Company - Aja Devgan (2002) - The Peak Viewing Tower

A couple of scenes were shot on the roof terrace of the Peak Viewing Tower. The first shot is just a rather disjointed one of Mallik smoking a cigarette and there's no evidence that he is on the tower other than the angles of the buildings in the background which perfectly match a later scene as Chandu goes there with his girlfriend for some refreshments.

Company - Ajay Devgan (2002) - Fenwick Pier Street Flyover

Another car shot, this time on the flyover that connects Fenwick Pier Street with Harcourt Road. The curved glass building in the background is the CITIC tower building which I featured not so long ago for Hitman.

Company - Ajay Devgan (2002) - Hung Hing Road Flyover

A couple of shots of the group as they make their way from the airport to their hotel. These images were taken as their car drives along the Hung Hing Road Flyover in Wanchai.

Company - Ajay Devgan (2002) - Aberdeen Harbour

Mallik and friends spends the day on a boat discussing business. This was all shot inside the confines of Aberdeen Harbour.

Company - Ajay Devgan (2002) - Kau Sai San Tsuen, Sai Kung

Chandu and his girlfriend have rented a small house out in Hebe Haven in Sai Kung. It took a bit of hunting but it looks like this property is #110 Kai Sau San Tsuen (though the Govt mapping website lists the address as 110 Pak Sha Wan). The open view down to the harbour from the front window though is now obscured because in the years since the film was made, another house has been built right smack bang in front of it.

This is also where Chandu and his girlfriend have to flee from when Mallik sends his goons after them.

Sadly, the Google marker facility on Blogger is so poor that the house doesn't even show up on the map, so instead I have tagged the carpark you can see on the right in the image below and you can try and work it out for yourself from there. On an aside, the Geoinfo map provided by the Govt mapping service has an updated 3D view of the whole territory, much better than what is currently available on GoogleEarth, so for places like Sai Kung (which has no 3D at all on GE) this is a really useful tool, although it takes a while to load the 3D.

Company - Ajay Devgan (2002) - The Regent Hotel, Tsim Sha Tsui

As you are probably sick of hearing from me by now, the Intercontinental Hotel in Kowloon has been rebranded to The Regent following the IHG acquisition of Regent Hotels. This hotel really does seem to be the most popular one for film companies coming to Hong Kong. Even this same suite with the direct rooftop access has been used multiple times now. In Company, this is where Mallik sets up shop with his cronies, leaving Chandu and his girlfriend to go and rent a place elsewhere. A significant amount of the Hong Kong scenes were shot in the suite and adjacent terrace.

Company - Ajay Devgan (2002) - Hong Kong International Airport, Chek Lap Kok

Shot in 2002, Company is a Hindi-language Indian film, supposedly based on some real life gangster shenanigans, that centres around the relationship of a major gangster, Mallik (Ajay Devgan) and his trusted associate, Chandu (Vivek Oberoi). I wish there was an English S/T of this film because it really was good, despite me not understanding the language. If you want to watch the version I saw, then you can find it on this Youtube channel.

Anyway, Mallik and Chandu move to Hong Kong and plan more of their nefarious work from here until a contract they have been hired to carry out causes dissension between the two men. Chandu wants to abort the elaborate vehicle hijack but Mallik carries it out anyway. More than half the film has already passed at this point and Chandu flees as Mallik tries to get him and his girlfriend eliminated. What follows is about 30 minutes of tit-for-tat killing as the Indian police standby and let it all play out.

The first Hong Kong scenes we see is as the gangsters arrive at Hong Kong Airport with their entourage.

Former Marine Police HQ - Now and Then

Here's a recent set of pictures I took at the Marine Police HQ. If I was a more diligent location documentarian I would be doing this for all the locations I post about but the problem is that I have over 3000 location posts on this blog so it's a bit overwhelming.

Anyway, here are some rough comparisons for a few locations around the former Marine Police HQ. It's now a boutique hotel that has gone through a variety of names, the current one being 'FWD House 1881'. I have no idea where the 1881 comes from because the building was built in 1884 but I suspect it may be due to the '4' bit being a bit unlucky (so many '4's are dropped in HK because it sounds similar to the word for 'death').

The first images are from Soldier of Fortune (1955). Below is the view looking west along the front of the building. The building was constructed on a hill and when the area was 'revitalised', the whole front of the hill, including where Ronald Chow and Michael Rennie are walking, was excavated to make room for shops. By the 80s, that whole area was covered in mature tree growth, all of it chopped down to make way for jewellery stores no one visits (and hence why many of the shops are now empty).

1955 v 2024

1955 v 2024

The image above of Michael Rennie was shot at the eastern end of the front facade. It looks as though there was a partition wall to the right of him that was removed at some point.

