Wow! Pretty amazing heh? Now you know why real estate prices in Kowloon Tong are so high - you are paying for the view over the harbour!
Okay, for those not familiar with Hong Kong geography, this is actually the view from Central mid-levels - from the angle I would say perhaps from Magazine Gap Road area, perhaps Rose Gardens or Magazine Court? - the film makers are just taking liberty with HK geography.
3 comments:
Hilarious! If you had a little while to spend traipsing around roads on the Peak (not to mention the energy for the hills and car-dodging), you could probably figure out which property it was shot from just by looking at the perspective.
The key is in the fourth shot. The Bank of China Tower should just obscure the western end of the Hong Kong Cultural Centre (but leave the Clock Tower visible), and the masts atop the Bank of China Tower should just slightly reach past the peaks of the Kowloon hills in the distance.
Playing around with Google Earth and trying to recreate the same perspective suggests you want to be somewhere right around 22 16 12.76N 114 09 26.31E.
The best bet is on either a high floor of Cragside Mansion on Barker Rd (which dates to the 70s), or whatever was replaced by Severn Hill on Severn Rd (which was occupied in January 1992).
Nearby Altadena House on Barker Road seems a bit too far west, from looking at the view shown in property listings online. Victoria Flats to the east doesn't have the right kind of windows, and that's a historic building that far predates the movie by a hundred years or so.
May Road and Plantation Road respectively seem too low and high, so I think that's about it for the options.
As for whether it was Cragside Mansion or the Severn Hill predecessor, I can't decide either way. The series was released two years before the new property was occupied, so it was probably filmed at least 2.5 years before -- and that's long enough to have filmed before the property was demolished. (We're not talking skyscrapers here, just low villa-style buildings that could easily have been put up in 6-12 months.)
If anybody can figure out what predated Severn Hills at 4 Severn Road (and find a photo of the property), that might answer it either way. Or perhaps looking at the windows at the front of Cragside Mansion on the higher floors -- you can't see them very clearly on Street View.
hey - I thought you were going to be Mr Magoo from now on? Never mind, because Cragside may have redeemed you, the window set up on the east side of the building fit the shot above quite well, so it may indeed be this place. And it's certainly been around long enough (since '75).
with regards to when this was filmed...I think 1989 is a good bet, because it was shown in the UK the following year (I think). If you look at the last picture you can see Immigration Tower being constructed next to Wanchai Tower. Immigration Tower opened in 1991, so I think 1989 is probably close enough.
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