Thursday, November 23, 2017

The Art of War - Wesley Snipes (2000) - Central, Hong Kong

In a long list of films supposedly "made in Hong Kong but weren't", I offer Wesley Snipes' 2000 The Art of War

There is an opening sequence whereby Wesley establishes his credentials as a no-nonsense Bond-esque UN agent by blackmailing a North Korean military figure into revealing details of some shady deal before jumping off a building using a parachute. The whole thing is supposed to be set in HK on some unknown New Year's Eve celebration, but it appears that in fact some stock footage of the HK skyline was used with some superimposed fireworks.

On closer inspection, it's fairly obvious (to me at least) that the building in question (with the dragon lights below) is also superimposed. Perhaps it's a real building somewhere in LA, but definitely does not exist here. A fact made more obvious by the way the background seems to shift angle from looking towards Central from the west (top two pictures) to then looking, apparently, from the east - given the way the Bank of China building appears to have shifted around.


 Anyway, you heard it here first...this film was definitely not made in HK.

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