Batman: The Dark Knight - Christian Bale (2008) - Midlevels Escalator, Lyndhurst Terrace

This is another scene that made big news in the local papers, however, for some unknown reason The HK Standard now limits its archive to the previous 4 years (previously we could browse articles from about 1994 onward) and so I can't link to anything useful anymore.

Never mind, this following scene filmed on the section of the Midlevel's escalator was actually done with several thousand people all gathered around the road below taking snap shots of the two stars Christian Bale and Morgan Freeman.

The road below them is Lyndhurst Terrace and Gage Street. In fact, there is the odd amateur film on YouTube of Morgan Freeman doing a walkabout along part of Gage Street, but I'm not sure that was filmed or if it was it didn't seem to make the final cut.

Gage Street in the background

Batman: The Dark Knight - Christian Bale (2008) - Tsim Sha Tsui, Kowloon

Although the film was released in 2008, the Hong Kong part of the filming was done during November of 2007. How do I know this? Well, even if it wasn't mentioned in Wikipedia I knew because I was lucky enough to see some of the filming taking place (or at least some sort of rehearsal perhaps) in the harbour area.

I was walking along the TST waterfront with my parents who were over for a visit and this huge big white C-130 cargo plane appeared from the direction of the airport and flew up and down the harbour front for about 10 or 15 minutes.

The plane did actually feature in the film as the aircraft that helps whisk the bad guy and Batman out through the window of the IFC building to bring him back for summary justice in Gotham City.

But anyway, this is not that particular scene. The following screen captures are from the initial HK-sequence when we see Morgan Freeman's character arriving by helicopter and landing on the top of the Peninsula Hotel. We get unusual angles on No.1 Peking Road (on the right), the Masterpiece (on the left) and of course the Peninsula Hotel (centre).

Yellowthread Street (TV Series) - Bruce Payne (1990) - Enterprise Centre, Tsim Sha Tsui

This is one of those locations that has been made easy for me thanks to the name of the building appearing on screen. It doesn't happen often but it makes life easy when it does.

Anyway, in this case we are at the Enterprise Centre at 4 Hart Avenue. Looking at it you wouldn't believe it is the same building but I have checked the records and can confirm this is still the same place - built in 1976 and still standing. However, the owner of the building has done what most people wouldn't consider - renovate the building completely rather than demolish and rebuild. As a result the outside makes it look like a brand new building.

What appears to be a vehicular entrance in the second shot above has been converted into the main entrance of the building now. The only thing that seems to be unchanged is the double pole of the road sign.

Tai Pan - Bryan Brown (1986) - Lou Lim Ieoc Garden, Macau

Not much of this film was made in HK - other than a little tidbit told to me by none other than stunt maestro Vic Armstrong who had a small cameo in the film (as well as being stunt coordinator) as a "Drunken Sailor". Vic says his brothel scenes were filmed at Golden Harvest Studios.

But anyway, Hong Kong aside, we do get to see a rather nice bit of Macau including the popular Lou Lim Ieoc Garden. We've seen it before on this blog courtesy of the 1978 Robert Clouse version of Game of Death.

But in the Tai Pan film, the locale serves as the Macau retreat of none other than Dirk Struan, the original master of the Noble House. Here are some screen captures.

For a few of my own pictures of the place, please click on the Game of Death link I provided above, there are some pictures there from a trip I made sometime in 2006.
 

A Conversation (of sorts) with Salon Films

It's always great when people visit my blog, it's nice to know that I am not the only one interested in this kind of stuff, and it's even better when people leave comments about a location or a memory of a particular place or time. It really adds quite a bit of anecdotal information that would otherwise be lost. I place a lot of importance on these kind of 'verbal histories' and feel that they should be shared. Anyway, sometimes the best information comes from those who have been involved, directly or indirectly, with the films on this blog and a few months back I was fortunate enough to be visited (in the virtual sense) by a chap called Neil MacDonald, a former location manager at Salon Films, who left a lot of very detailed and interesting information about some of the productions he was involved with during the 1980's.

