The Champions - Stuart Damon (1967) - Bonham Strand East, Sheung Wan

More general shots of Hong Kong with this interesting image below showing what I believe to be the famous pharmacy owned and run by 唐拾義 Dr Tong Sap-yi (Tang Shi-yi) - a famous Western-educated Chinese doctor who introduced several medicines onto the Hong Kong market. My understanding is that this building was located on Bonham Strand East at the junction with Hillier Street. This image from Gwulo (it shows the two words of the good doctor's name on the right hand side) seems to confirm it was located where the Hillier Commercial Building now stands at #65-67. Funnily enough, Google Maps still has the pharmacy marked although the current business on the ground floor is a gold dealer. I would need to check in person but it could be the company still has offices there.

Foxbat - Henry Silva (1977) - Bonham Strand Public Latrine, Sheung Wan

Here's another one pulled from the recent bluray review. The scene when A-Cheung gets out of the car and hides in a toilet was filmed along Bonham Strand. For anyone familiar with the area where Bonham Strand meets Morrison Street and Wing Lok Street there is now a triangular paved area (the paving stones make up a large compass face on the ground) that is marked on maps as a rest garden. Wing Lok Street is now split into two by this rest garden, but back in 1977 it was a continuous road and the triangular island formed between the three roads hosted the toilet block that can be seen in the film. I tried to find out when it was built but could only find a mention in a 1941 public works document asking for tenders.

Anyway, as you can see on the screen caps it was constructed in a sort of streamline moderne/art deco style of building. When was it demolished? I'm not sure but it is perhaps worth mentioning that sometime in the early 80's the old south block of Western market, which used to stand on the southern part of Bonham Strand here, was demolished to make way for the ugly carbuncle that goes by the name of the Sheung Wan Municipal Services Building. So perhaps the toilet block was demolished at the same time and the area remodelled to its current configuration? If anybody can give me more accurate dates or events I would appreciate it.

The top image below is looking from east to west along Bonham Strand. Morrison Street is running left to right immediately behind the car. As you can see the toilet block behind the car consisted of a single storey and double storey part. Maybe the upper part was a bath house? This is quite a common thing for toilets in HK (not that I spend much time hanging around them I hasten to add...)

 Front of the low block, you can see the Bonham Strand street sign.

The above image shows the view looking north up Morrison Street, where the car is. The actor who plays A-Cheung (Yi Lui - 伊雷) is walking along Bonham Strand and in the background behind the car you can see a no right turn sign on Wing Lok Street. Wing Lok Street at the time continued behind the toilet block, but that part is now part of the rest garden.

Finally, the last shot below shows us looking back the other way up Morrison Street with the toilet block on the right. The brightly lit shop in the background was the "Kam Yuen Store". It occupied the ground floor of a building that still stands on the corner of Bonham Strand and Morrison Street. The current occupant of that space - at least the last time I was there - is a branch of Rich Harvest, a real estate agent. The ramshackle hoardings on the left are where Harmony Court now stands.

The Street Fighter - Sonny Chiba (1974) - Queen's Road Central, Hong Kong

The final shot for this brief sojourn into Hong Kong is a moving camera shot along Queen's Road Central as the vehicle the camera is in makes its way towards to western limits of the "central" part of Queen's Road. This is approaching the junction with Bonham Strand (on the right) and the curved building straight ahead in is at the far corner of Possession Street. According to Centamap Queen's Road Central turns into Queen's Road West at this very point.

We've seen this section of the road a few times before on the blog, including during this scene for Revenge of the Pink Panther. Okay, the angle isn't the same but there are some common buildings to both including the old shophouse on the corner of Bonham Strand (beige building on the right in the below images) which also happens to still be around today.

Revenge of the Pink Panther - Peter Sellers (1978) - Queen's Road West, Sheung Wan

The last of the shots from the HK-side of the car chase sees the cars zooming, quite fast, down a section of the road that is close to our initial car chase road bend.

The key identifier in this scene is the striking whitewashed shop house that stands on the corner of Queen's Road West and Bonham Strand. It's been taken over by the Circle-K in the meantime but it's an easy to recognise place. But the initial part of our shot shows us looking east back down the road as the cars approach the camera.

As you can see from the following Streetview, the shop houses at the back of the screencap have all been replaced - mainly by the Sheung Wan Municipal Services Building.

As the cars approach the camera we are given a very quick right to left pan, which unfortunately blurs out the entrance of Bonham Strand before settling down again with a view up the road facing west with the shop house on the right. At the end of the road is the sweeping bend that I mentioned as the first stretch of road we see at the very beginning of the car chase scene. It's now been replaced by a small park and tower 3 of Queen's Terrace - a large residential development (it's the pink and green thing at the end of the road in the Streetview picture below).

Chinese Box - Jeremy Irons (1997) - Queen's Road Central, Hong Kong

At a point in the film, Irons runs after Cheung in an attempt to interview her for some personal project. They run out of the building, situated on Wellington Street, down to the junction with Queen's Road Central before Irons character starts to feel ill and stops on the pedestrian island that sits at the junction with Queen's Road Central and the top end of Bonham Strand.

So first we see a brief glimpse of the back of the Kam On Building at the end of Wellington Street.

The blue/white striped hoarding in the background is covering the in-progress constructions of Grand Millenium Plaza which includes Cosco Tower that was finished in 1997. Moving across the road to the island is where Irons starts to lag because of his illness. The upper picture below shows the camera looking down the curve of Queen's Road Central, whilst the lower picture of Maggie Cheung shows Bonham Strand just where it joins with Jervois Street.

Yellowthread Street (TV Series) - Bruce Payne (1990) - Bonham Strand, Sheung Wan

Episode 7 of Yellowthread Street is called Rummy's Cut and starts off with what is supposed to be a gold/jewellery heist but turns out to be a set up. So we have some nice shots of the area on Bonham Strand where Mercer and Hillier Street join on to it. In fact the camera gives us a look right up Mercer Street.

Here's a comparison, well, as close as I could get from the confines of my nice comfortable chair.

Actually, I initially thought that perhaps the building on the corner (left of screen) was the same one, but I think that it has been replaced by a newer one that had no choice but occupy the same odd footprint - either that or a major remodeling of the windows has gone on.

Next the camera sweep left so we get a view up Bonham Strand.

Okay, so there has been a lot of redevelopment here. It looks like all the stuff on the right hand side has been redeveloped, and of course in the far distance we can see that we once had an unobstructed view of the Wing Hang Bank Building (located at 161-169 Queen's Road Central), but it is funny to see that the HSBC is still there - albeit with the subsequent rename (from Hongkong Bank to HSBC) and repainting of the building.

Lastly the camera settles on its intended subject - a jewelers close to the junction with Hillier Street.

Now, the Streetview version gives a view from further away, but I can tell you that the buildings in the top picture has been replaced by a single block called the Teda Building, with its entrance around the corner on Hillier Street. However, there are some relics left over (which helped me locate this) and that includes the Kung Kai Hung shop (off screen on the right in the screen cap and behind the taxi, centre picture, in the bottom streetview picture).

Also, look carefully at the top screen cap and you can see an establishment at the back (on Hillier Street) with the words "Cheong Gold" - the rest of the name being obscured. Well, actually this business is still there and its called Lee Cheong Gold Dealers Limited in the same building (Hillier Commercial Building).