Blackhat - Chris Hemsworth (2015) - Tsim Sha Tsui, Kowloon

The last Blackhat post for the time being shows us a quick glimpse of some of the buildings that front the harbour in Tsim Sha Tsui.

The top picture shows One Peking Road in the centre. As the camera scrolls right we see the Peninsula Hotel tower (centre picture 2) and in the lower picture with the Canon sign at the top is Oterprise Square with iSquare visible in the gap between it and the Peninsula.

Blackhat - Chris Hemsworth (2015) - Western Lantau

An additional piece of the raid sequence has the helicopters flying over a rather picturesque piece of the local coastline. However, rather than being Hong Kong island as you would expect - because the helicopters had previously turned south and started flying over Hong Kong Island towards Shek O - the actual area on film is a section of the far western coastline of Lantau Island called Fan Lau. The small island in the distance is called Peaked Hill, or Kai Yet Kok (in proper Cantonese Gai Yik Gok because the island is a similar shape to a "Gai Yik" or Chicken leg). 

Blackhat - Chris Hemsworth (2015) - Wong Nai Chung Gap

A few quickies to finish off the Blackhat posts. First up is this one from the raid sequence when the police head to Shek O. After lifting off from the helipad at the HK-Macau ferry Terminal we get a quick glimpse of the Kowloon peninsula opposite side of the harbour before switching to another view above Happy Valley looking up Wong Nai Chung Road towards the "gap".

The top picture of course shows the ICC (Hong Kong's tallest building...for the time being) and the blue residential building right next to it is The Harbourside. Jean Claude Van Damme fans may not realise that their idol occupies a penthouse flat there (on the 75th floor) when he is in Hong Kong.

The second picture shows the Tsim Sha Tsui part of Kowloon and by the time of filming (July 2013) you can see that the New World Centre has already been demolished and the site is being cleared for its replacement (the area directly below the chopper). The last picture below shows the view up to Wong Nai Chung Gap. The two tall buildings are the Summit and Highcliff - locally referred to sometimes as the "Chopsticks" due to their rather skinny appearance from certain angles.

Blackhat - Chris Hemsworth (2015) - Woosung Street, Yau Ma Tei

More Woosung Street. We already know that the investigators' flat is just a few metres down the road but I hadn't realised until just now that the scene whereby one of the bad guys puts a tracking device on their car was filmed just a few short steps north - outside the front of a local restaurant called 金山 (that's Kam Shan in case you don't read Chinese, although the Cantonese pronunciation is closer to Gum Saan).

The top screen cap shows the three walking north along Woosung Street. The second shows the baddy guy watching them across the road and the third is the moment he sticks the device to the bottom of their car. Here are the Streetview grabs.

Note the neon sign in the third picture. This is the same sign for the Luen Fat restaurant that is stuck on the outside of their apartment. The restaurant is on the ground floor. In the above Streetview grab you can see it in the middle distance - the blue and red sign centre picture. The Kam Shan restaurant can be seen below. I've not been to eat here yet but I can tell you right now the best thing about it is the fact that it is on the ground floor of a building called GOFUKU Tower. Awesome name!

Blackhat - Chris Hemsworth (2015) - Quarry Bay MTR Station, Quarry Bay

Okay, so after darting down a fake Quarry Bay MTR station entrance, the action that follows does indeed take place inside the real station. I should know as I go here quite often.

In fact if I remember correctly, it looks as though the desperate duo turn right at the bottom of the main escalator and head onto the westbound Island Line platform where they just manage to board a train in time.

Blackhat - Chris Hemsworth (2015) - Connaught Road, Central

Another key scene, and one which the blurb says took a total of 5 nights to shoot (in both senses of the word) was the gunfight where Hemsworth and Tang manage to escape into what appears to be Quarry Bay station. Actually, Quarry Bay is also mentioned as the location on screen. This was a bit of a trick done by the production crew (and seems to have fooled whoever wrote the locations information on IMDB) because the scene was actually shot in front of the Hang Seng HQ along Connaught Road in Central.

There is a mention on wiki that Michael Mann donated a rather large sum of money to the Hang Seng Community Chest as a token of appreciation for the company letting him use the area in front of their lobby for this scene.

In the film they stop the car to discuss how Hemsworth now needs to go it alone but are rudely interrupted by the bad guys who have tracked them down with a device fitted to their car. A gunfight ensues and Hemsworth and Tang are able to run around the corner and into Quarry Bay Station.

But actually, if you look carefully you will see this isn't Quarry Bay at all and the station entrance they go through (bottom picture) is actually a mock-up stuck on the side of the Hang Seng Building along Jubilee Street. Here are some Streetview grabs to show the area. The top Streetview grab shows the area along Connaught Road where the scene took place. In the film, the white car has pulled into the layby in front of Hang Seng (where the taxi is parked on the right, below).

The actors then ran around the curved corner of the Hang Seng Building onto Jubilee Street. You can see that the Streetview shots taken in 2010/11 were also showing the construction site on the opposite side of the street corner. And in the lower picture you can see the entrance into the building that was transformed into Quarry Bay MTR for the film (behind the digger).