The comments Neil left were so good that to let them disappear into the ether over time seemed to be a bit of a crime, so I have consolidated them all into this one post and preserved them here for eternity (or at least until the EMC from a nuclear explosion fries everyone's electronics circuits and sends us all back to the middle ages).


Now, anybody who has seen a HK-set film (i.e. those films and shows that make up the majority of content on this blog) over the past few decades may be aware of Salon Films. This may be because Salon were directly involved in the filming, or perhaps were hired to liaise for the purpose of obtaining permits, but also might have been because Salon - thanks to its founder T.C Wang - had (still have?) some sort of exclusivity deal with Panavision in the Far East. This meant that anyone using Panavision equipment in Hong Kong had to pay a fee to Salon. A nifty bit of business if you ask me and I wonder if this is the origin of the word "Wangle"...;-)

T.C ( as he was known to his friends) set the company up in 1959 and Charles, his son, took over in the early 70's and they seem to have had a hand in production of almost everything in that time as well as a variety of offices. Charles Wang died in 2007 and the company is now run by Fred, his brother. Here is their website: http://www.salonmedia.com/

Anyway, Neil worked for the company in the 1980's and seemed to have been involved on a lot of stuff that has passed through this place of late, so lets have a look at what he had to say about it all. I should state that the dialogue began after I had been appealing for information on the army base scenes from Bloodsport.

Hi. I was location manager for Salon Films on a number of shows and worked production on a number of films/tv shows, including Bloodsport, Kickboxer, Double Impact, Around the World in 80 Days, Noble House, Shadow of China, Ghosts Can't Die, China Cry etc. I also production managed the final Cracker show starring Robbie Coltrane shot on location in HK, and produced the HK segments of Night Watch, starring Pierce Brosnan. When I get a chance to look through your images I'll do what I can to identify the locations - but can tell you straight away the Bloodsport images were shot at Fort Stanley. Cheers!

The Cracker episode Neil refers to was called "White Ghost" and I do remember watching it back in the UK when it was first aired. I remember the story being a bit lame, but watching the HK locations was good.

I was born in HK and joined the RHKP in 1983 after I left school in the UK. Did one three year tour and because I spoke Cantonese and had police contacts, was introduced to Charlie Wang by a mutual friend. My first film experience was as an extra on Tai Pan shot in Shenzhen and Macau; I was then put to work as a PA on Harry's Hong Kong (David Soul and David Hemmings) - if you've seen the Aaron Spelling produced pilot (the show was never picked up) you'll see Charlie Wang as the doctor in the mortuary and mine is the body under the sheet!

Bloodsport was shot entirely on location in HK, with all the Kumite interior work shot in a studio in Clearwater Bay - but there was a larger budget second time round for Kickboxer and we filmed a lot in Thailand...[for Bloodsport] we filmed quite a bit at Stanley Barracks (as it was known then) and it was the location for all the early scenes of Van Damme training, military training etc. It was also the location of Frank's school and the colonial building where you see the boards being broken and the servant standing by with the towel was the Officers Mess.

The mid 80's through the early 1990's was a golden age for the overseas production, shot on location in HK, but securing locations became more and more difficult. When I produced the Cracker episode for Granada TV my life was made a misery by what appeared to the British crew a complete inability to find suitable locations; the truth of it was, though, that people were completely indifferent to a British crew filming for a British TV series and there were no big actors to help 'open' doors. Still, fun times. Noble House was, of course, shot on location in HK. And much fun that was too.

The studios referred to above are the Clearwater Bay Studios in Tseung Kwan O, currently operated by Sil Metropole.

[Regarding Harry's Hong Kong where Neil was roped in to play a corpse at the morgue]...No movement under the mortuary sheet, but I did flop my arm out so it could be checked for distinguishing marks. That was a fun shoot - but trying to drag Hemmings and Soul out of the bars down Lockhart Road for night scenes and tracking shots was nigh on impossible - both liked a drink, not to mention a pair of Asian breasts thrust in their face.

