Casse-tête chinois pour le Judoka - Marc Briand (1967) - Kai Tak Approach, Kowloon

Another view of a plane landing from Checkerboard Hill. It's always great seeing these clips on film because it was a truly special thing to experience on board as well as to watch from the ground. In fact, one of the most popular posts on the blog is this one from Golgo 13:Assignment Kowloon which was basically the same sequence but shot ten years later.

Golgo 13: Assignment Kowloon - Sonny Chiba (1977) - View from Checkerboard Hill, Kowloon

Checkerboard Hill was once a favourite vantage point for viewing planes flying in on their approach to Kai Tak. The hill sits on the northern end of Kowloon Tsai Park and got its name from the two red/white painted checkerboards that acted as a visual marker for pilots coming in to land. It was at the arrival of these markers that the pilots would have to execute a 40 degree turn in order to be correctly lined up for the runway.

One of the checkerboards is still visible on the south facing slope of the hill - although it is in bad need of some restoration before it completely fades (so come on then, HK Govt). I'm guessing that the western facing checkerboard is still there but is now obscured by significant tree growth.

Anyway, for those who wish to go the the top of the hill it is part of Lok Fu Park and is accessible from Junction Road. The vantage point is a public space built over the hilltop reservoir and it's usually deserted. Obviously there are no planes to watch anymore, but it's a shame the place can't have some sort of small gallery built up there so people can see what the view was once like.

In the meantime you will have to settle for these few screencaps from Golgo, taken at the exact same spot above the southern checkerboard. The building in the immediate foreground of the third picture is the Holy Family Canossian College. In fact many of the buildings in that shot are still around thanks to the low amount of redevelopment in that part of Kowloon City/Kowloon Tong.

The squatter village in the last picture is the same one occupying the Carpenter Road Park that can be seen in Roaring Fire - filmed 5 years later and starring Sonny Chiba's famous protege, Hiroyuki Sanada.

Sunset - Paul Chin Pei (1971) - Lung Cheung Road, Kowloon

This scene is the end of the section when he goes to meet his mother and they drive through various parts of Kowloon before pulling in to stop at a sandy quarried hilltop. I can confirm that this sandy little area was just off Lung Cheung Road, about 100 metres west of the famous Lung Cheung Lookout. I live nearby here and have had a jolly good look around and can tell you that although some large boulders remain, the sandy area has long been excavated to make way for various CityU associated dorms and buildings down the hill. However, look at the shot below and you can see the shaved hillside in the background which IS still around and forms the edge of the road immediately north of the aforementioned lookout.

The car almost immediately turns off the road onto the sandy area and this is where the rendezvous between Chin Pei and his onscreen mother takes place. The thing I hadn't realised before is that the famous Checkerboard Hill in the background (you can see a checkerboard at the top of the picture immediately below) actually had two checkerboards. It had one facing south which can still be seen from various parts of Kowloon despite the weather's best attempts (the the Govt's lack of willingness to preserve it) and it also had a west facing one that can be seen in the shots below as well as in this photo over on Gwulo.com. These days it is almost completely covered in tree growth and thus is out of site (but perhaps better preserved as a result?)

Lion Rock at the back

We can also make out various aspects of Kowloon Tong in the background including the barracks.

The west Checkerboard in the background

Sunset - Paul Chin Pei (1971) - Perth Street, Kowloon

One of the benefits of going back over stuff I did a few years ago is that I have the chance to reassess some of the locations I did then. I do sometimes get stuff wrong and unless I go back or someone points out a mistake they tend to get left up here. Here's a perfect example that I initially put as Ho Man Tin Hill. After reviewing the film in better definition something struck me about the background and it turns out that although I had the angle from the mountain fairly well, I had gone south too far by about 300 metres.

It turns out that the hill that Ching Li runs up after visiting Zhongkang's house used to sit just to the north of King George V school on a plot of land now occupied by the Shun Tak Fraternal Association Seaward Woo College at the end of Perth Street.

A good clue is seeing the south facing checkerboard in the background (above) which gives a general impression of which way we are facing, but the detail I noticed second time around was the presence of the various Chinese-styled buildings of Kowloon Hospital in the background. You can see the ridge of a roof in the centre left background of the picture below and between the actors heads in the second photo below is the distinct shape of what I believe is Block A of the Kowloon Hospital buildings. This means that the building that can be seen behind the actors in both captures below is the precursor to today's The Astrid development. The address now is 180 Argyle Street, but I have no idea if that was changed when the plot was redeveloped.

Further confirmation can be found below when the two turn back to run down the hill and a few buildings seen in the background including St George's Court on Kadoorie Hill (immediately above their heads). In fact you can see some of the houses that line Kadoorie Avenue below it. Also the tall buildings on the left hand side are a development called Mount Trio. Far right is Kowloon Hospital West Wing.