Sunday, May 31, 2015

The Man from Hong Kong - Wang Yu (1975) - Kai Tak Airport, Kowloon

Some new views of the place courtesy of Brian Trenchard-Smith (the director) including the aerial view in the top picture.

2 comments:

gweilo8888 said...

I found a copy of this clip online and just watched it myself. Interesting that they caught construction of the Airport Tunnel (now Kai Tak Tunnel) in the background.

Wikipedia reckons construction started in 1976, but given the movie came out in July 1975, that's clearly off by at least a year or two. Possibly more -- I found references online to an issue of Tunnels and Tunneling discussing the project in 1972, although I couldn't confirm a definite start date.

The full hoarding says "Airport Tunnel constructed by Paul Lee Eng. Co. Ltd." -- they were dissolved in 1991 according to the Companies Registry.

Also captured in the first screenshot is the creation of the cargo apron for HACTL. Only a few years before, that was part of the harbor adjacent to the runway, and HAECO (then just known as HAEC, according to the vehicle markings) only had a relatively narrow strip along the shoreline.

Note the random jumble of parked airplanes in front of HAECO's hangars: Even after the reclamation, apparently they were short on space and just stuck the planes anywhere they could until they were ready to work on them. Can't begin to imagine what it was like before they got all that extra land to work with!

Also note the fact that they were using modified Mini Mokes as Apron Control vehicles. And I can't say as I've ever seen a police land rover in yellow before, either, so that's a new one for me. :-)

Very cool clip, all in all. Thanks for sharing!

Phil said...

Thought you would like this one ;-) I did spot the jumble of jets but just figured it was typical HK-style parking skills...

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