Charlie [Wang] worked for GIS [Govt Information Services] in the early days and was co-credited as the cameraman on a GIS documentary in the 60's, entitled Sea Festivals of Hong Kong. I stopped working for Salon in the early 90's.

Perhaps my most enjoyable experience was Shadow of China, starring John Lone. It was a full 6 month schedule (including pre-production) and was produced by couple of guys responsible for the Wenders film, Paris, Texas. It was also directed by Mitsuo Yanagimachi who had developed a fantastic reputation in Japan as an artistic yet commercial director and there were some fantastic technicians and production crew on the project including future Oscar winners (Sandy Powell, costumes). You'll find on YouTube a few scenes from the film including one for the end credits in which my old Jaguar MK2 car stars! It was a shame the film came to nought but I enjoyed the experience tremendously and was a far more palatable project than Double Impact, on which there were more egos than artists... but that's another story.

Link for end credits for Shadow of China: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jUBdgG4QjkQ

Shadow of China had its difficulties; we'd already started shooting when Tiananmen Square kicked off and there was serious discussion about the plug being pulled. Sammi Davis loathed John Lone and at one point (when we were filming night scenes at Flagstaff House, now the Tea Museum) refused to kiss him in the romantic scenes; we built a massive set (Henry's office) on the top floor and at the extreme end of the Ocean terminal carpark which was all but obliterated by Typhoon Brenda, necessitating a rebuild; and the shoot came to a halt halfway through when the production company ran out of money, though the distributors eventually stumped up some more - but it was a reasonably harmonious shoot with a great crew and I was pleased with some of the locations I was able to find and secure.

Sam Neill was in HK to see his girlfriend Noriko Watanabe who was the makeup artist and agreed to shoot a short scene - I think at the FCC [actually it was at HKU] - playing a journalist. And I can't remember what role Simon [Yam] played, but that we shot his scenes at a house often used in local and overseas productions on Castle Peak Road, the name of which I also forget. But truth be told, I've not seen the film - I've not been able to lay my hands on a copy and only know about the end credits (and the 'dance scene', which we shot at a Kaifong headquarters on Nathan road at the junction of Observatory road) because of the YouTube links.

As for Tai Pan, very little was shot in Macau. They were mainly exterior harbour shots around Coloane. A little side story here - Charlie Wang brought back to Hong Kong one of the original fishing junks from the movie, God alone knows why, and I arranged for it to be kept at a marine police mooring in Sai Kung. But the boat was rotted through and during heavy rains actually sank at the mooring. Charlie was frantic with worry, not knowing what to do, but the Royal Navy agreed to recover the vessel (they inflated ballast bags in the hull to raise her) so they could tow her into international waters to use as target practice. Which they did. I think CW made very charitable donations to welfare associations of both the RHKP and RN for having inconvenienced them...
As for the Panavision agency, I'm pretty sure it was TC Wang (Charlie and Fred's dad), a photographer, who secured that - a great business move.

A friend of mine, 'Uncle' John McCallum, shot a lot of glass plates with junks etc. of the bay at Zhuhai from a hill on the promontory. He was a lovely guy, English, who did a lot of work for Charlie Wang, mainly because he was cheap! He came back to the UK and worked as a DP on a reasonably successful TV series called Peak Practice in Derbyshire, but I haven't heard from him in a while. You won't recognise me but I was an extra on Taipan as well - I can be seen in a crowd scene as one of the settlers on the beach, replete with sideburns and 19th century hat. A lot of standing around, waiting for something to happen. It was all a bit of fun really, not part of the job description, no, but as most shows had a 'law enforcement' element, producers/casting directors often thought it was appropriate to cast me for the small parts. But I did actually work on Noble House as an extra, not on production, together with a guy named Jonathan Wattis, who went on to open a gallery called Wattis Fine Arts on Hollywood Road.

Some memories of Roy Chiao...

