Hong Kong 73 - Yueh Hua (1974) - Carnarvon Road, Tsim Sha Tsui

A general shot from the film (I don't remember the context) that shows a very famous junction between Carnarvon Road and Granville Road in Tsim Sha Tsui. The Kaiser Restaurant was a long standing eatery here (between 1955 - 1977) on the NE corner of the junction. The building it was on was demolished soon after and replaced by the current Taurus Buildingh. However, on the oppiste corner, containing "Heung Bun" (on the right) is one of the buildings still around. Granville Road itself has one of the greatest concentrations of 50s era tenements along both sides of the road. However, they arec all slowly being replaced one by one. 

The Scavengers - Vince Edwards (1958) - Astor Hotel, Tsim Sha Tsui

Marian (Carol Ohmart) is staying at the Astor Hotel. We know this because we are told by O'Hara at some point in the story. The film did use that very hotel as well, although you never really see the name properly despite it being emblazoned across the main entrance to the hotel in neon light.

The hotel was located on the corner of Carnarvon Road and Cornwall Avenue. Sadly the latter street was obliterated when the K11 Masterpiece was built and there is no physical trace of it anymore, other than an open, nameless thoroughfare alongside the skyscraper where the street used to be.

In the first two images below Vince Edwards is standing on the corner of Bristol Avenue,with the hotel entrance on the corner of Cornwall Avenue. Carnarvon Road runs along left of frame where the cars are lined up.

The hotel makes a final appearance at the end of the film and although Allison's arrival there looks to have been filmed on location, his departure soon after (right at the end of the film) looks to have been filmed on a set.
 

Yellow Emanuelle - Chai Lee (1977) - Carnarvon Road, Tsim Sha Tsui

I posted about the Grand Hotel just before Christmas, but this time we get to see it (bottom image) from a slightly different angle as George and Emy walk around the weird 5 street junction in Tsim Sha Tsui. The hotel is on the corner of Humphrey's Avenue but here we are looking at it from across the street where Carnarvon Road sweeps south and then west in the busy part of TST where the couple have just walked around from either Hart or Prat Avenue. 

Desperate Mission - Germán Cobos (1965) - Junction of Carnarvon Road and Prat Avenue, Tsim Sha Tsui

Had I paid more attention to these shots below I might have realised a bit earlier that the hotel featured in the film was the Grand Hotel. These shots occur as Z55 leaves the hotel. This is actually a very popular view looking down towards Prat Avenue and Hart Avenue from the junction with Carnarvon Road i.e. looking from directly outside the Grand Hotel. You can see an almost exact repeat of this very same angle over on Gwulo.com. The only discernable change from that 1964 image is the change of business opposite from "Emba Mink House" to something called "Hazel".

Anyway, Agent Z55 sets off after Su Ling (Yôko Tani) and heads off towards Prat Avenue. Relish the relative emptiness (of people and traffic) of these screen shots because this junction is as busy as Piccadilly Circus these days - masses of people and illegally parked trucks and cars blocking the view.

Desperate Mission - Germán Cobos (1965) - Carnarvon Road, Tsim Sha Tsui

The chase continues as the police pursue Agent Z-55 down Carnarvon Road in Tsim Sha Tsui. One of many streets I have been able to identify, but there is a bunch in the film that I still have no clue about, sadly.

Felicity - Glory Annen (1978) - Carnarvon Road, Tsim Sha Tsui

More crowded street signs - something you hardly see in HK anymore since a Govt crackdown started. Here is a brief glimpse of some of the overhanging signs that stood at the junction of Carnarvon and Cameron Roads. This (top image) is the view from Carnarvon Road looking south. The building on the left, behind the Club Oui Topless sign is still there. A lonely survivor.

Here is another view from further up the slope of Carnarvon Road near to its junction with Kimberley Road. The Tom Lee sign is slightly different to the one that was fixed around the corner on Cameron Road.

Snowden - Joseph Gordon-Levitt (2016) - Kimberley Road, Tsim Sha Tsui

Inevitably, because a large part of the HK section of the film focuses on Snowden's meeting with the journalists at The Mira, we get quite a few different views along Kimberley Road. The first couple of images show Ewen MacAskill (played by Tom Wilkinson) on the phone to his bosses at The Guardian whilst walking by the 7-11 on the corner with Carnarvon Road.

The same corner can be spotted later as Snowden and Tibbo sneak out of the hotel via the shopping centre. In fact they are walking down the steps that also lead to/from Knutsford Terrace.

We also see the same steps on the opposite side of the road as their vehicle drives up Carnarvon Road and turns left onto Kimberley Road. The car picks them up and drives towards Nathan Road, past the mall and hotel.

