Ein Sarg aus Hong Kong - Heinz Drache (1964) - Caroline Hill, Hong Kong

Welcome to the year of the Rooster and here is a new film to kick start it all off. Ein Sarg Aus Hong Kong (English title: Coffin From Hong Kong) starring German film icon, Heinz Drache. Lots of good locations to be found in this film but we'll start off with this nice panorama taken from the hills above Caroline Hill. My guess - from the angle - would be somewhere near to the modern day "No.111 Mount Butler Road" development, but better informed answers are welcome. Of course, this view encompasses several distinct areas including So Kon Po and Tai Hang, but seeing as the Caroline Hill stadium is the most prominent thing in the first picture, that's the title I've gone for.

You can just about see the old incarnation of the Govt stadium at So Kon Po in the bottom centre of the first picture but the South China Athletic Association Ground is more obvious to its right. Scrolling to the right (east) you can see the open area of Victoria Park fronting the harbour and finally in the last picture on the far right is the former cottage/squatter area along the slopes of Lin Fa Kung Hill and Mt Butler. Autostitch has mapped them together into a nice panorama below (click to enlarge).

Cracker: White Ghost - Robbie Coltrane (1996) - Broadwood Park, Happy Valley

This part of Happy Valley/Caroline Hill seems to be cropping up a fair amount. Not only is it the area where the police station and the young girl's school is located, it also happens to be the area where the killer's flat is. To be precise, his flat is located in a development known as Broadwood Park at 38 Broadwood Road. Here is what the building looks like in the show (seen from the east).

There is also a little bit of the show shot inside the flat and I am inclined to believe that the flat used was indeed one inside Broadwood Park due to the various views and angles we can see from the windows as the cops search the place. For example, the first shot below shows Ricky Tomlinson looking out across the very recognisable arch of the awning at Hong Kong Stadium down towards the South China Athletic Stadium just behind it. Broadwood Park actually lines up perfectly for this view.

The second shot shows Coltrane looking at a similar aspect but a little further to the left so you can see the white building (with the red emblem) of the SCAA and if you look closely at the bottom you can see four cylindrical structures that are attached to the aside of the SCAA sports centre.

Cracker: White Ghost - Robbie Coltrane (1996) - ex-Civil Aid Services Headquarters, Caroline Hill

The police station featured in Cracker has really had me scratching my head because I just could not find anything that matched it amongst the current stock of official stations in HK. The reason for this is that the sneaky TV people didn't use a real police station but instead plumped for the old CAS HQ building over on Caroline Hill Road right next to the South China Athletic Association complex (which we will also see from afar in a later post).

The location is still visible on Streetview but it appears that CAS moved out of there a while back (along with the Electrical and Mechanical Service Dept who had workshops next door) over to West Kowloon/Yau Ma Tei area to free up the site for redevelopment. Anyway, back in 1996 it was still their HQ location and I guess the film makers convinced them to let some filming take place for a few days as it stood in for the police HQ. The picture below shows the main building at the site that fronts onto Caroline Hill Road near the junction with Leighton Road. As you can see, the location has a rather large courtyard/car park area (though not as big as the EMSD next door) making it ideal as a stand-in for a Police Station.

Sadly, I couldn't recognise the place from the above picture and it took a brief glimpse in a very quick scene when the killer is driving away in his BMW to finally locate it. Look in the distance and you can see some writing on the building at the back. It's the old Po Leung Kuk Pershing Tsang Primary School on Link Road. 

The school has since merged with another one and become the PLK Gold and Silver Exchange Society Pershing Tsang Primary School and moved up Link Road (i.e. to the left) to another building we have encountered before (we saw it in Double Impact all those years ago). The old school building has become the PLK Kwok Law Chun Children Services Building (lots of PLK related stuff here because the HQ (see here in Game of Death) is just off screen to the right.

Again, no Streetview access inside the complex (not helpful Google pictures from anyone), but this shot shows the same buildings (the one behind is another PLK related one) from Caroline Hill Road.