Das Mädchen von Hongkong - Joachim Fuchsberger (1973) - Nathan Road, Kowloon

Here's a quickie to illustrate again how some of these films have reused footage from earlier movies for their establishing shots. It's more common than I realised and even Robert Clouse was at it when he reused the famous panning shot of HK from the beginning of Enter the Dragon and inserted it into the beginning of Golden Needles. In fact, there is a large section of this film in the opening credits that was taken from the earlier 1960's German films that I have already covered.

Two shots here that we have seen previously in earlier films. The first one is the collection of neon lighting hanging off the Alhambra Building in Yau Ma Tei. We saw both of these shots recently in Heisser Hafen Hongkong.

This one can be seen in its original use in the top picture of this post.

And the following shot, already established as being on the corner of Nathan and Nelson Street in Mongkok can be seen as the second picture here.

Das Mädchen von Hongkong - Joachim Fuchsberger (1973) - Bristol Avenue, Tsim Sha Tsui

The girl from Hong Kong find accommodation at a bar. The Honolulu Bar and Restaurant was a real place and was situated at #2 Bristol Avenue in Tsim Sha Tsui. The earlier rooftop chase was filmed on the roofs of the buildings in that area, although this specific location appears to have been replaced in 1976 by the Yes & Right House. Actually it looks to me as though some site formation work was going on at the corner of Mody and Bristol, so this is possibly the groundwork for the construction of the aforementioned building. This means that the exact location might also have been where the Yes and Right Building currently ends. It's certainly possible that the street numbers were changed when everything was razed.

The first and last shots show us looking south down Bristol Avenue towards Mody Road, the second shot is facing back the other way towards Carnarvon Road. The high view on picture 3 was most likely captured from Mirador Mansions which occupies the block where the camera appears to have been placed.

Das Mädchen von Hongkong - Joachim Fuchsberger (1973) - Connaught Road, Central

A rather nice colourful shot from Connaught Road giving us views of the old Standard Chartered Bank (formerly Chartered Bank) building, Princes Building, Mandarin Oriental as well as a distant view of the old GPO building at the corner of Pedder St, here's a close up I posted previously.

Das Mädchen von Hongkong - Joachim Fuchsberger (1973) - Deep Water Bay, Hong Kong

We've already seen a little bit of Deep Water Bay from the grounds of 68 Deep Water Bay Road, but we also get a closer look as Fuchsberger escapes a junk to swim ashore. The structure in the background is the Victoria Recreation Club.

Das Mädchen von Hongkong - Joachim Fuchsberger (1973) - Tsim Sha Tsui, Kowloon

Here is an interesting set of shots for those wondering what Tsim Sha Tsui looked like before the so-called "The Masterpiece" was constructed with the URA's usual scant regard for sympathetic design.

This scene is a follow on from when Fuchsberger is cornered in his friend's office (with the cold storage warehouse in the background that was actually in Kwai Chung!). He escapes from the room and all of a sudden ends up on the Tsim Sha Tsui rooftops.

The cluster of buildings where the chaps are scuttling over the rooftops are the exact buildings that were removed to make way for the redevelopment. Actually, they're looking in reasonable shape in this film but by the time came for demolition they were looking pretty sketchy - but nothing some TLC couldn't have fixed.

The view has changed drastically with additional high rise development now obscuring the signal tower on Blackhead Point (that;s still there thankfully), but there are some familiar buildings to be spotted around in the background including Chung king Mansion, Mirador Mansion, Peninsula Apartments and the Lyton Building. All those nice looking balconied low rises have all been redeveloped. 

Das Mädchen von Hongkong - Joachim Fuchsberger (1973) - Shun Ning Road, Cheung Sha Wan

The "girl from Hong Kong" of the title works in a street market. Luckily for me this is an area I am familiar with because I live not far away and had the unfortunate experience of attending the nearby hospital on more than one occasion. This whole area in undergoing redevelopment and there aren't many of the old tenement buildings left.

These first two screengrabs show us looking west along Shun Ning Road. The sloped retaining wall at the back is the old entrance to what is now Caritas Hospital - I'm not so sure about the history of the hospital or how long it's been there but the buildings occupying that space now are fairly new.

