Flash Point - Donnie Yen (2007) - Empire Apartments, North Point

Here's another location that has cropped up in another film. This time it's the rooftop apartment of Louis Koo's character that gets bombed by the bad guys in their attempt to get rid of him as a key witness. If you have followed this blog for anytime then you may recall the same location was used for Mathilde's flat in Je l'aimais a couple of years later. Well at least it's the same rooftop because I think there might be two (illegal) structures on the roof that have been turned into apartment spaces. The one in Je l'aimais was at the front (facing King's Road) side of the roof and Louis' is the larger higher one. The strange concrete ribbing structure in the lower right of the second image is the roof of the State (former Empire) Theatre.

Flash Point - Donnie Yen (2007) - Cumberland Road, Kowloon Tong

Back to Cumberland Road and this is where the Chinese gang boss's son goes to school. This is the threat the Vietnamese use against him to back off. This kindergarten was located at #19 but has since been turned back into a private residence.

Flash Point - Donnie Yen (2007) - The Sun's Group Centre, Wanchai

The meeting between the two gangs, where the Vietnamese gang blackmail the other group into leaving them alone and minding their own business, was shot on one of the upper floors of the Sun's Group Centre on the corner of Marsh Road where it joins Gloucester Road. 

Flash Point - Donnie Yen (2007) - West Island School, Pok Fu Lam

The scene where Ma is practising with the Police band appears to have been shot in one of the halls at (the old block of) West Island School. I suspect a bit of refurbishment has gone on since then though. If you look at this image on wikimedia, you can see that this location was on the top floor of the old block. The glass pyramid-shaped skylight in the rear appears to have been removed in modern images.

Flash Point - Donnie Yen (2007) - Lido Beach, Tsuen Wan

The cops meet up out on a beach, away from prying eyes. This is Lido Beach in Tsuen Wan and has been seen before on the blog (albeit in a film shot several years later). There's a string of beaches along this part of the coast and for many years they all suffered from severe water pollution and so swimming was not recommended. In an amusing moment in this film, you see a sign on the lifeguard tower that says as much - I suspect it was a real sign - and a bunch of oldies have had enough and jump in anyway.

Flash Point - Donnie Yen (2007) - Asia Golf Driving Range, Cheung Sha Wan

The golf driving range scene was filmed at the former Asia Golf Driving Range in Cheung Sha Wan. There were at least a couple of mid-town driving ranges in existence when I first moved to Hong Kong, including this one. The other one was in West Kowloon and was replaced by the (not-so) High Speed Rail station.

This one in Cheung Sha Wan was erected following the clearing of part of the old Cheung Sha Wan estate in 2001. The empty site was leased to Asia Golf for a few years before the Lai Tsui Court estate was constructed on the plot. If you go back to historical Streetview images from 2009 - 2011, you can still see the driving range.

Flash Point - Donnie Yen (2007) - Central, Hong Kong

Next up in the local film category is Donnie Yen's Flash Point. I know he's not flavour of the month these days but there are some good locations included. The film is set pre-handover and stars Yen as Inspector Ma, a maverick whose violent methods would probably be more acceptable in today's Hong Kong. He works with an undercover partner (Louis Koo) who has managed to infiltrate a rather ruthless Vietnamese gang led by three brothers (Collin Chou, Ray Lui and Xing Yu).

The film starts with some shots around Central as Ma drives around in his car. The first image shows afew of the buildings located in Central including Jardine House, IFC 2 and Exchange Square. The second twoimages show the former temporary fun fair that was located on the waterfront on an empty plot of land that became the new Govt headquarters and Tamar Park.

The Guiding Light - Bruce Lee (1953) - Unknown house in Kowloon Tong

This is the house where Tin-sang's biological father (Cheung Ying) lives, although no one realises this major connection in the film at the time.

I can't give you the exact location of this particular image, but I can tell you it was on the Kowloon Tong Estate. The reason I know this is because of the style of house you can see. These houses were a feature of every single road around the estate from the late 1920s and 1930s onwards when the estate was completed. Even Bruce's later house at 41 Cumberland Road was a remodelled version of this very type of house. Unfortunately very few exists today, so I very much doubt this one is still around.

I *think* the number on the wall outside says #31. Thirty something anyway? If I'm correct then this would mean it could only be Cumberland Road because it's the only road on the estate that goes beyond the twenties in house numbers. I won't speculate anymore because I could easily be wrong on this one, but I will say that the current #35 is an original house and has very similar, if not matching, design in the exterior stucco, which is another plus point for it being in this area. If anyone has better eyesight than me, please feel free to comment as it would be nice to narrow this one down.

