Mr Hercules Against Karate - Alberto Terracina (1973) - Central Vehicular Pier

The crew disembark from the ferry at its logical end, Central. Not much to be seen on these low quality grabs but worth including regardless. There's not a great number of locales included in the movie. As a reminder, this pier, which was still in use into the early 1990s, was located (more or less) where 1 IFC now stands - on the waterfront in front of the old Fire station (now the Hang Seng HQ). You can see the aforementioned station in the background of the third image.

Visa to Canton - Richard Basehart (1960) - Central Vehicular Ferry Pier, Connaught Road

Following on from the previous post, the camera is turned to the right and we can see the old Central Vehicular Ferry Pier. Built at the end of a triangular causeway, this was the Hong Kong end of the route linked to the vehicular ferry pier at the end of Jordan Road in Kwun Chung.

In the later part of the 60s, the area of harbour to the left of the pier was reclaimed and at some point modifications were made to cater for the newly introduced double-decked ferries, including the construction of a single lane ramp that allowed cars to enter/exit from the top deck.

Casse-tête chinois pour le Judoka - Marc Briand (1967) - Central Ferry Piers, Hong Kong

After catching the ferry over at Mongkok Ferry Pier, the pair arrive at the ferry pier in Central. Not to be confused with the Star ferry pier but rather this was the set of piers around the vehicular ferry pier that were used by the Hong Kong and Yau Ma Tei Ferry Company (including the one from Mongkok).

Ein Sarg aus Hong Kong - Heinz Drache (1964) - Various Harbour views

I have a bunch of unidentified location still pending for this film (see my help page) so will finish this one for the time being with a variety of clips in and around the harbour area. If you look closely there are some familiar buildings to be found. For example in the top two pictures you can just make out the Marine Dept Building that was later demolished to make way for what was Vicwood Plaza but is now called Infinitus Plaza. It's on the far left in the lower picture.

In these next pictures we can see a tall building next to the old Central Fire Station. The building was originally the Hang Seng Building (which we saw the front of not so long ago) but was later renamed to the Nexxus Building, and is still around albeit in a vastly updated facade. The fire station was replaced a long time ago and strangely enough is now the site for the newer version of the Hang Seng HQ. Note in front of the fire station is the old vehicular ferry pier.

Spider-Man: The Dragon's Challenge - Nicholas Hammond (1979) - Jardine House, Central

The finale of the film takes place on what would have been the territory's highest structure at the time, the Connaught Centre, now renamed Jardine House. We get some great views from the top looking down onto the neighbouring roads, as well as a rather impressive shot or two of some intrepid (and sadly anonymous) stuntman crawling up the side of the building.

But first some establishing shots showing the area around the building including the various piers we saw in earlier posts.

Vehicular ferry pier bottom left

Blake Pier

Blake Pier and the later version of the General Post Office. Star Ferry at the back

The GPO and Jardine House next door.

Can you see the small dot on the side of the building? It's our intrepid stuntman, attached by wires to a cradle at the top of the building. We get a close up as well which reveals the concrete finish on the building before it was clad with aluminium tiles.

Definitely not Nichloas Hammond!

Once at the top, Spidey uses his radio transceiver to try and locate his buddy. Cue some rather spectacular views from the top of Jardine House.

Spider-Man: The Dragon's Challenge - Nicholas Hammond (1979) - Central Waterfront, Hong Kong

The following screen grabs show a decent swathe of the Central Waterfront prior to the reclamation that saw the Connaught Road ousted from its long-standing position next to the harbour (of course the road didn't move, the waterfront did). We'll start off with a couple of nice harbour shots showing some very small boats bobbing up and down in the harbour. In all honesty, I'm not sure if any of these smaller boats are brave enough to risk going into the harbour these days with all the big boats passing through, but I rarely go there these days despite it being just a few kilometres away. Note Jardine House (formerly the Connaught Centre) centre screen in the top picture followed by a closer view of the General Post Office (with Jardine House being) in the lower picture.