Part of the market also extended down Hing Wah Street, Even today the road is very wide and there used to be market stalls that occupied what is now a beautified central reservation. The road slopes considerably up towards the junctions with Shun Ning Road and Po On Road and at the top was the old So Uk Estate. You can see one of the old buildings in So Uk in the background.

Hing Wah Street with So Uk at the back

Das Mädchen von Hongkong - Joachim Fuchsberger (1973) - General Post Office, Central

One of the true architectural gems of Central that really should've been kept, especially when you consider the ugly building that replaced it is. The General Post Office was demolished in 1977 and the only remaining pieces of it appear to be these four front entrance columns that were moved over to Kadoorie Farm in Lam Tsuen, Tai Po District.

Das Mädchen von Hongkong - Joachim Fuchsberger (1973) - Wader Studio, Kwai Chung

I mentioned the area around Wader Studio in the last post and part of the old front wall has shown up in this film. It's the only identifiable piece of the studio that I can see (there are likely other bits but because of the general lack of information out there they are most likely going unidentified by yours truly).

Anyway, the giveaway in this shot is the large characters on the gate which are the Chinese name of the Wader studio (華達).

If you want to see where the gate was in relation to another post featuring the studio, then Gwulo.com has a picture that will help.

This last shot of Joachim Fuchsberger was snapped looking out from the main gate back towards Castle Peak Road. The studio closed not soon after this film was made.

Das Mädchen von Hongkong - Joachim Fuchsberger (1973) - South China Cold Storage Building, Kwai Chung

The murder victim was running a business from a warehouse in some anonymous part of town. The chronology of events suggests its somewhere near a dock, but actually the no-longer-anonymous location was a real cold storage warehouse located in an industrial estate in Kwai Chung. Coincidentally, the warehouse was (and still is) located behind where the old Wader Studios were - but more about that in a later post.

Anyway, simply plugging the Chinese name (南華冷房大廈) seen in one of the grabs revealed the location. The road that runs by the warehouse is Wah Sing Street.

Looking down from the top of Wah Sing Street

You can see the Streetview grab below. The angle isn't great but it's nice to see that the vertical sign has managed to survive 45+ years (even if it's looking done for).

In one of those geographical conundrums, one scene later in the film has Fuchsberger heading to his friend's office (see below) with the warehouse clearly visible in the background. He is disturbed by the bad guys and what ensues is a chase over the roof tops of Tsim Sha Tsui!

Das Mädchen von Hongkong - Joachim Fuchsberger (1973) - 68 Deepwater Bay Road, Hong Kong

An easy one to get this one because we are given the address on film several times. The original building was redeveloped in 1978 - a few years after this film was made. The architectural company involved (AKAA) have a project page with a picture of the newer property: http://www.akaa.com.hk/kadoor01.html.

As suggested by the webpage above, the owner is Sir Michael Kadoorie - head of the Hong Kong and Shanghai Hotels Company and China Light & Power etc. Whether or not he owned it in 1972 is uncertain, but I do have a friend who has been lucky enough to visit here and describe the underground garage where Sir Kadoorie stores his collection of cars. Apparently it has a sort of 'rotary' lift whereby he pushes a button and keeps it held until his choice of car pops up. I'm not sure where he keeps his helicopter though...

The house's name is "Miramar" and Gwulo.com has a little bit of information about it here. Kadoorie was so keen to preserve the view from his house that he also bought #70 & 72 to stop anyone else from buying them and redeveloping.

There are a lot of great angles for this location, so this post may be a bit picture-heavy.

The bottom picture shows the view across the pool and over Deep Water Bay towards Middle Island in the distance. The house has been redeveloped,but it looks like the pool and view haven't really changed much.

We also catch a brief glimpse of #71 from the driveway. As far as I can tell that building has also been rebuilt at some point because the current version, despite it's art deco styling, doesn't appear to match the current one.

#71 Deep Water Bay Road

And there is also what appears to be a fake telephone box further down the road (on the lower side of #71).