I worked a couple of times with Roy Chaio (for example, see Bamboo in Winter, a 16mm film we shot with money from, I believe, the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association - Roy was a committed Christian) and he was a great guy. Very generous, kind and considerate and great with the crew. A gentleman. [Bamboo in Winter] was blown up to 35mm but never made it to cinemas in HK - Stateside and video only, I believe. Roy did the work for nothing - admittedly it was a short shoot -16 days rings a bell. Filmed mostly around the hills of Tai Po and the Lam Tsuen valley - it made sense, as I was location manager and living in Lam Tsuen at the time!!

Finally a few mentions of what nearly became of Yellowthread Street series 2...

I worked around three weeks on the second series as a Production Manager before it was canned. We had production offices in, I think, Lancashire road, just off Waterloo road in Kowloon Tong. We had the scripts for each of the first 6 episodes and I was working with Gavin Bocquet, the production designer, trying to find suitable locations. It was disappointing to have the series cancelled but then we hadn't really got very far with it in any case...

So there you have it, you heard it all here first. Neil was also kind enough to leave a lot of interesting and entertaining comments on some of the various locations posts I have done for films such as Double Impact and Noble House etc, so feel free to go and have an explore. Many thanks to Neil for coming to the site and spending what must have been a significant amount of time recalling and writing and answering my nerdy questions :-)

Yellowthread Street (TV Series) - Bruce Payne (1990) - Percival Street, Causeway Bay

Yellow is the colour of the moment it seems, so it seems only fitting that this post from Yellowthread Street (episode: Rummy's Cut), should also feature something else yellow...in this case a tram.

The scene has no real significance to the plot, but I guess when you spend all that money filming in Hong Kong you may as well showcase some of the sights and sounds. So, here we have a nice yellow tram making the turn from Hennessy Road into Percival Street in Causeway Bay (strictly speaking still part of Wanchai District).

Other than the addition of a pedestrian walkway - because, after all, why should cars be inconvenienced to stop for crossing pedestrians, right? - and the removal of many overhanging signs, the place hasn't changed much physically. Percival Street is still the turnoff/on for trams heading into and away from Happy Valley, but if you were to take a look at shop rents in this area over the past few years you'll find it has become one of the most expensive streets in HK with some utterly crazy prices being paid for prime retail space. Anyway, below is the current Streetview.

Ferry to Hong Kong - Curt Jurgens (1959) - Victoria Harbour, Hong Kong

The last part of the film sees our trusty but rusty ferry, the "Fa Tsan", finally succumb to its explosion, typhoon and pirate damage and sink beneath the waves of Hong Kong's famous harbour. Except, for the purpose of the film there was a little bit of 1950's camera trickery going on and it looks as though the footage of the sinking was actually superimposed onto a background of HK Island.

I guess you need to see it really, but the affect isn't too bad considering it was 1959, but the colours don't quite match between the foreground and background.

However, this did get me wondering because several months ago on a Facebook group page, someone who grew up in Hong Kong remembers seeing an old boat being towed into Kowloon Bay near Kai Tak Airport and being sunk for a film. Lots of suggestions were made, including The Sand Pebbles, but I'm not sure The Sand Pebbles filmed around that area (it was mainly in Port Shelter), so I wonder if this was the scene they were watching - the boat sinking in Kai Tak later being superimposed onto the footage from the harbour?

The ridge line in the background appears to be the western end of HK Island with Victoria Peak and High West in left and centre, but the angle suggests a location at the western end of the harbour (perhaps a camera sited on Stonecutter Island?) but there were obvious impracticalities to sinking a boat in the middle of the harbour.

Well, if anyone has any clues please feel free to share, in the meantime I'll update this post if I find out anything more.

Yellowthread Street (TV Series) - Bruce Payne (1990) - Aberdeen, Hong Kong

More Aberdeen Harbour, this time from episode 7 - Rummy's Cut. Actually, this time we go down to the Sham Wan area of the harbour in the eastern portion next to the floating restaurant pontoons and the Aberdeen Marina Club.