The next few pictures though show the various piers that used to sit along the waterfront. Starting with the outer-island piers (top picture) and moving over past the vehicular ferry pier (left side of picture 2/right side of picture 3) to rest upon the dogleg shape of the final version of Blake Pier and one of the Star Ferry piers. Of course reclamation has long since removed these from their original locations, but the Star Ferry did manage to survive here until 2006.

Five Golden Dragons - Bob Cummings (1967) - Central Vehicular Ferry Pier, Central

Of course, we can't discuss cross harbour ferries without seeing the pier on the Hong Kong side of the harbour. The strange thing about this one is that as we see our fellow's car come off the ferry, it looks as though the ferry he is leaving is actually a double decked type - so a bit of a continuity issue there I think. Look carefully at the top picture and you can see the position of the old vehicular pier in front of what was the Fire Station (the smaller cream building). The Hang Seng Bank HQ now occupies that same space and the One IFC tower pretty much covers the space once taken by the ferry pier.

Approaching the Central Vehicular Ferry Pier 

Opening the lower ramp's gate

Look right and you can see we have just left an entireley different ferry!

And off, the white uprights are the supporting pillars for the upper deck vehicle entrance/exit. You can see the same structure on the bottom picture of this Yellowthread Street post.

Soldier, Soldier (TV Series) - Robson Green (1992) - Harbourfront, Hong Kong

Another TV series for the blog and this time one that I missed when it was originally shown back in 1992 - I was grotty student in Leeds at the time spending most of my time listening to music rather than watching the box. Strictly speaking the episodes I am looking at are from series 2, when the so-called King's Fusiliers move to Hong Kong. The first two episodes of the series were still based back in the UK but the remaining 4 episodes were filmed in their entirety in Hong Kong.

One of the first scenes we are shown an army helicopter flying along the harbour front with a few sights to look at including the Shun Tak Centre in Sheung Wan (pic 1), the old vehicular ferry pier (pic 2 & 3) and finally the Bank of China and its surrounding buildings such as the Furama Hotel, the Ritz Carlton (both redeveloped), Hutchison House, Bank of America tower etc.

Love is a Many-Splendored Thing - William Holden (1955) - Vehicular Ferry Pier, Central

Do you remember the flipped film I found during That Man Bolt? Well it seems that the same thing was going on 20 years earlier with a small sequence involving a vehicular ferry. It's the scene after when Suyin goes to meet Elliot at Kai Tak and they return to HK Island afterwards. It's very quick but there's a nice view of the island and the ferry as it steams towards it. However, if you are familiar with HK scenery you should immediately know that this scene has been flipped with what should be the western flank of HK Island appearing on what appears to be the east. The correct view can be seen in the second picture.

To round off the scene there is a quick glimpse of, what I assume to be, the Central vehicular ferry pier as the ferry pulls in to dock.

I've mentioned it before but there is still a vehicular service that runs in HK but it is limited to those vehicles carry good too dangerous to travel via the harbour tunnels.

That Man Bolt - Fred Williamson (1973) - Central Waterfront

Here's another great shot from the film.

Hang on...wait a sec...oh no ....arghh! They've done it again!

I'm beginning to think I'm living in a parallel universe. Here's the correct view after flipping horizontally.

This view is quite good because it shows us where the angled Blake Pier was in relation to the Connaught Centre (still with scaffolding at the top), as well as the pale low-rise former Central Fire Station (now replaced by the Hang Seng HQ) with the vehicular ferry piers in front of it.

Yellowthread Street (TV Series) - Bruce Payne (1990) - Central Vehicular Ferry Pier, Hong Kong

In the spirit of true nostalgia, here is a sequence from the beginning of Chinese Boxes in which we see the camera pan from Blake pier down to the vehicular ferry pier in Central - neither of which are around today (largely because the water here has also been replaced by land!).

Above we see the familiar angled shape of the final version of Blake Pier with the two Star Ferry piers behind it. As the camera moves downward we can see the small flyover that led from the upper deck of the vehicular ferry. On the right is Exchange Square which means the small road in front (with several walkways across it) is today's Harbour View Street. The waterfront next to it now occupied by the IFC complex and Hong Kong Station.

The vehicular pier itself - at the end of Harbour View St - was sited where the smaller IFC tower now stands.