Mad Mission 3: Our Man from Bond Street - Sam Hui (1984) - New World Centre, Tsim Sha Tsui

Not the most aesthetically pleasing of buildings, but the New World Centre was demolished a few years back and replaced by something arguably much worse (in my opinion anyway). This is where the diamond exhibition is being held and where Kingkong and cohorts, dressed as Santas, perform their rather ambitious heist (despite getting the wrong gemstone). The interior was a studio set but there are a few shots on location of the area, including from the roof, that are worth including here.

Outside the main entrance with the (now) Regent Hotel behind

On the roof

Sheraton Hotel poking up into view on the right

Regent Hotel at the rear,New World Centre on the left

Although the NWC has gone,those steps are still there

Mad Mission 3: Our Man from Bond Street - Sam Hui (1984) - Mitsukoshi Department Store

Older Hong Kongers will remember when Causeway Bay contained several Japanese Department stores: Daimaru, Matsuzakaya, Sogo and Mitsukoshi. Only one of these remains,SOGO, and that's only because its Japanese owners sold the name to the Chinese businessmen who bought the company.

Mitsukoshi was located in what was 500 Hennessy Road, the Hennessy Centre. This is the department store where Albert/Kodojack (Karl Maka) goes with his wife Nancy (Sylvia Chang) and suddenly realises how he was tricked by Sam/Kingkong using a pair of fake arms.

The store closed in 2006 after it was announced that the Hennessy Centre was going to be knocked down and redevloped into the current Hysan Place.

Mad Mission 3: Our Man from Bond Street - Sam Hui (1984) - Duddell Street, Central

After some bits I can't identify, we next see Kingkong as he skateboards over a bunch of cars parked along Duddell Street. At the end of the road, in the top image, you can just make out the words 置地廣場 which is the Chinese name for the Landmark Building. The last image shows Queen's Road Central with Ice House Street just at the back. I believe most of Duddell Street has been redeveloped since this time. Citibank Tower was a replacement to the original National City Bank of New York Building, a rather grand structure with large columns that fronted onto Queen's Road Central.

Mad Mission 3: Our Man from Bond Street - Sam Hui (1984) - Glenealy, Central

Given the geographical liberties taken by the car chase in Royal Warriors, I think we can forgive Tsui Hark for transporting Sam Hui from Canton Road in Kowloon over to Glenealy on Hong Kong Island at the click of his fingers, because this is where we see Kingkong next as he heads downhill on his skateboard, with the diamond in his possession. The building on the left of frame is St Paul's Church. Actually, we saw a similar concept in Legacy of Rage just a couple of years later as the drug courier in that film went down the same street on a pair of roller skates.

Mad Mission 3: Our Man from Bond Street - Sam Hui (1984) - Former Government Offices, Canton Road

Despite getting ready over on Hong Kong Island, the building used for the heist appears to be the Government Offices on Canton Road in Kwun Chung. These were demolished around 2010 and replaced by (as with everything old in Hong Kong) a residential development (Grand Austin). We get a few shots of the building as well as the related boat berths on the harbourfront. This dock was located just a little bit north of the Fire Brigade Dock seen in The Sand Pebbles.

It looks like pretty much all of the ground-level shots from this sequence were also filmed here. The final image shows the old entrance, located on the southern end of the main block.

Mad Mission 3: Our Man from Bond Street - Sam Hui (1984) - Wanchai Ferry Pier

When Kingkong sploshes into the water during the heist, he does it from a crane next to the old Wanchai Ferry Pier. Of course this is the old pier that was decommissioned when the Central to Wanchai bypass was constructed. The water around the pier was reclaimed to create land for the underpass to go through so if Sam Hui were to repeat this move today he would break his legs.

