Wednesday, December 8, 2021

Tokyo Gang vs Hong Kong Gang - Ken Takakura (1964) - View from Old Peak Road, Hong Kong

Another entry from the 60's-era Japanese gangster films in the form of Tokyo Gang vs Hong Kong Gang (aka Tôkyô gyangu tai Honkon gyangu or 東京ギャング対香港ギャング in the original Japanese)

This was released the same year as Narazumono but appears to have been shot earlier (I'm not sure though) and shares at least two of the same cast (i.e. Ken Takakura and Tetsurô Tanba). The plot revolves around a Japanese gangster, Kitahara (Takakura), who has arrived in Hong Kong in order to do a drug deal with a local Triad group run by "Dragon". The deal falls sour and instead Kitahara strikes a deal with another upcoming gang represented by the behatted Chang (Ryōhei Uchida). The story moves around Hong Kong for much of the first half before transferring to Macau and then finally back to Yokohama for the denouement. Suffice to say it's only the Hong Kong and Macau locations I'll be looking at.

Before I start though, I must give a big shout out to Mamiko Oka of FLICKR, who has already done a great job identifying many of the rather obscure and difficult to find locations used in the film. Check out their list of photo albums for a large selection of movie locations. It was actually via their FLICKR photo albums that I first found out about this film, so credit where credit is due.

Anyway, first up is an easy one because the very first shot of the film is a close up of an Old Peak Road road sign. The camera then pans left across what I believe may have been the old Victoria Peak Apartments before settling on the harbour and zooming in towards Kowloon-side.

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