Monday, March 29, 2021

Visa to Canton - Richard Basehart (1960) - 28 Tai Hang Road, Tai Hang

In the film, Richard Basehart's character is friends with a family who supposedly save him when he was shot down during the war, and so he has become and adopted "big brother". The family seems to be well to do and live in a rather large property somewhere. The establishing shot for their home is a rather grand looking place with some art deco styling and two Chinese characters embedded into the roof. This one took a while to locate because these screenshots were the only clue I had and thankfully I recognised Grandview Mansions on the hilltop in the background.

Anyway, it runs out that this property was located at #28 Tai Hang Road. The site is now occupied by a mid-60s era mid rise residential block called "Kan Oke House". As I sometimes do when I find something interesting on film, I posted the house on Gwulo.com and a local historian filled in the background details (and at the same time was obviously in awe of my location detective skills).

So, the house was built by a local merchant called Kwok Hin Wang in 1928 and the two characters in the roof, that you can't really make out in these screencaps (I believe there is a HD bluray release though, so perhaps that would be clearer) are 勤屋. In Cantonese this is pronounced as "kan uk" which basically translates to industrious/hardworking house. So the current building name, Kan Oke, is (and this happens a lot in Hong Kong) a name homage to the former occupant of the site.

Looking at the aerial images of the area, there are none available between 1960 and 1962, and by the time 1963 comes around the house had already been demolished and the plot was sitting empty. It was still empty in 1964 and by 1966 Kan Oke House had been built.

The first image obviously shows the view looking down Tai Hang Road. I probably shouldn't need to mention that the area looks vastly different today.


Or how about this for a nicely cleaned up stitched version.

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