Next up are some relatively more recent film grabs, although they show the place before it was renovated and still had its white/light blue colour scheme. The image below is from Takeshi Miike's 2002 Dead or Alive: Final. The top image below shows (what were) the stables on the west side of the compound. I believe this building has since been converted into a Sushi/Sashimi restaurant.

And finally a location that was a bit harder to get a decent compariosn of because of the time ball machinery that has been reinstalled smack bang in the middle of the room. The old time ball tower, located at the front of the former Marine Police compound, had a metal ball on a spike that was dropped every day at 1pm so that ships in the harbour could calibrate their onboard clocks to allow more accurate calculation of longitude. This responsibility was later (1908) passed on to the tower at Blackhead Point/Signal Hill. As you can see from the screengrab, the mechanism for the time ball was absent in 2002, so I can only assume it was in storage somewhere and was reinstalled when the whole compound underwent its renovation and was reopened back in 2009.

Infernal Affairs - Andy Lau (2002) - Chai Wan North No.2 Fresh Water Service Reservoir, Chai Wan

The final grave scenes in the movie almost look as though they were shot on the roof of a building with some astroturf laid down, but it turns out that the grass is real and belongs to the Chai Wan North No.2 Fresh Water Service Reservoir which sits on the north slope of Sai Wan hill (the same hill that has the battery at the top and the not-so-long ago mentioned Lei Yue Mun Holiday Park). It's possibly a popular filming spot because it has its own entry on the film services office website.

Infernal Affairs - Andy Lau (2002) - Sunshine Kowloon Bay Cargo Centre, Kowloon Bay

The warehouse where Sam (Eric Tsang) does all his nefarious business appears to be one of the crime boss's biggest secrets and it's here where Lau Kin-ming (Andy Lau) puts his plan into action to free himself from his criminal past. The establishing shot for the warehouse uses the Sunshine Kowloon Bay Cargo Centre, with its distinctive spiral entry/exit ramp, but I am not so sure the interiors were filmed there - after finding some shots from the inside of the place, it doesn't appear to match.

Infernal Affairs - Andy Lau (2002) - Kowloon Bay MTR Station, Kowloon

As Anthony Wong heads out for his clandestine meeting with Tong Leung, he is followed to Kowloon Bay MTR station by one of the internal affairs detectives who has been tasked to find out where he is heading.

Infernal Affairs - Andy Lau (2002) - Former Government Building, Prince Edward Road East

I mentioned that the internal police station scenes, at least those of Andy Lau's office, were filmed somewhere other than Ngau Tau Kok Police Station. The building, whose name and purpose I have yet to discover, was located where "The Latitude" (a residential development) now stands at the corner of Prince Edward Road East and Choi Hung Road. All I know is that it was a Government building and was most likely vacated for demolition at the time, which is why the production company were able to use it.

Look carefully through the window behind Lau in the screen caps below and you can see the curved slip road that takes traffic from Choi Hung Road down onto the south bound section of Prince Edward Road East at the northern boundary of the former Kai Tak site. What I can't say for sure is when this building was demolished - sometime around the mid-00s - and whether or not it was also used for the other interior police station scenes (I'm guessing yes).

If anyone knows what the building was used for, please feel free to send a mail or leave a comment.

Infernal Affairs - Andy Lau (2002) - Ngau Tau Kok Police Station, Kowloon Bay

The exterior shots for the main police station were filmed outside the real life Ngau Tau Kok police station on Siu Yip Street. There were a few scenes filmed here including the scene where Anthony Wong leaves the station on the fateful day and is followed by one of the other cops, but also a night scene later in the film when Tony Leung does a runner after realising who the mole is. The interior scenes for Andy Lau's office were filmed in a totally different building which I shall cover in the next post.

Infernal Affairs - Andy Lau (2002) - Golden Gateway Multiplex Cinema, Tsim Sha Tsui

Chan follows his boss to the cinema in order to try and catch whoever it is who he is meeting. As the contact leaves he is silhouetted against the screen so an identification is not possible. As a result, he tries to see who it is by following him outside. This sequence was filmed at the (now closed) Golden Gateway cinema along Canton Road in Tsim Sha Tsui. Spot the advert for K19: The Widowmaker behind Tony Leung in the top image.

Infernal Affairs - Andy Lau (2002) - Broadcast Drive, Kowloon

The establishing shot for Andy Lau's home/apartment was done on Broadcast Drive in Kowloon. The high rise building that is at the end of the street (1, Broadcast Drive) has since been demolished and replaced by a new development called "One Mayfair" but the property walls that can be seen in the first screen cap are still the same on either side of the road today.