Les Nuits Rouges du Bourreau de Jade - Carrie Ng (2010) - #30 Po Shan Road, Midlevels

The last post for this film, Les Nuits Rouges du Bourreau de Jade, is a nice one for me because it involves one of my favourite Hong Kong buildings, long since sadly demolished. The house may be gone but it's memory is etched into the rather bloody finale of the film as Carrie takes on all comers with her removable killing finger nails.

Those who follow this blog, and perhaps Asian films in general, will remember this location as the house where Tang Wei and her dissident cohorts hole up in an effort to get close to Tony Leung's Japanese collaborating official in Ang Lee's Lust, Caution. It is the old art deco mansion at 30 Po Shan Road. In Les Nuits Rouges du Bourreau de Jade though we get to see significantly more of the property as the end sequence is shot throughout the building and includes a few scenes on the rooftop. Suffice to say this post is a bit more heavy on the screencaps than I would usually allow.

The final scene of the film shows Carrie walking off into the woods as the police turn up to clean up her mess. I believe this public pathway is the one that sneaky movie fans can go down to catch a glimpse of the old hillside terracing behind Realty Gardens that used to be part of the old Mok Villa and were featured in Love is a Many-Splendored Thing.

Les Nuits Rouges du Bourreau de Jade - Carrie Ng (2010) - Lido Beach, Tsuen Wan

This is the beach location where Catherine goes to meet the Chinese gangsters after she fails to retrieve the jade skull and the poison within it, after losing it to Carrie. There is an earlier scene which utilised the same location and involves a phone call between the two and during that scene (top image) you can see the Ting Kau Bridge behind him. The later scene is when they meet again face to face and the camera takes in more of the general area (lower images) encompassing Tsing Yi Island and Tsing Ma Bridge in the background.

Above: Ting Kau Bridge from an earlier scene

Les Nuits Rouges du Bourreau de Jade - Carrie Ng (2010) - Why Club, Minden Avenue

The venue for the launch of Carrie's perfume venture (Red Nights) is a, now defunct, club in Tsim Sha Tsui called the "Why Club". It was located in the Harbour Pinnacle Building at #8 Minden Avenue. I'm not sure when it closed but it was definitely still open in 2014 when there was a gang fight outside.

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.

Les Nuits Rouges du Bourreau de Jade - Carrie Ng (2010) - Maidstone Road, To Kwa Wan

After being given details of how to make contact with her buyer, Catherine heads to a factory building (id not done yet) and is then shot and the merchandise is stolen by Carrie Ng's character. Catherine stumbles out of the building and onto a street and manages to identify the culprit by recognising the shoes that were outside the room. Although I haven't yet identified the factory building, it most definitely was/is not next to Maidstone Road in To Kwa Wan which is where the subsequent street scene was filmed.

Les Nuits Rouges du Bourreau de Jade - Carrie Ng (2010) - China Cafe, Mongkok

The China Cafe (中國冰室) is a venue that will perhaps be more familiar to fans of local Hong Kong movies (Daniel Thomas lists at least 3 films that have used it) so it's nice to see it pop up in a film intended for a non-local market. It has a mezzanine level that is common in businesses in older buildings. It gives the place some character but I always look at these and imagine the owner of the business quietly lamenting the loss of floor space for extra tables...

Les Nuits Rouges du Bourreau de Jade - Carrie Ng (2010) - Nexxus Building, Central

After disembarking from the helicopter, Catherine heads down to Immigration with her doctored passport and manages to get clear just before the Interpol notice for her arrest arrives. I'm not sure where the immigration scenes were shot but the building she exits at the ground level is the Nexxus Building in Central. The doors in the image below are the ones that face onto Connaught Road.

Les Nuits Rouges du Bourreau de Jade - Carrie Ng (2010) - Helipad, West Kowloon

Although we see the approach to the helipad at the Shun Tak Centre, for the actual on screen touchdown it looks as though the film makers instead opted for the helipad located at the very tip of the West Kowloon Reclamation. I'm not sure what is there at the moment because I have never been, but a few years later this same location (more or less) was seen at the end of Transformers: Age of Extinction (the helipad is located roughly dead centre of the top screen cap in that linked post - where all the vehciles are parked in front of the Transformers). I guess the area is a bit more developed by now.

Les Nuits Rouges du Bourreau de Jade - Carrie Ng (2010) - Shun Tak Centre, Sheung Wan

The ultimate destination for the helicopter appears to be the Shun Tak Centre and we get another aerial view of the helipad as the chopper makes its approach. The building with the large light sign is the Rumsey Street carpark.

Les Nuits Rouges du Bourreau de Jade - Carrie Ng (2010) - Ocean Terminal, Tsim Sha Tsui

The main foreign character is Catherine, who has just killed her boyfriend for possession of the poison and has to quickly get out of dodge and heads over to Hong Kong. It's not clear where she is running from but the impression is somewhere in Asia. Anyway, she flies in to Hong Kong via helicopter (which, to me, implies she is on the run from Macau) on a stolen and doctored passport. One of the sights she sees as she looks down on her destination is Ocean terminal and surrounds.

Les Nuits Rouges du Bourreau de Jade - Carrie Ng (2010) - Victoria Harbour, Hong Kong

There's a nice quick view of the harbour as a nice filler between scenes. The only thing of note really is that this was captured after the Ritz Carlton hotel had been demolished but before its replacement had been constructed - hence the big gap next to the AIA Building.

Les Nuits Rouges du Bourreau de Jade - Carrie Ng (2010) - Sunbeam Theatre, North Point

The location for all of Carrie's murderous behaviour is an innocuous locked room at the Sunbeam Theatre. It so happens this is also where her boyfriend/cohort practices his Cantonese Opera. For those who don't know, the Sunbeam Theatre is a very famous local landmark known for its dedication to Chinese opera. The film comes back here time and time again because it is really the core location for the film.

Les Nuits Rouges du Bourreau de Jade - Carrie Ng (2010) - Kennedy Road, Central

On the way to their destination, the car drives along Kennedy Road with the BoC Tower in the background. The angle on the building tells me this was the section of Kennedy Road that runs above the large conservatory in Hong Kong park.

Les Nuits Rouges du Bourreau de Jade - Carrie Ng (2010) - Duddell Street, Central

Moving on to a new film for the blog and this time it is another French production starring Carrie Ng as a sadistic killer who covets a legendary poison for the sensory effects it causes just before death. Sadly, I don't speak any French so much of the film's plot escapes me but it boils around this poison, kept in a jade skull, and everyone is after it. There are actually quite a few new locations (in terms of this blog) in this film and although some still allude me I figured I may as well make a start with the ones that I have been able to identify already. The official title for the film is Les Nuits Rouges du Bourreau de Jade but it seems to often be referred to as just Les Nuits Rouges or just Red Nights in English.

The film starts on a roof top bar somewhere (I still haven't found it yet and suspect it may have been a set) as Carrie Ng meets up with a girl. She obviously has something of an experience on offer and the pair get into Carrie's car and head off for their gruesome shenanigans. The location where they get into the car is Duddell Street in Central. You can see the famous stone steps in the background.