Le Monocle Rit Jaune - Paul Meurisse (1964) - Carnarvon Road, Tsim Sha Tsui

There is a brief meeting between the main character and his love interest as he leaves a Japanese sauna. The next shot is supposedly outside the sauna as we look down Humphrey's Avenue in Tsim Sha Tsui. It's possible the building on the right is Humphrey's Court but I don't have anything to compare it to.

Never mind as the next building is unmistakable, it's Carnarvon Mansion which stil sits (and looks almost exactly the same) at the junction where Humphrey's Avenue meets Carnarvon Road (amongst others).

The building at the end of the road (on the left) is Mirador Mansions.

Boarding Gate - Asia Argento (2007) - Carnarvon Road, Tsim Sha Tsui

The Triads' office appears to actually be on Carnarvon Road. Sandra gets out of the taxi and heads up some steps in the Champagne Court building. The brown hoarding on the right of the top screen cap shows where the Tung Ying Building was being demolished at the time. It has since been redeveloped into "The One" but the demolition began in 2006. This film was released in 2007 but actually there is some footage later that proves the filming was done in or before 2006.

Same angle on Streetview

Champagne Court

Ein Sarg aus Hong Kong - Heinz Drache (1964) - Granville Road, Tsim Sha Tsui

On Heinz Drache's walkabout we also catch a brief glimpse of Granville Road in TST at the junction with Carnarvon Road.

The giveaway in this case is the sign for the Kaiser Restaurant which stood on the north east corner of the junction. On the right hand side of the film grab (on the south east corner of the junction) is a sign saying "Heung Bun". This building was still there just a few years ago and I believe was recently renovated and turned into a jewelers - but if you use Google Maps to view the same building back in 2009 you can see it was still the same (other than the signs of course).

The Last Grenade - Stanley Baker (1969) - Hanoi Road, Tsim Sha Tsui

Baker's comrades (which included very young looking John Thaw and Julian Glover) head out to a pub for the night. Unfortunately their nice little drink is disturbed by the enemy (Alex Cord) and they escape out of the front door onto Hanoi Road.

 There are a couple of clues as to the location. The first one is the white sign in the upper right of the lower picture. Look closely and you can see it says "Siu Lam Kung". We've come across this place before courtesy of I Spy. Also spot the sign behind it which mentions "Nancy's Shoes". If you look at the bottom picture of this post (no, I mean the picture at the bottom, not the picture with the bottom!) you'll see that we are in pretty much the same location used in The Man with the Golden Gun. Another confirmation by the fact that the Kam Lung shop is visible in our top picture above.

Anyway, the guys escape in a cab and drive north out of Hanoi onto Carnarvon Road. It's a bit dark, mind you, so not much to see.

Gambit - Shirley MacLaine (1966) - Hart Avenue, Tsim Sha Tsui

In one of those scenes I mentioned earlier, we see a first person's view of a woman walking away from the camera along a road somewhere in Hong Kong. The woman is supposedly the nightclub dancer character played by Shirley MacLaine and the person whose eyes we are looking through is Michael Caine as he slowly follows her in his car.

Except that, in this only real close up view of the Hong Kong, we are actually following a body double and Michael Caine, when we get a glimpse of him, is actually being filmed with a back projection. In other words, neither actor was ever in Hong Kong for these scenes and it is likely that a local company was hired to film them or a small unit from the US went out to capture what was necessary for the plot.

Anyway, it's done quite well and luckily for us we do get a brief glimpse of what turns out to be a few streets in the Tsim Sha Tsui area of Kowloon. Here are the grabs.

In case you hadn't guessed already, the woman in the green dress and headscarf (conveniently hiding her hair) is supposedly Shirley MacLaine's dancer who Caine wants to recruit for a heist operation. He's following her along Hart Avenue in Tsim Sha Tsui as she walks towards her place of employment.

Luckily for us, this area hasn't changed very much despite the time that has passed (nearly 50 years!) and the fact that a large tract of the area was razed to make way for the U.R.A redevelopment that now has 'The Masterpiece' (and the K11 mall) as its centrepiece.

Anyway, in the first few pictures above we see our body double as she walks south around the rather unique bend of Carnarvon Road where it intersects with Humphrey's, Hart and Pratt Avenues.

As she walks around the corner we see the very distinctive shape of a corner building. This is Rose Mansion and we can also see it in the recent Streetview picture below. This old building on the corner of Prat and Hart Avenues has been around since 1958 and is really about the only recognisable thing left.

