Aegan - Ajith Kumar (2008) - Cyberport Waterfront Park

Shiva catches up with Iqbal at the waterfront near Cyberport. According to images on GoogleEarth, the two benches and gazebos where their interaction takes place are part of the local furniture and not film props as I thought they might be. Anyway, that's the last post for this film, but I expect to cover more Indian  films in the future.
 

Aegan - Ajith Kumar (2008) - West Kowloon

Shiva manages to waylay the kidnap vehicle at the waterfront on the then undeveloped West Kowloon Reclamation. The weird shaped building with the yellow fins is actually part of the ventilation infrastructure for the West Kowloon Harbour Tunnel that passes underneath. Note the yet-to-be-completed ICC building at the back. Wiki tells me these Hong Kong scenes were done between 14th-24th January 2008.

Aegan - Ajith Kumar (2008) - Information Crescent, Cyberport

The immediate shot after the kidnapping is of the getaway van driving along Information Crescent (I challenge you to find a shittier named road in Hong Kong - answers in the comments please) near the junction with Cyberport Road. We'll be back this way later for the sequence's finale.

Aegan - Ajith Kumar (2008) - Salisbury Road, Tsim Sha Tsui

Much of the next minute or so is flashing shots of the van driving along a couple of roads, but the different angles and quick edits makes it feel like they shot in many more places. In reality it was just two locations: Information Crescent in Cyberport and Salisbury Road in Tsim Sha Tsui.

Aegan - Ajith Kumar (2008) - East Tsim Sha Tsui Podium Garden

In a first for the blog I have finally tracked down a copy of the Indian film, Aegan, which has been on my to do list for quite some time, and then subsequently forgotten about. Luckily someone has uploaded it to Youtube in HD and I can now look at the Hong Kong-shot scenes that occur at the beginning of the movie. Don't ask me to explain the plot, I'm not a big fan of Indian cinema - there's just too much singing and dancing for my liking - but in general it's about some sort of supercop called Shiva (Ajith Kumar) who is sent back to school to protect a VIP whilst also looking for a wanted criminal (I think). I have no idea what the Hong Kong scene has to do with the main plot other than to showcase Shiva's expert fighting skills as he takes out a HK-based Indian gangster called Iqbal.

Anyway, the sequence kicks off with the kidnapping of a Chinese businessman at the podium garden in East TST. This place was repurposed as the "Garden of Stars" whilst the "Avenue of Stars" was being refurbished, but has since returned to just a normal ornamental HK-style open space (garden is always a very generous term for these places in HK).

Seventh Moon - Amy Smart (2008) - Shek Lo, Fanling

The deserted house where all the weird villagers have congregated whilst they make their human sacrificial offerings to the demons is actually quite a famous abandoned house in Fanling. If you have ever visited the Lung Yeuk Tau Heritage Trail in Fanling then, although not part of he trail, it is one of the first places you pass. The place has had a big question mark over it for many years and I haven't ben that way for many years, so I don't even know if it is still around. It would be a shame if it was demolished, but this is Hong Kong.

I'll have to leave it there for this film because much of it is filmed at night with shaky camera effect (remember it is the director of The Blair Witch Project that made this film) so many places may remain unidentifiable for a long time to come.

Seventh Moon - Amy Smart (2008) - Lei Uk, Ta Kwu Ling

Although they are exploring Kowloon City, it turns out that the film makers want us believe that they are actually having fun way out in rural China somewhere - no doubt this is why the Kowloon scenes are filmed in close up. Anyway, all of a sudden they are met by their driver, played by Dennis Chan, in a small village up close to the real border with China. It's called Lei Uk and is reached via the Ping Che Road in Ta Kwu Ling (the closest main town is Fanling/Sheung Shui). So this is where they are picked up and where their journey is about to take a turn for the worse.

Seventh Moon - Amy Smart (2008) - Kowloon City Wet Market, Kowloon

After wandering around the outdoor shops the pair also head into the nearby wet market to have a wander around.

Seventh Moon - Amy Smart (2008) - Hau Wong Road, Kowloon City

More scenes around Kowloon City as the pair move to the northern part of Hau Wong Road. The "Just Meat" shop closed soon after this film was shot. It was located at 45B Hau Wong Road opposite the wet market.

Seventh Moon - Amy Smart (2008) - Nga Tsin Long Road, Kowloon City

Next up, Seventh Moon, directed by Eduardo Sanchez (the guy responsible for The Blair Witch Project) this film was shot in Hong Kong, but to be honest seeing as most of it was shot at night it really could have been shot anywhere. Other than the odd bit of rural new Territories structures there is nothing here that justifies coming all the way over to Hong Kong to shoot. It has its moments but for me the old shaky camera technique just annoyed me rather than add anything to the tension.