The Guiding Light - Bruce Lee (1953) - St Teresa's Hospital, Kowloon

It appears that the hospital in which Tin-sang was born is St Teresa's. After Ah Ngo alights from the bus along Prince Edward Road, we are shown an establishing shot of the old hospital building. The hospital itself is still around but this old building has long gone and been replaced by a much bigger and more modern version. Coincidentally, this is also one of the hospitals where Lee was sent in later life following his May 10th 1973 collapse and subsequent revival at Baptist Hospital, Lee was sent to St Teresa's for further check ups to try and determine the cause.

The Guiding Light - Bruce Lee (1953) - Prince Edward Road West, Kowloon

Another exterior shot from this film is featured when Tin-sang's mum, Ah Ngo (Yung Siu-yi), returns to the hospital where she gave birth, to reclaim her son. She has finally managed to save enough money to pay her hospital bill, only to find that the doctor has already sent him away as an adoptee.

The scene starts with a view along Prince Edward Road (now Prince Edward Road West) as a bus approaches and Ah Ngo disembarks. It's the #1 bus and as far as I know this travels the same route today - west along Prince Edward Road. The background view looks as though we are located somewhere around Short Street. There's still a bus stop there today. It's possible that the British Army Sergeant (Staff/Colour Sgt?) in the first image was based at Argyle Street camp (the camp was located behind the camera on land adjacent to Kowloon Hospital). If anyone knows which Regiment was based there in 1953, then feel free to comment.

The Guiding Light - Bruce Lee (1953) - View across Kwun Chung

Continuing the early childhood movies of Bruce Lee,next up we have The Guiding Light (aka A Son is Born or 苦海明燈 in Chinese). Lee was 12 years old when he made this one and features prominently playing the central character of Tin-sang for much of the middle part of the story. It centres on an illegitimate boy born to a maid and her obnoxiously rich, married employer, who is then passed around like an unwanted gift as various people struggle with, or completely disregard, their responsibilities. He eventually finds refuge with a charitable family who run an eye clinic/women's finishing school and goes on to be a famed opthalmologist who manages to cure his friend's blindness.

Like other movies of the era, there are some outdoor location shots but they tend to be a bit fleeting. However, there is enough in the film to warrant coverage here so we'll start with one of the opening scenes of a view across Kwun Chung (the area people tend to mistakenly refer to these days as "Jordan" thanks to the name of the nearby MTR station). This image shows the cluster of tenements that were crammed into the blocks between Austin Road (on the left) and Jordan Road (off camera to the right). The large building at the far left was the northernmost block of the Canton Road Police Married Quarters. These were only just opened in February 1953 which means they would have been brand new when this film was made. They were demolished circa 1997 and replaced by "The Victoria Towers" residential development.

We Owe It to Our Children - Cheung Wood-yau (1955) - Castle Peak Road, Lai Chi Kok

The final location for this film is a look along Castle Peak Road in Lai Chi Kok. The clue here is the HK Mary Sing Shun Factory Building that was located at #495. I'm quite familiar with this area so to see it so empty (compared to today) is quite astonishing and is a good reminder of how much HK has filled up (with people and buidings) since the war. The factory beyond beyond was the huge "HK Spinners Factory Building" that stretched from Tung Chau Street to Tai Nan Street (now Tai Nan West Street). The Sing Shun name lives on today because the same site is now occupied by the Sing Shun Factory Building.

We Owe It to Our Children - Cheung Wood-yau (1955) - Kowloon Hospital, Argyle Street

Following her accident, the wife is taken to Kowloon Hospital for surgery and we get to see a couple of the old buildings. The great thing with Kowloon Hospital is that many of these older blocks are still utilised and I believe this is Blocks A & C as viewed from the main entrance. You can almost repeat the same view today on GoogleEarth.

We Owe It to Our Children - Cheung Wood-yau (1955) - Telephone House, Cameron Road

I referred to another building in my last post and although the official address of the Telephone Building was Nathan Road, the entrance we see below is on Cameron Road. This is the office where Cheung Wood-yau supposedly works and there is an establishing sequence that pans up the front of the building from street level before we see him sitting inside his (studio set) office. The building had a distinctive art deco rooftop clocktower. It was demolished sometime in the 1970s to make way for the faux temple style HSBC building that now stands on the plot. The screen shots are in reverse order (because the sequence starts at ground level and pans up) but the Autostitch panorama below it probably does a better job. At the time of filming I believe the building contained a UK department store called "Whiteaways" but I'm not sure how many floors it occupied.

Panoramic image below courtesy of Autostitch

We Owe It to Our Children - Cheung Wood-yau (1955) - Nathan Road, Tsim Sha Tsui

In a brief sequence we see the couple write a letter and then head to the local post box to post it. There's a big clue to the location of this post box in the background. The old building with the "Drugs" sign on it was located in an old block between Humphrey's Avenue and Cameron Road. The "Drugs" sign related to the A.S. Watson's Kowloon Dispensary that was based in the building at the time. This block was demolished circa 1958, just a few years after the film was made, and replaced by two separate buildings: Majestic House and Manson House. On the north side of Cameron Road is another, taller building we'll cover in the next post. The post box was most likely located on the corner of Nathan Road and Haiphong Road right in front of where the A1 exit for the MTR is. No doubt the exit is why it was removed because there's nothing there now. 

