Vanessa - Olivia Pascal (1977) - Harilela Compound, Kowloon Tong

One of the more surprising locations from this film (or any film for that matter) is the use of the Harilela mansion/compound as the main filming location. In Vanessa, the titular character's deceased uncle owns this house and Vanessa has now inherited it. We go back to the property several times throughout the film and are a variety of views inside and out.

The house is one of Kowloon Tong's more famous (and certainly larger) properties and sits on the corner of Waterloo and Durham Roads. The Harilela family have interests in a diverse range of businesses but are probably most well known (in HK anyway) for owning the Holiday Inn Golden Mile on Nathan Road in Tsim Sha Tsui. The (recently deceased) family patriarch, Hari Harilela, started off in Hong Kong as a humble tailor before making some rather astute investments and diversifying into other areas. It was he who had this house built in 1967 (to his own specifications) with a view to having the whole family (numbering around 100 members) living under the same roof. The place is huge as a result - 82,000 sq ft - and it appears it's still not large enough for everyone as there is an annex next door used by the younger family members. You can see the GoogleEarth 3D rendered version of the property here. The SCMP also did a recent article on the house which can be viewed here. The video is worth a watch.

In the film, after being driven around most of Hong Kong by what she thinks is a taxi, Vanessa is dropped off in front of the building and our initial view is of the front drive as seen from the slope that comes up from the underground parking garage. There are a couple of striking wall mosaics on either side of the front door which can also be seen in the following images.

On entering the building, we catch of glimpse of the entrance hall with its domed ceiling and adjacent courtyards. These are details that can be discerned on the roof of the 3D rendering I linked to earlier.

At the other end of the hallway is the curved staircase to the next floor with a statue in the centre.

There are a few scenes filmed in other rooms as shown below. The first one is the Mogul room. It's the main entertaining area and has 32 gilded arches and a couple of huge dining tables. Apparently it's on the ground floor just to the right of the entrance hall. The second image I am assuming is from one of the bathrooms as it has a sunken bath.

The final image below is of the outdoor pool that sits in the south west side of the property. You can see the front drive with its mosaics/wall friezes in the background.

So, my only question is how did the film company get to use the property and would Mr Harilela have been so accommodating had they known what was going to be filmed in some of the rooms? If anyone knows the story behind the property in this film, please feel free to leave a comment.