The story revolves around a newly married couple who are in "China" for their honeymoon and are met by a driver (played by Dennis Chan - not his finest hour) who is going to take them to see the husband's family somewhere in rural China. However, it is all a ruse and the driver is in fact taking them to be sacrificed to some bald-headed demons (plenty of those in HK, I'm one of them!) on behalf of his tormented village.

Anyway, the action starts off with the couple enjoying themselves at a local festival. This opening shot is actually in Kowloon City, along Nga Tsin Long Road. The shophouse in the background of the second image stands (or maybe stood...I haven't been down here for a while to check if it still exists) at  #24.

The Dark Knight - Christian Bale (2008) - View Over Central, Hong Kong

My original screencaps for this film were done from a TV screen so the quality wasn't good enough to include this rather impressive helicopter (or perhaps drone) shot over Central.

The Centre, where all the lobby shots were filmed, can be seen on the left of screen. But the buildings used for the actual office from where Batman kidnaps the crooked Chinese accountant, Lau, were the towers of the International Finance Centre. So Batman launches from 2 IFC (centre right, lower picture) and grabs Lau from the smaller IFC tower (centre screen).

Largo Winch - Tomer Sisley (2008) - Central Walkways, Central

Following the car chase, we get the foot chase with Largo running around the walkways of Central as he tries to evade the baddies. It ends with a rather impressive Jackie Chan style leap onto the roof of a passing bus. There's a few recognisable sections of the walkways, such as...

The steps next to Jardine House

The main walkway from Chater House

The newer glass-covered walkway leading from 

Worldwide House to Exchange Square

The IFC1-side entrance

...and finally the same walkway as the previous snap (leading to IFC1) where the jump to the bus takes place. The small building left of centre is the Connaught Road Station Building.

Largo Winch - Tomer Sisley (2008) - Ice House Street, Central

The car chase ends in Ice House Street where it is then replaced by a good old foot chase running through the walkways of Central. But before we get there, here are the Ice House Street grabs. Streetview gives us reasonable matches on the camera angles.

Looking north towards Jardine House

Underneath the walkway to Alexandra House

Looking back the other way towards the south

Largo Winch - Tomer Sisley (2008) - Car Chase - various Locations around Hong Kong

The car race back to HK Island takes in a fair amount of territory, some of it makes sense, some of it doesn't. I've included them all in one post because I don't think many of them are worthy of a single post.

Of course, we have just left Sunny Bay and are now racing along the Lantau Link back towards Kowloon and Hong Kong, so it's no surprise to see that the Tsing Ma Bridge makes a brief appearance. Well actually, the top picture shows the lesser known Kap Shui Mun bridge which spans the gap between Ma Wan and Lantau Island. You can tell the difference by the fewer number of crossbars across the uprights.

Coincidentally, just a few days ago the Kap Shui Mun bridge was struck by an illegally travelling Chinese registered ship that was too high to make it under the span. The top of the ship hit the underside of the span and caused a rather unprecedented shutdown of the only road and rail link in and out of the airport. The place was crippled for several hours and it almost reminded me of being back in the UK for a moment when a small amount of snow falls on the roads, or the wrong kind of leaf falls on a railway track.

Anyway, it seems the bridge is fine but the news that came out of it (news for me at least) is that there is currently an undersea tunnel being constructed from Tuen Mun to Lantau - no doubt it is being created for the purpose of linking up with the HK-Macau-Zhuhai bridge under construction, but the added benefit being that things won't grind to a halt if some crazy dude decides top crash his boat into one of the bridges.

Moving on and all of a sudden we see a brief shot of Sai Ying Pun implying the car is now racing along this part of HK Island. I guess he must've taken the Western Harbour Tunnel because that small funny looking blue building in the bottom of the screen grab is in fact one of the ventilation buildings for said tunnel. Here is where Google's new 3D view of HK can be useful, because I have been able to match the angle. The quality of the rendering in Google is pretty good.

The new development you can see at the bottom of the Google 3D view is the Sun Yat Sen memorial Park which opened in 2010 - a couple of years after filming.

Next up is where the geography goes a bit awry and we see Largo's car speeding eastwards along Gloucester Road in Wanchai. You can see the brown curved facade of the Luk Kwok Hotel on the left.

Just when you thought things were getting confusing, we then get another aerial view, this time of the Canal Road flyover back in Causeway Bay at the other end of Wanchai. Again, the Google 3D allows a fairly good recreation of the camera angle for no useful reason other than because I like doing it.