Beyond Hypothermia - Jacklyn Wu Chien-lien (1996) - Kimberley Street, Tsim Sha Tsui

The majority of the finale appears to take place along Kimberley Street in Tsim Sha Tsui. In fact, the big car park where everyone is shot up was located on the site later turned into the Empire Hotel Kowloon.

Beyond Hypothermia - Jacklyn Wu Chien-lien (1996) - Mabuhay Restaurant, Minden Avenue

Another eating establishment appears in this movie as Shu (we now know her name) is lured to Mabuhay Restaurant in TST under false pretences. She believes she is undertaking another contract, but it turns out it was a trap placed by the South Korean killer.

This restaurant went out of business around the time I moved to Hong Kong and was located at 11 Minden Avenue. The space is currently filled by a Japanese restaurant.

Beyond Hypothermia - Jacklyn Wu Chien-lien (1996) - Cambo Thai Restaurant, Kowloon City

The Korean tracks down the assassin's handler (played by Shirley Wong) and tries to find out who killed his boss. This meeting takes place at the Cambo Thai Restaurant on Nga Tsin Long Road in Kowloon City.

Beyond Hypothermia - Jacklyn Wu Chien-lien (1996) - Times Square, Causeway Bay

When the South Korean enforcer arrives in Hong Kong, he is met in one of the Times Square offices by some local contacts who provide him with some weapons. The scene starts off with a view out towards Happy Valley and Morrison Hill Road/Canal Road Flyover.

Beyond Hypothermia - Jacklyn Wu Chien-lien (1996) - Minden Avenue, Tsim Sha Tsui

On one of her visits to the noodle stall, Long surprises her by taking her to the top of his building where he has installed a swing set on the roof terrace. The building is supposed to be located next to the noodle stall but when we get to the roof it's quite obvious we have crossed the harbour and are adjacent to the Blackhead Point Signal tower (centre left, first image). Where the "Harbour Pinnacle" building now stands on Minden Avenue was a row of low-rise tenement buildings, and it was on the roof of one of these that this scene was filmed. The buildings have long gone but you can get a glimpse via this old post. In the top image on that link, if you look immediately below the signal tower you will see the row of buildings in question.

Beyond Hypothermia - Jacklyn Wu Chien-lien (1996) - Centre Street, Sai Ying Pun

The next film is another one of those local films that actually qualify for my (very loose) definition of an "international" movie courtesy of it being a Hong Kong/South Korea co-production. It also appears to hold the esteemed title of being the very first Milkyway production.

The story revolves around a nameless female assassin played by Jacklyn Wu, who falls for a humble noodle stall owner, Long (Sean Lau). In between contracts she stops by his nearby stall and eats his noodles and he slowly starts to anticipate her random reappearances. Eventually though, her work catches up with her as she is spotted killing a Korean businessman, whose bodyguard takes it upon himself to seek revenge and he follows her back to Hong Kong.

Long's noodle stall is located at the very top of Centre Street in Sai Ying Pun. The area where the stall was is now unrecoginsable due to the (recent - circa 2015?) construction of some escalators. However, some elements remain including the view of the harbour and the assassin's apartment block (#47-49 High Street). The Google marker keeps snapping to 35 Bonham Road, but the actual location is the adjacent section of Centre Street.

Black Mask - Jet Li (1996) - Hong Kong Cemetery, Happy Valley

The scene where Inspector Shek goes to put flowers on the graves of his fallen colleagues was shot along a row of Commonwealth war graves (you can tell by the shape of the headstones) located in the Hong Kong Cemetery. It's here where he and Chui Chik finally go "mano a mano" and Shek realises he is way out of his league.

Black Mask - Jet Li (1996) - Wing Loi Industrial Building, Kwai Chung

The roof top of Black Mask's hideout, where he and Tracy (Karen Mok) fight off Yeuk Lan (Françoise Yip), was shot on top of the Wing Loi Industrial Building in Kwai Chung. The steel framework and pipes are still a feature of the roof and in the film we get a fairly decent view of the surrounding area including Wonderland Villas upon the distant hill, the nearby buildings of the cemetery columbarium and Kingsford Industrial Building.

Wonderland Villas top right, the twin blocks of Kingsford Indusrial Building on the left

Kwai Chung Park in the background

The buildings are part of Kwai Chung Crematorium

Black Mask - Jet Li (1996) - Kiu Ha Road, Shatin

Following their escape from the hospital, the scene where Yeuk Lan turns on Chui Chik and stabs him was filmed under the Tate's Cairn Highway on the aptly named Kiu Ha Road (which literally means "under the bridge road").

Black Mask - Jet Li (1996) - British Military Hospital, Kowloon

The hospital sequence in this film was shot at the former British Military Hospital in Kowloon. Really old readers (many thanks for hanging around for so long, and returning following the accidental deletion) may remember that I first identified this building as a filming location for an episode of Yellowthread Street called Middleman. This post led to a comment (and subsequent email) from stuntman and stunt coordinator, Jude Poyer, who gave me a few examples of other films that had used this place. One of them being Black Mask, which his friend Mike Lambert worked on as one of the bad guys. You can see Jude's comment at the bottomof the Yellowthread Street link I provided above. So here I am, ten years after Jude's comment, finally getting to cover Black Mask. The hospital site was later developed into the "Parc Palais" residential complex.