Mad Mission 3: Our Man from Bond Street - Sam Hui (1984) - Sun Hung Kai Centre, Wanchai

It looks as though quite a lot of the first heist sequence - as Kingkong leaves Kodojack in the restaurant with Agent 701 - was filmed on and around the Sun Hung Kai Centre in Wanchai. The first images show the scene when Kodojack is dropped off in front by a taxi. Then when Kingkong has given him the slip, we see him setting for his raid on the east side of the podium roof, and then moving around to the (north) harbourfront as he rigs his cables.

Mad Mission 3: Our Man from Bond Street - Sam Hui (1984) - Pottinger Street, Central

Speaking of Pottinger Street, this is where Graves' recorded message decides to self destruct, so in a panic the rickshaw puller pushes the rickshaw down the hill to get away from the explosion. This scene reminded me very much of Jackie Chan's rickshaw scene in Canton and Lady Rose although it's possible this scene itself was a bit of a riff on the one from Revenge of the Pink Panther as Kato rides an out of control Dairy Farm vending bike down the same street.

Mad Mission 3: Our Man from Bond Street - Sam Hui (1984) - Hollywood Road, Central

This one was a bit easy thanks to the very obvious address on the "Kim's Gallery" signboard (it says 5 Hollywood Road in case you can't quite read it). This whole block is now taken up by the Chinachem Hollywood Centre. That's the top of Pottinger Street in the last couple of images.

Mad Mission 3: Our Man from Bond Street - Sam Hui (1984) - Aberdeen Promenade

I've included Graves' dropping off point as a separate place because it is somewhere that appears to have been part of a temporary road that has since been redeveloped into Aberdeen Promenade. As of the last Streetview (2016) the restaurant pontoons were still there (see here), but whether they are still there following the demise of the Jumbo,I don't know. I will perhaps make the effort to go and find out at some point. Anyway,the location is in front of where the ABBA Housing development was built.

As you can see on film, there was a little cul-de-sac style turnaround here, and this is where he finds his enthsiastic rickshaw puller.

Mad Mission 3: Our Man from Bond Street - Sam Hui (1984) - Aberdeen Harbour

Peter Graves (yes, that Peter Graves of the Mission Impossible TV series) plays a CIA agent for no other reason than to add some international gravitas to the film. It worked because Cinema City were able to secure some very lucrative international distribution deals as a result. He was so expensive (by Hong Kong standards) that all they could afford to get him to do was sit in a rickshaw in various parts of town and do a little comedy thing with a self-destructing tape message. We first see him as he is standing on a junk as it is towed through the middle of Aberdeen Harbour.

Mad Mission 3: Our Man from Bond Street - Sam Hui (1984) - Pearl Court, Beacon Hill

And so, onto the next movie. This time I am, once again, looking at a Tsui Hark movie as part of my current side project. Mad Mission 3 (a.k.a Aces Go Places 3) concerns Sam Hui's jewel thief character, King Kong, becoming embroiled in a plot to steal the crown jewels. It's basically a big huge James Bond parody and even includes a shady British agent of the same name (played by Connery-era lookalike, Jean Mersant).

Kong is in Paris for a heist but is waylayed and eventually kidnapped by said agent who asks him to help get the Crown Jewels back from Hong Kong on behalf of the Queen (played by the same French actress, Huguette Funfrock, who played her in Bons Baisers de Hongkong).

In reality he's being duped to do the thievery on behalf of Bond who is, in fact, an international jewel thief and is trying to sell the crown jewels to an Arab Sheik. Cue lots of really naff humour, some quite laugh-out-loud slapstick and lots of truly poor special effects. Apparently, when Tsui saw the finished product he was truly miffed at how crap it looked but it still went on to be the top earning film of 1984 and broke the HK box office record that year.

Anyway, once the story moves back to Hong Kong, the first thing we see is Karl Maka's Police character returning home.The home in question is not far from me in fact. It's Pearl Court, on Rhondda Road in the Beacon Hill area of Kowloon Tong. It's next door to Beverly Heights, which is famous for being the place where Bruce Lee died.