After she crosses the road in front of Rose Mansion, our walker heads to the right down Hart Avenue and we get a brief glimpse of how it looked back in the mid-60's (see the last two pictures in the screen grabs). And here it is today. It seems that the right hand side of Hart Avenue is fairly modern compared with the left - and it looks as though the modern buildings have encroached somewhat on what used to be a much wider road.

I Spy (TV Series) - Robert Culp (1965) - Neon Montage, Kowloon

Okay, not my typical post here and I was struggling with what to do with it because it involves a sequence in the Carry Me Back To Old Tsing Tao episode where we have a montage of nighttime neon filling the screens, made up of multiple locations and identifiable, pretty much, only by the signs themselves. So anyway, I figured it would be fun for some if I put them all up here in one post and say where I think they are and then anyone can chip in and give me any more places they recognise.

Here's the first, which I know - courtesy of the Fourseas, Singer and Rodania signs on the right - features the junction of Nathan and Austin Roads at the northern end of Tsim Sha Tsui. But what about those other signs? Tokyo Night Bar, Tokyo Night Inn? As we locate these places I'll add them to the list of labels at the bottom.

Here is a shot of that part of Nathan Road from the 1960's showing the same signs, but in daylight (Courtesy of the excellent book 香港走過的街道). Incidentally, the building that now occupies the site on the right is still called the Fourseas building and it sits between Austin Road and Tak Shing Street.

Then we appear to move down the road (past the Singer sign) and can see the Pink Lady Bar. I believe the Pink Lady Bar was located on Hankow Road further to the south.

Pink Lady Bar also reveals Dawson & Co behind it and well as Y.K Ma Furniture and Antiques. Can you spot anymore? Where was (and what was) Dawson & Co? Perhaps it was the same tailors that can still be found in HK, if so, where were they located in 1965? Y.K Ma on the other hand seems to be a famous name in the antique business and I found a reference that calls him legendary here. Sadly, my knowledge of this are is non-existent, so if there are any informed antique people out there who know where Y.K Ma's business was based in 1965, please leave a comment.

So what else do we have? Another junction - but this time I'm not sure it's the Nathan/Austin one, perhaps Nathan/Jordan Rd? Anyway, it has the HK Silk Centre along there as well as some signs I can't read.

And then that scene merges with one a bit easier to identify...the Tai Pak Seafood floating restaurant. If you want to read some interesting details of the Tai Pak then go to the comments section of this post I did a few years ago. But this version is unquestionably the one at Aberdeen.

Next up, we have the Kobe Bar, Cherry Bar. After covering Gambit on this blog, I now know that they were actually right next to each other. For proof you can checkout this Gambit post. There also looks to be the (rather dim by comparison) sign for Mandarin Garments at the top right. I've found references to a Mandarin Garments Factory, but this wasn't registered until 1969, several years after this episode was filmed. So where was this one, perhaps Cameron Road as well?

Last but not least we have the final two images showing the New Savoy Bar and the Oriental Pearl Night Club and Bar. Now I have found a reference to both the Savoy Bar (on Granville Road) and the New Savoy Plaza (on Prat Avenue), but no reference to the New Savoy Bar. So information welcome. As for the Oriental Pearl Night Club and Bar - well, the companies register has notes to this place opening in 1964 and closing in 1969, but not mention of the location. However, I was lucky enough to stumble across this photo which shows it next to Rikki's Bar, the latter I believe was located on corner of Cameron and Carnarvon Roads. So it looks like it was on Cameron Road.

Anyway, please feel free to leave comments with regards to the locations, or perhaps even some vague reminiscences of drunken nights spent at these places :-)

Bloodsport - Jean Claude Van Damme (1987) - Junction of Hanoi & Mody Roads, Tsim Sha Tsui

More from the chase, this time just after our last post where JCVD runs down the road, hides behind a car and runs back again (in a northerly direction), the next shot sees him run out of neighbouring Hart Avenue (seen on the right in the screen grab below), to the junction where Hart, Mody and Hanoi all meet up.

Until the redevelopment there was a lovely corner building here (one of several in this area it seems) that housed a shoe shop. Hanoi is on the left and Hart on the right with Mody Road at the bottom of the screen.

If you look up Hanoi on the left, you can just make out the leaves of the previously seen banyan tree. You can see ol' JCVD just at the front of the corner building as he runs past it and stops at the traffic island (see below).

Want to know what sits on that corner plots now? It ain't pretty, trust me...

Yep, there you go, I suspect that perhaps some of the corner building's footprint has been taken up by the need for extra space courtesy of the MTR entrance/exit you can see above, which is why is seems to have even less space now. There are still some relics from prior to the redevelopment, but you have to look up to the far end of Hanoi Road on the left - you'll see that the same buildings still line the road at the far end (it's Carnarvon Road) despite everything else being completely demolished.