Casse-tête chinois pour le Judoka - Marc Briand (1967) - Pentecostal Holiness Church Rousseau Memorial Church, Ap Lei Chau

The foot chase sequence in Casse-tête chinois pour le Judoka is a mixture of footage shot over in Kowloon Bay, with the end part filmed in Ap Lei Chau. In one of the scenes we see Sutchuen (Maria Minh) trying to escape her pursuers and there is a small blue and white painted chapel in the background (back right in the below image). This was the original Pentecostal Holiness Church Rousseau Memorial Church on the Ap Lei Chau waterfront.

The church was demolished not long after and redeveloped in Rousseau Heights (亨利閣), an apartment building that still contains a version of the church. It's not clear if the Church organisation developed the building themselves or sold the land with the proviso of keeping a place of worship on site.

The Seventh Sin - Eleanor Parker (1957) - Hung Shing Temple, Ap Lei Chau

Some more back projection for some scenes in the supposed rural location that Carol and Walter head to. In the background is a rather large temple building and this is the Hung Shing Temple on Ap Lei Chau. It's undergone a fair amount of remodelling recently, but you can see the general shape of the same side from this fleeting glimpse in The World of Suzie Wong, shot 3 years later.

Again, the various scenes involving the characters on-location were filmed with doubles (first image) and then footage of the same area was used for back projection for later scenes (next two images) involving the actors and dialogue. The final image below is another on-location shot filmed by the second unit.

Body doubles for the on-location filming

Back projection for the US-based actors

Les Nuits Rouges du Bourreau de Jade - Carrie Ng (2010) - Horizon Plaza, Ap Lei Chau

The rooftop of Horizon Plaza - well known locally amongst the shoppers of Hong Kong as being an industrial building packed floor after floor of various fashion, furniture and other outlets - serves as the location for the first meeting between Catherine and the Chinese gangsters who are also after the jade skull and its poisonous contents. The sequence involves a rather nice panning shot that takes in much of the area to the south of Ap Lei Chau.

Casse-tête chinois pour le Judoka - Marc Briand (1967) - Ap Lei Chau, Aberdeen Harbour

Ap Lei Chau is the small island on the opposite side of the harbour to Aberdeen. Now a combination of Govt housing estates and luxury residential developments it still has some boat yards centred on the eastern waterfront. However, as you can see from the following confrontation, the boat building industry on the island was once significantly larger.

Les Anges Gardiens - Gerard Depardieu (1995) - Ap Lei Chau Waterfront, Ap Lei Chau

When Depardieu first arrives in HK, he is taken to his friend's son who is being looked after on board a boat in Aberdeen Harbour. The area they arrive at is on Ap Lei Chau side on a section of land that has seen been redeveloped into the Municipal Services Building and the beautified waterfront. As you can see by the images, it was still a bit of a wasteland back in 1995. However, most of those taller buildings (top and bottom pictures) are still there as far as I can tell and were not affected by the redevelopment. Of course the second picture shows the view looking back across towards Aberdeen. Look closely and you will see the old Aberdeen Police Station on the hill behind the actor.

China Rose - George C. Scott (1983) - Aberdeen Harbour, Aberdeen

A quick trip to Aberdeen and the Tai Pak where Scott accidentally bumps into one of his neighbours from back in the US. They board the sampans along the seafront with Abba House in the background (before it had the word ABBA emblazoned across the podium level in large red letters) and the second shot shows the view across the harbour to the Ap Lei Chau housing estate and the old power station on the far right (since replaced by South Horizons).

Out on the water we get a view of the Tai Pak that will be familiar with anyone who has taken a trip through Aberdeen Harbour by boat. I even (almost) have my own version of this shot.

The last shot shows Brick Hill (far background) and a smaller, developed hill on the left. This view is now obscured by a high rise development called Broadview Court, built on the waterfront in 2001. It looks like the Aberdeen Boat Club (behind the sampan awning on the left) was around at the time but I think this was before the Aberdeen Marina Club was built.

Kill a Dragon - Jack Palance (1967) - Magazine Island, Aberdeen

It's been a few years since I last looked at Kill a Dragon, but I find it useful to go back over stuff every once in a while to pick up the things I missed or forgot about first time round. In this film I just noticed there is a scene at the very start of the film whereby a couple of the bad guys are spying on a junk floating into the west entrance to Aberdeen Harbour. You can see Magazine Island in the background (and Lamma in the far distance) as well as some of the reclamation work that was being done for the construction of the power station that opened the following year in 1968.

Around the World in 80 Days - Pierce Brosnan (1989) - Aberdeen Harbour

Finally, a shot taken in Hong Kong that is actually meant to be Hong Kong. The only problem is that this is most definitely some stock footage because is shows a view of Aberdeen harbour (looking east in the top picture) that was probably taken in the 1960's, given the complete lack of development.

Jason King (TV Series) - Peter Wyngarde (1972) - Aberdeen Harbour, Aberdeen

Another bit of stock footage and used in the episode to imply it was the same place as the last post (i.e. Causeway Bay Typhoon Shelter). In fact, this is quite obviously Aberdeen Harbour with Ap Lei Chau in the background. The sign on the boat is a bit of a giveaway.