I'm not an IMDB member otherwise I may be tempted to change the location entry I linked to above. Perhaps someone will read this and do it for us?

Blackhat - Chris Hemsworth (2015) - Tsuen Wan Drainage Tunnel, Tsuen Wan

In one of those impressive feats that bends space and time, the bad guys escape through the bottom of their Shek O hideout into a tunnel system. The police don't fare too well inside the tunnel and are promptly taken out by a variety of weapons including guns, knives and what looks like a claymore mine. However, after a good 5 minutes the tunnel ends and a standoff ensues. The problem here is that the tunnel pops out in Tsuen Wan - approximately 22 kilometres away and over on the Hong Kong mainland in the New Territories!

I believe the large concrete blocks were put there by the production crew to give the baddies something to hide behind, but the stone littered floor is the actual ground outside the tunnels mouth.

Edit: It turns out the blocks are in fact real and a permanent feature of the tunnel entrance.

The containers on the ledge (and in fact the concrete ledge itself) in the back of the lower picture are not real either and were put there to give the goodies something to hide behind (and by the goodies I'm not talking about Ecky Thump!). The buildings in the background on the second picture largely belong to Tsing Yi on the other side of the channel, but eagle-eyed readers (and those familiar with Tsuen Wan) may be able to spot Wonderland Villas in the far distance in its prominent position on the hillside above Kwai Chung.

Blackhat - Chris Hemsworth (2015) - Hong Kong Macau Ferry Terminal, Sheung Wan

Prior to the raid on the bad guy's hideout in Shek O, the gang all jump aboard police helicopters that are parked on the helipad on the roof of the HK->Macau ferry terminal. Usually this place is used for the HK-Macau helicopter flights but I guess it's possible the police may take over it on the odd occasion.

In the bottom picture you can see (left to right) the 2 IFC, The Centre and far right the unmistakable side of the Shun Tak centre with its red trim. Of course the ferry terminal is part of the first few floors of the Shun Tak and the helipads are located on top of the piers that extend into the harbour.

Blackhat - Chris Hemsworth (2015) - Shek O Village

One of the key scenes in this film is when the police conduct a raid on the Shek O hideout of one of the main bad guys. Despite being in HK for over 10 years I still haven't made the effort to visit Shek O so I can't tell you exactly where these scenes were but perhaps someone reading can tell us which house it was. Although if yopu look at the top picture you can see the Tin Hau Temple roof in the background. Movie cameras being as they are though, it's hard to know how far away the roof top is that the guy (the actor is Richie Coster) is sitting on. Of course, the well-known landmark of the local Tin Hau Temple has featured on this blog previously.

Blackhat - Chris Hemsworth (2015) - Tin Hau Temple Square, Yau Ma Tei

The crew discover a common meeting point of their three fraud suspects and it just happens to be the public square in front of the famous Tin Hau Temple in Yau Ma Tei. Over they head along with the rather excellent Andy On (playing a HK police officer) to see if they can find out how the bad guys are getting all their information.

This temple and the square in front has been seen on this blog previously but doesn't appear to have been used for movie filming since 1960 when The World of Suzie Wong included some scenes (at least not that I know of just yet) so it's nice to see it on screen again.

Blackhat - Chris Hemsworth (2015) - Woosung Street, Yau Ma Tei

Much like his Avenger co-star, Chris Evans, in Push a few years before, Hemsworth and co also hole up in an anonymous flat somewhere in Kowloon whilst they carry out their clandestine operations to track down the hackers. In this case a large neon sign outside the window is crucial to knowing where this flat was. You can see it in the top picture.

The sign is in fact for the Luen Fat restaurant on Woosung St in Yau Ma Tei. You can see the sign in the Streetview grab below. Now the film was shot after the Streetview grabs were made and if you look at the screencaps from the film you'll notice the windows bars are rather old-style metal ones. Given the more modern ones in the Streetview it's fair to assume the production crew changed them around (or added fake ones) for the purpose of filming.

In the lower film grabs you can see Hemsworth looking out of the window down Ning Po Street. The pawnshop wasn't around at the time of the Streetview picture but you can spot a couple of other familiar signs in the picture below, as well as the corner building seen in the lower film grab.

Blackhat - Chris Hemsworth (2015) - Temple Street, Yau Ma Tei

When the intrepid team hit the ground they are dropped off at the junction between Pak Hoi Street and Temple Street in Yau Ma Tei. But before we see that we get a nice long view (looking south) down all the night market stalls along Temple Street. The initial view is from the junction with Kansu Street (the northern limit of Temple Street market) but the height indicates that the camera was probably placed in one of the upper floors of the Yaumatei Carpark building.

The next shot shows the actors one block to the south at the junction with Pak Hoi St.

You can't see it in the screen grabs above but (as you can see from the Streetview capture below) the Temple Street cooked food stall area is just to the right. I used to take visitors here for a nice spot of food, but in all honesty it's so damned expensive now that I no longer bother.