Sunday, September 7, 2014

Yellowthread Street (TV Series) - Bruce Payne (1990) - King's Road, Quarry Bay

Moving on to episode 5 - Angel Eyes, and Bruce Payne goes undercover to bust a drug gang run by HK-Canadian actor (now barrister), Melvin Wong. However, before we get down to the location I thought it would be fun to share a personal experience I had back in December of 1996 on one of my trips to HK.

I was invited to a friend's son's birthday party out in a village in Lam Tsuen called Tong Sheung Tsuen. It was a small affair with just a couple of the kids' school friends there and about 5 other grown ups. One of the dads looked a bit familiar and I subtly asked my friend if it was who I thought it was (i.e. Melvin Wong) and it was! I couldn't believe it! I had only just been watching Yuen Biao's Above the Law and ol' Melvin played the [SPOILER ALERT!] bad guy who gets an axe in his head at the end of the film.

It turned out that Melvin's son, Wesley, was in the same class at school as my friend's son: Shatin Junior. They were about 9 or 10 at the time. So it was great, I got to chat to Melvin about some of his films and I got to meet his totally gorgeous wife, Angie Chiu. I have to say they were a completely down to earth family and very friendly. It made my holiday...

Anyway, so back to location finding and this part sees Payne being taken to a secret rendezvous as he is tailed by his colleagues. Loads of sites around the Quarry Bay area of North Point including this one on King's road.

Anyone who has watched the latest Transformers film may or may not recognise the building on the left of the screen grabs. It is the Fook Cheong Building/Oceanic Mansion where some of the film was made and became famous when one of the shop tenants on the ground floor decided to attack the film crew.

Speaking of buildings, the small block of apartments in the trees on the south side of King's Road, are Govt quarters at 992 - 998 King's Road. I have no idea who lives in them now but having been this way a few times (the Mount Parker Green Trail starts just after the trees' end) I can say they are fairly hefty but seem to now be privately owned because they have an owner's corporation (#4937) which I'm not sure Govt buildings would need...

Anyway, here is a rough approximation courtesy of Streetview.


What you can spot is the pedestrian flyover in the distance, it's just above the car roof in the last screen grab, but it looks as though the retaining wall on the Streetview picture may be a more recent addition. The ex-Govt flats are obscured by tree growth from this angle.

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