The first shot above shows us looking from Sham Wan towards the west with the bridge joining Hong Kong to Ap Lei Chau (the Ap Lei Chau Bridge). All the high rises we can see are on Ap Lei Chau.

The area around the Sham Wan containing all the private slipways. The low section of the AMC can be seen back left and the skinny building on the right is in fact the Marine Police Aberdeen Base.

The final picture shows the AMC and if you look carefully you can see one of the floating restaurants rather ornate pontoons just to the left.

Yellowthread Street (TV Series) - Bruce Payne (1990) - Wanchai Aerial View, Hong Kong

Another excellent identification by Arthur, who has told me this is an aerial view of the streets and buildings surrounding Queen's Road East in Wanchai. Here's what it looks like in a shot from the third episode - Key Witness.

So, Queen's Road East is the main road that we can see running from centre left to lower right. The prominent brown coloured building is the - only in Hong Kong - "Greatmany Centre", and as Arthur mentioned in his comment the smaller building to it's right is the low rise building of 117 Queen's Rd East on the corner of Ship Street.

Many of the low rise buildings in this area have been replaced and more upheaval has been ongoing for the past few years as Hopewell Holdings flattens the area around Ship Street to make way for its new so-called Megatower project.

Anyway, here is Arthur's comment as he includes a bit more detail:

For the...aerial photo, my guess is the crossroad in the lower center of the pic is Queen's Road East x Ship St. The twin brown buildings and apartment building with 4 windows in a row to its right are still there.

For the crossroad at the top right corner, it is probably Johnston Road x Lugard Road (google map: 22.276470, 114.171511) You can compare the interestingly oriented facade of the build where the Boston Restaurant now is in both pics.

Another possible evidences are those buildings with large roofs - may be able to match the movie theaters once dotted this area of Wanchai.

Ferry to Hong Kong - Curt Jurgens (1959) - More adventures with Chaplin Chang

Chaplin Chang, assistant director on Enter the Dragon and general go-to man for many western production companies filming in Hong Kong, made an early appearance in his very diverse movie career as an extra when filming Ferry to Hong Kong. In fact, he tells me that this was the very first western produced film he was involved with and was introduced to the films producers by Roy Chiao with whom he had a long friendship.

There is a scene in Ferry to Hong Kong when a Chinese junk catches fire nearby and proceeds to explode because it has been packed with explosives. The explosion damages the ferry but the crew of the junk are saved just before it blows up.

Chaplin was given the job of rushing over to the side of the ship and shouting that the junk was on fire. Here he is in action.

Ferry to Hong Kong - Curt Jurgens (1959) - Junk Island (Fat Tong Chau), Tseung Kwan O

Here is a real piece of forgotten history that took me a while to figure out. There is a sequence in the film when the ferry, after suffering a severe amount of damage in a typhoon, is struggling in to shore when a boat load of pirates - led by a very young Roy Chiao - come aboard to rob and pillage. As the boat is nearing the coastline we get a nice view of what looks to be an uninhabited island in the background.

Now, believe it or not but the strip of land in the background isn't actually an island at all, but is in fact the Lei Yue Mun headland, and the bumpy bit just behind the boats sail is Devil's Peak! Here is a modern day comparison of that ridgeline so you can see for yourself.

What you need to bear in mind here is that this area of Hong Kong has seen a vast amount of change with a huge amount of reclamation. I believe in the first shot we can see Junk Island (aka Fat Tong Chau) which has since been joined to the mainland (in this case with the Clearwater Bay peninsula) by reclamation, much in the same way that Stonecutter Island has been 'attached' to West Kowloon.

The shoreline we see above, in the fourth picture, was most likely part of the old coastline before reclamation took it away and replaced it with the Tseung Kwan O Industrial Estate.

Yellowthread Street (TV Series) - Bruce Payne (1990) - Kennedy Road, Central

In addition to the excellent bit of spotting Arthur did for us on this previous Kennedy Road post, he has also pulled out all the stops to identify a very obscure (to me, at least) piece of the same road that actually features a few seconds after the sequence from the previous post - another case of geography being manipulated in the film world.