Black Mask - Jet Li (1996) - Clearwater Bay School, Clearwater Bay

It's quite apt that this place should be used as a film location because it stands in exactly the same spot that this temple set used to occupy back in the 1960s. This is location where Chui Chik takes Yeuk Lan after she has been released by the police for trying to kill King Kau (Anthony Wong). He then gets attacked by King Kau's gang before Shek (aka Rock) turns up to "save" him.

Black Mask - Jet Li (1996) - Kwung Tong Promenade

I'm finally back in Hong Kong and the next location is from the scene where one of the drug kings, Ricky Tai (Henry Fong Ping) - I seem to remember Rush Hour 2 reused that name for John Lone's character - is on his way to a gang meeting at the beginning of the film. It was partially filmed along what is now the beautified Kwun Tong promenade. It wasn't so tidy back then and you can see all the floating construction rigs at the waterfront on the left hand side. The same location was seen in La Moustache.

Black Mask - Jet Li (1996) - Marine Police Harbour Division Headquarters

The police station where Inspector Shek (Sean Lau) is based is actually the Marine Police Harbour HQ, located on the waterfront in Shau Kei Wan. It's basically like a beefed-up version of the standard ferry piers.

Black Mask - Jet Li (1996) - Jardines Lookout

I'm currently on the tail-end of a month-long sojourn to Europe (currently in Finland), but whilst in London visited my favourite Oxfam shop in Strutton Ground where I have picked up some bargains (books, music and DVDs) over the past few years. This time I managed to grab myself a copy of the English dub of Black Mask, starring Jet Li. 

The film is about a former member of a group of crack, bio-engineered, soldiers, known as 701 Squadron. They're a group of mercernaries who have decided to go their own way, under the control of their commander (a really creepy looking Patrick Lung), and remove the drug kings in Hong Kong so they can step in as the go-betweens for the South American cartels and greater China. Black Mask (Li) has already gone his own way and now works in a library to forget about his past, until his cop friend (Sean Lau) is put in danger when he investigates the drug killings.

The opening shot of the film is a helicopter shot (no drones in those days) over the peak of Jardines Lookout on Hong Kong island. Apparently, the helicopter was originally hired to do some close-up shots of the Bank of China tower but the plan was abandoned when the filmmakers thought they might get into trouble, so they settled for something a bit more discreet. 

Cracker: White Ghost - Robbie Coltrane (1996) - 31 Barker Road, The Peak

As mentioned previously, #31 Barker Road was used a few years after it was last seen on Shadow of China. For those who remember watching Cracker: White Ghost there is the scene when Fitz and crew head to speak to a rather forthright gweilo businessman played by David Bradley. Bradley will be familiar to anyone who has seen him as Mr Filch in the Harry Potter films and is currently most well-known for his role as Abraham Setrakian in The Strain.

The building behind Robbie Coltrane (another Harry Potter connection there) in the lower photo is Barker Villa at #41 Barker Road.

The driveway is fairly recognisable but it looks like the house underwent some ill-advised cladding work since Shadow of China was filmed there, or perhaps the stucco was removed to reveal the brick underneath? Whichever it was I don't think it enhanced the look. You can compare the two shots below to see how the place changed in the space of a few years.

Shadow of China

Cracker: White Ghost

Cracker: White Ghost - Robbie Coltrane (1996) - Various aerial shots around Hong Kong

Finishing up Cracker: White Ghost for the time being (at least while I still grapple with some of the harder to identify locations) with this small post showing some of the location seen from the vantage point of the helicopter whilst it's trying to follow the killer.

The first shot is an aerial view of the Food and Environmental Hygiene Department HQ. At least that is the building's use now, but considering that the FEHD didn't exist in 1996 - it was created when the Urban Council was disbanded (it was the first volley in the HK Govt's war on democracy) and the councils former responsibilities were split between the FEHD and the LCSD (Leisure and Cultural Services Dept) - I am not sure what it was before hand. I'm sure some of the longer-term HK residents can provide that information. It's the low-rise building on the right. The buildings next to it are (from r to l) the Victoria Centre and the Sea View Estate.

A little further along the Hong Kong Island coastline provides us with our next bird's eye view over Quarry Bay and the two shiny buildings we can see centre screen are two of the office towers of Cityplaza in Tai Koo Shing.

We move back a bit now and over to the HK-side entrance to the Eastern Harbour Tunnel as Dennis' car heads over to Kowloon side. The shot is in B&W because we are supposedly viewing it through the camera on the chopper.

We move over to Kowloon side now and can see a rather difficult to identify junction, however as the camera pans right, following one of the taxis, it becomes obvious that we are looking at the major junction where Austin Road intersects with Chatham Road South. The giveaway is a brief view of the curved staircase outside of St Mary's Canossian College along Austin Road.

And finally we finish with a quick view over Container Terminal's 8 and 7 as the helicopter hovers above the area around Stonecutters Island. Actually, the angle here is quite low as you can see from the distant hillside buildings (in the northern Lai Chi Kok/southern Kwai Chung area) and it wouldn't surprise me to find out the camera crew had simply driven over to Stonecutters (because by then it had joined the Kowloon peninsula) and plonked the camera on one of its small hillocks.