Saturday, November 21, 2015

Transformers: Age of Extinction - Mark Wahlberg (2104) - To Kwa Wan Part 3 - I Feng Mansions, To Kwa Wan

Here's where the film makers did something a bit sneaky. They took a roof top (actually in Quarry Bay as you'll see in later posts) and set much of the action in HK on there. But rather than stay at the one location they also included footage from another (less cluttered) rooftop and sort of chopped and changed between the two. To the untrained eye it all looks to be the same place but what we end up with is two very different background skylines made more confusing by the amount of CGI obscuring many places. It's a bit of a mish-mash but cleverly done to disguise the different locations.

Anyway, one of the rooftops - the more open/less cluttered one - is on top of I-Feng Mansion at the end of the previously posted Mei King Street in To Kwa Wan. All of the following shots are actually on I-Feng Mansion's rooftop.

Looking south

The grabs above show the view to the southwest. When I first saw this I thought the arched building at the back was perhaps computer generated, but it turns out it actually exists! It's called 'Chatham Gate' and is new (only opened in 2012). That's probably why I didn't recognise it immediately.
View to the northwest


The box like structure (with ladder) top left of the upper picture here seems to have been a prop because I can't see it on GoogleEarth, although the other detail can be clearly seen. I suspect it was the bit that was shot up later in the scene, but I can't remember...


The above pictures are looking north(ish) moving NW to NE. The high rise at the back (right) are 'Grand Waterfront' near to the Ma Tau Kok piers.


Finally a view looking pretty much westward towards to green of Ho Man Tin at the back. I think the problem was perhaps logistical - the original rooftop over in Quarry Bay is completely cluttered with illegal tin huts and to remove them all would mean compensating lots of people for the (temporary) loss of their homes/shacks. Moving the actual action over to a more open rooftop probably saved a fair amount of money and hassle.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I Feng Mansions also popped up in one of the episodes in the Netflix anthology Love, Death, Robots. It's the starting point of "the Witness" by Oscar winner Alberto Mielgo, which contains some gorgeous animated Hong Kong scenes (though all interiors are conspicuously european).

Pip the Troll said...

Hi Anon, yes, I had seen that, it was quite an amazing animation (they all were to be fair) and I had made a mental note to include it at some point in the future when I could get a proper screengrab (and not just one from my phone). Sadly these days, me making "mental notes" of things invariably means I forget about them straight away, so many thanks for the reminder. Phil

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