Anyway, the location is just down from the...wait for it...Office of the Commissioner of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People's Republic of China in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region. Yes, that is the full name for the administration offices that now sit at 42 Kennedy Road - a site previously inhabited by a Govt quarters building called The Hermitage (though it had the address: 75 MacDonnell Road).

Anyway, the lens on the film camera makes the steps appear much closer than they are, so even though the following Streetview was taken closer to them, they actually appear much further away.

Once again, many thanks to Arthur for his help.

Yellowthread Street (TV Series) - Bruce Payne (1990) - Bonham Strand, Sheung Wan

Episode 7 of Yellowthread Street is called Rummy's Cut and starts off with what is supposed to be a gold/jewellery heist but turns out to be a set up. So we have some nice shots of the area on Bonham Strand where Mercer and Hillier Street join on to it. In fact the camera gives us a look right up Mercer Street.

Here's a comparison, well, as close as I could get from the confines of my nice comfortable chair.

Actually, I initially thought that perhaps the building on the corner (left of screen) was the same one, but I think that it has been replaced by a newer one that had no choice but occupy the same odd footprint - either that or a major remodeling of the windows has gone on.

Next the camera sweep left so we get a view up Bonham Strand.

Okay, so there has been a lot of redevelopment here. It looks like all the stuff on the right hand side has been redeveloped, and of course in the far distance we can see that we once had an unobstructed view of the Wing Hang Bank Building (located at 161-169 Queen's Road Central), but it is funny to see that the HSBC is still there - albeit with the subsequent rename (from Hongkong Bank to HSBC) and repainting of the building.

Lastly the camera settles on its intended subject - a jewelers close to the junction with Hillier Street.

Now, the Streetview version gives a view from further away, but I can tell you that the buildings in the top picture has been replaced by a single block called the Teda Building, with its entrance around the corner on Hillier Street. However, there are some relics left over (which helped me locate this) and that includes the Kung Kai Hung shop (off screen on the right in the screen cap and behind the taxi, centre picture, in the bottom streetview picture).

Also, look carefully at the top screen cap and you can see an establishment at the back (on Hillier Street) with the words "Cheong Gold" - the rest of the name being obscured. Well, actually this business is still there and its called Lee Cheong Gold Dealers Limited in the same building (Hillier Commercial Building).

Ferry to Hong Kong - Curt Jurgens (1959) - St Paul's Church Facade, Macau

Macau's most famous landmark features in the next part of the funeral procession as they pass the facade of the fire-destroyed church of St Paul's.

If you have ever been to Macau then you will most probably have seen this close up. All I can say about it is that the steps in front tend to be chock-full of Mainland Tourists these days (Chow Tai Fook are really missing a trick here).

Ferry to Hong Kong - Curt Jurgens (1959) - Penha Church, Macau

Well, seeing as I have just been theorising about the use of the Penha Church roof as a possible location for a camera shot of the inner harbour, I think the view of the same church in a later scene may lend some credibility to my theory. (NB: this later scene was preceded by a single shot from the earlier sequence where we can see the cross again).

Anyway, here is a brief glimpse of the side of the church as a funeral procession makes its way down the hill from the church towards the ferry. So, first off we have a repeat of the same angle from earlier (probably Penha Church cross n the right).

The next shot sees our funeral procession walking down a hill. I will make an educated guess here and say that it was probably the path that runs down the side of the hill next to the Penha Church.

I make the previous assumption (despite me knowing how geography is often messed around with in films) because the same scene shows us looking up the hill with a piece of the Church visible in the background.

Anyway, there is still a small road that runs down the side of the hill and I wouldn't be surprised to find out that it was the same one - albeit now with a rather more obscured view - or at least a path than ran just next to the current road (I say that because there is a retaining wall on the film grab that looks similar in design to the wall we see on the side of the road in the streetview picture below). The road runs up to the car park below the church which can be seen in the lower picture.