Another pandemic find that I neglected to post due to the fog in my brain at the time is this old property up on Fei Ngo Shan Road. It was previously located at #10 Fei Ngo Shan Road and can be seen as Michael Scott (Stewart Granger) narrowly avoids being assassinated by a man pretending to be blind whose white stick is actually a disguised gun. The failed assassin is then killed himself and the perpetrators flee in a car down Fei Ngo Shan Road.
The old house used in the film was demolished and redeveloped sometime in the mid-90s but the neighbouring house (#8), which makes a brief appearance as part of the backdrop, is still around (or at least was at the time of my initial discovery) and doesn't appear to have changed very much over the years - an impressive feat given the sometimes dizzying speed of redevelopment in Hong Kong.
4 comments:
Wanted to comment on this post before my computer problems. Wasn't the house in the 6th & 7th screencaps No. 5? It looks like there is a pagoda on the roof in the caps, which is also visible in old maps and aerials. The site was overgrown by '93, but whatever development that went up didn't even last 25-years because it was demolished by 2017 and turned into No. 3 Fei Ngo Shan Road.
There were some truly impressive houses up here. The property where Fei Ngo Shan Road meets Fei Wan Road looked very futuristic and was already standing in 1963. From above, it looked the Elrod House and Bob Hope House, both in Palm Springs and designed by John Lautner.
The compound at the top of Lam Ha Road is still there, just up the road from Customs Pass. It seems several more houses were built on the lawns of the original Customs Pass houses.
By the way, I noticed Just Heroes will be on RTHK Channel 31 Saturday February 22 at 21:35.
Hi Rodney, yes the house in the background with the pavilion is where #3 now stands. Was it #5 before? I couldn't say because the maps I have don't appear to have the house numbers. That futuristic one does look very cool even if only from an aerial image - looks like several cantilevered semi circular decks. Really and truly there has never been a really good analysis of HK's older private architecture. Richard Wong does a good job on FLICKR with his recreations (I think he has published several books) but they tend to feature public buildings. I'd love to see a book on all these old houses but alas they all seem to be lost to time. Phil
Phil, you are correct. I looked at the old maps again and they don't have the house number. For some reason I thought one of the maps did. What I am sure about is that seven-houses were sold in 2011, when the address was still No. 5. A developer knocked them down, rebuilt five-houses instead and renumbered.
thanks for confirming Rodney.
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