We Owe It to Our Children - Cheung Wood-yau (1955) - Jordan Road, Kwun Chung

This following image shows the view looking sort of northwest from Nathan Road area over towards the Yau Ma Tei typhoon shelter in the background (with Stonecutter Island just peeping out at the back).

Given the height of the image this could only have been filmed from the top of the Shamrock Hotel, which in 1955 was officially the tallest building in Kowloon. I'm not particularly familiar with the 1955 version of Jordan Road, which is the main road running across the middle of the frame, but I think the brightly lit restaurant may have been the precursor to whatever now stands on the corner of Temple Street. Just behind it I can make out what looks to be a gas holder belonging to the former Jordan Road Gas Works.

We Owe It to Our Children - Cheung Wood-yau (1955) - View over Cheung Sha Wan

Next up is another one of Bruce Lee's childhood movies, We Owe It to Our Children (aka 兒女債).
It was re-released in HK sometime ago with Lee as top-billing ("Brucesploitation" lives on in modern HK) even though his screen time is probably less than two minutes. The main star is Cheung Wood-yau (yes, Chor Yuen's father) who plays an office worker and expectant father until his wife (Tsi Law-lin) is involved in a car accident and loses the baby and her ability to have another one. 

Most of the story revolves around the couple's accommodation where they live in a cubicle room (the precursor to modern day sub-divided flats and cage rooms - most definitely still a thing in modern Hong Kong) in close proximity to a variety of neighbours. But there is also the odd exterior location shot which makes this film a bit more interesting for people like me. Lee, in a very brief role, plays the wayward son of one of their neighbours who appears at the beginning and end of the film.

First up is a view across Cheung Sha Wan from upon Tai Po Road. It takes an expert eye to see the detail but it's a similar angle to this 1954 view that recently cropped upon Gwulo. The view below was taken slightly further to the west, but shows in blurry detail the old army camp in Sham Shui Po as well as some of the old housing stock along Shun Ning Road. Believe it or not, some of the buildings I can see in the foreground below are still around.

The last image shows the view further west still - around Hing Wah and Cheung Wah Streets - with some of the old boatyards in view from around that time. I'm not sure if any of the building seen in that image are still around though. The angle of the view indicates that this shot was most likely snapped from where the Carlton Hotel used to stand up on Tai Po Road - although I don't think it had been built yet when this film was made.

The Seventh Sin - Eleanor Parker (1957) - Hung Shing Temple, Ap Lei Chau

Some more back projection for some scenes in the supposed rural location that Carol and Walter head to. In the background is a rather large temple building and this is the Hung Shing Temple on Ap Lei Chau. It's undergone a fair amount of remodelling recently, but you can see the general shape of the same side from this fleeting glimpse in The World of Suzie Wong, shot 3 years later.

Again, the various scenes involving the characters on-location were filmed with doubles (first image) and then footage of the same area was used for back projection for later scenes (next two images) involving the actors and dialogue. The final image below is another on-location shot filmed by the second unit.

Body doubles for the on-location filming

Back projection for the US-based actors

The Seventh Sin - Eleanor Parker (1957) - Connaught Road, Central

It's a bit blurry, but there is a scene whereby Carol and Walter head to the docks in a car in order to catch the boat to their rural destination. The scene is a mix of on-location footage that doesn't show the actors faces, and then a face shot (of Eleanor Parker, as she turns to camera) using a back projection of the same footage. The location itself was next to the pier where the Alexander Grantham Fireboat was based. I believe this was at the Government pier on the waterfront where Wing Wo Street meets Connaught Road.

These first two images show the Govt pier and the fireboat moored there

The car stops just past the Govt pier and "Carol" walks to the waterfront.
Of course, this was a stand-in for Eleanor Parker, who wasn't in HK.

This next shot uses back projection as Eleanor Parker turns to camera.

Back to the stand-in as Carol walks to board the boat

Following the boarding of their transport, the next bit of footage shows the boat as it pulls away from the waterfront. This is still the area between the old Govt pier (behind camera) and the longer "Custodian Wharf" that can be seen in the background. This was once the Osaka Shosen Kaisha pier but, I believe, was taken into possession by the HK Govt following the defeat of Japan in WW2.    

We finish with a final shot of Carol (Eleanor Parker) on board the boat transport as she ponders her life. Again, Parker wasn't in Hong Kong and this was a back projected studio scene. The big building behind Parker's head was the Central Fire Station.