phil, and I doubt I'd recognise very much, especially in the north, north west and western parts of Kowloon and the NT. My eldest is now 19, studying for a degree in philosophy at Kings College London, and I've promised once he's finished his degree we'll head back to HK (where he too was born) and I'll show him round.. not that any of it will look the same!!
I remember "bell boys" like the one in the frames walking around the dining room holding a pole with a bell and a plaque, which had someone's name on it. He would ring the bell to try to find the person, who has received a telephone call at the front desk. I certainly remember playing on the lawn in the background in the mid-60s during afternoon tea time!
Post a Comment