However, I did also notice that this image seems to be missing the old Ap Lei Chau power station that was built at the far end of Ap Lei Chau in the late 1960's, which means that this stock footage was taken before then.

L'Inconnue de Hong Kong - Dalida (1963) - Aberdeen Harbour, Aberdeen

We also are treated to a quick glimpse of one end of the Tai Pak floating restaurant as two of the characters meet for a surreptitious meal as well as a very nice view across the harbour towards Ap Lei Chau showing just how little development there was at this time.

Restaurant Pontoons

On the deck of the Tai Pak 

Push - Chris Evans (2009) - Aberdeen Harbour, Aberdeen

I've almost lost count of the number of films that feature Aberdeen and its harbour (I recently penned a two-part article for a local club magazine about the various international movies that have been filmed there) and Push also filmed some scenes there. It's the location of another 'gifted' person who has the ability to erase parts of peoples' memories. It's a location they return to later in the film as well.

The building in the background of the lower picture is the Municipal Services building on Ap Lei Chau.

The World of Suzie Wong - William Holden (1960) - Hung Shing Temple, Ap Lei Chau

You can tell I am currently on a blitz of forgotten locations, right? Here is one from The World of Suzie Wong that I only really discovered a short while ago. Basically, the reason for these old posts is that I have been revisiting stuff with my current level of knowledge of these places and it's revealing how much I used to miss when I first started out with this blog.

Anyway, just before the couple head to the Tai Pak for their lunch, they head to Aberdeen and Lomax is seen painting/drawing. Look carefully at the following screen caps and you'll see that the actors are on the Ap Lei Chau side of the harbour.

The top picture shows the view looking to the west from Ap Lei Chau. The temple on the left is the very historical Hung Shing Temple on the Ap Lei Chau waterfront. It's thought to be the oldest temple in the area and is now a protected monument. Looking at modern pictures I would say the roof has undergone a renovation recently but it is definitely the same place despite the tidying up of the harbourfront.

The lower picture, from the same sequence, shows Holden sketching Suzie and we can see that this is also on the Ap Lei Chau side because you can just make out the old Aberdeen Police Station in the extreme top right of the picture on the other side of the harbour.

Hong Kong 97 - Robert Patrick (1994) - Ap Lei Chau Praya Road, Ap Lei Chau

One of the final scenes of the movie was filmed in a once seldom visited corner of Ap Lei Chau (the island that makes up the southern side of Aberdeen Harbour) that was once the sole domain of various boat maintenance shed. The boat sheds are still around but they now have to share their space with a brand spanking new residential development called 'Larvotto'.

Of course, the opposite side of Aberdeen Harbour has also seen significant development, especially of late. Unfortunately you can no longer see it because of another large development at the far end of the road on the hillock next to the Ap Lei Chau bridge. It's called Sham Wan Towers (named after the common name for the eastern end of the harbour) and can be seen at the end of the road in the Streetview image below.

Jaguar Lives - Joe Lewis (1978) - Aberdeen Harbour, Aberdeen

Aberdeen featuring extensively in the following scene as Lewis follows a local hood back to his hiding place and discovers how they are transporting drugs (hidden in buckets of fish). We get a thorough tour of the whole area starting with the waterfront right in front of the town, but there are some interesting sights.

Starting at the top of Brick Hill - I believe the film was made in the year that Ocean Park opened but I don't know if the cable car was a feature of the park at the time - we zoom down into the harbour area. In the second picture you can see the uprights of what was to become the Ap Lei Chau road bridge. This started construction in January 1977. The space at the back on Brick Hill is now occupied by the Canadian International School that was hitting the headlines last year with its various troubles. The bottom picture in this series shows the wide angle view with the former Police Station up on the hillside. We've seen this building in many a movie on this blog.

We catch a closer look at the former Police Station in the following screencap as the action moves down onto the water.

But following that we also see some other buildings that are still very much around. The buildings you see below are the ones that now front Wu Nam St. Of course in 1978 they were along the waterfront but that has since been reclaimed and become the main bus terminal as well as having the widened Aberdeen Praya Road running across the front (it's actually a highway for through traffic now).

You can see the same block on this Streetview grab, although from the side because trees along the road prevent me from getting a similar view. It's also useful to see how much has been reclaimed in front. So, to put some context there, the camera would probably have been somewhere around where the left hand carriageway of the highway now stands (bottom left of the picture).

Our next shot shows us looking over towards the Tai Pak. I'm not sure on the position of the Tai Pak in 1978 but I do know that the Jumbo had also been opened a couple of years before. Tai Pak is now part of Jumbo Kingdom and sits right next to the Jumbo over at the Shum Wan end of the harbour, but it's possible it was still at the Aberdeen end when this was filmed.

Speaking of the Jumbo, as we just were, it makes a surprise appearance but not at this part of the film. The following screencap is actually taken during a sequence when the action moves over to Macau and the film makers either intentionally or unwittingly stuck in the Jumbo footage as part of the montage. It's quite possible they mistook it for the Macau floating casino, which we will see in a later post.