Flash Point - Donnie Yen (2007) - Asia Golf Driving Range, Cheung Sha Wan

The golf driving range scene was filmed at the former Asia Golf Driving Range in Cheung Sha Wan. There were at least a couple of mid-town driving ranges in existence when I first moved to Hong Kong, including this one. The other one was in West Kowloon and was replaced by the (not-so) High Speed Rail station.

This one in Cheung Sha Wan was erected following the clearing of part of the old Cheung Sha Wan estate in 2001. The empty site was leased to Asia Golf for a few years before the Lai Tsui Court estate was constructed on the plot. If you go back to historical Streetview images from 2009 - 2011, you can still see the driving range.

We Owe It to Our Children - Cheung Wood-yau (1955) - View over Cheung Sha Wan

Next up is another one of Bruce Lee's childhood movies, We Owe It to Our Children (aka 兒女債).
It was re-released in HK sometime ago with Lee as top-billing ("Brucesploitation" lives on in modern HK) even though his screen time is probably less than two minutes. The main star is Cheung Wood-yau (yes, Chor Yuen's father) who plays an office worker and expectant father until his wife (Tsi Law-lin) is involved in a car accident and loses the baby and her ability to have another one. 

Most of the story revolves around the couple's accommodation where they live in a cubicle room (the precursor to modern day sub-divided flats and cage rooms - most definitely still a thing in modern Hong Kong) in close proximity to a variety of neighbours. But there is also the odd exterior location shot which makes this film a bit more interesting for people like me. Lee, in a very brief role, plays the wayward son of one of their neighbours who appears at the beginning and end of the film.

First up is a view across Cheung Sha Wan from upon Tai Po Road. It takes an expert eye to see the detail but it's a similar angle to this 1954 view that recently cropped upon Gwulo. The view below was taken slightly further to the west, but shows in blurry detail the old army camp in Sham Shui Po as well as some of the old housing stock along Shun Ning Road. Believe it or not, some of the buildings I can see in the foreground below are still around.

The last image shows the view further west still - around Hing Wah and Cheung Wah Streets - with some of the old boatyards in view from around that time. I'm not sure if any of the building seen in that image are still around though. The angle of the view indicates that this shot was most likely snapped from where the Carlton Hotel used to stand up on Tai Po Road - although I don't think it had been built yet when this film was made.

Hing Wah Street - Now and Then

For those interested in Then/Now comparisons (I've done afew before) I popped down to Cheung Sha Wan (it's a 20 minute walk for me) to take some pictures of the area along Hing Wah Street where some scenes were filmed for Das Mädchen von Hongkong back in 1973.

First up is the view along Shun Ning Road from Hing Wah Street. Sadly the street market has long since disappeared and the intersection/junction is now quite busy and dangerous. There are some things I won't risk for my art, so I had to snap this from a bit further away on the far side of Hing Wah Street. The ornate slope in the distance is the rear entrance to Caritas Medical Centre (known locally as Ming Oi Hospital). I don't think there is a single building in the film image that still exists today. It's all been redeveloped.

Next up is the view up Hing Wah Street looking towards the old version of the So Uk Estate in the background. For reference, the junction where the first image along Shun Ning Road was taken is the one behind the actor. The market that ran down the middle of the road (right of image) has long since gone and the large central reservation area of the road has been turned into beautified rectangular traffic islands that stretch between each junction. The So Uk Estate still exists but has been completely rebuilt and reconfigured into a high-rise version just in the last few years.

Next up is a shot of the truck that the two main characters try to flee from the bad guys in. The camera captured the vehicle as it drove down Hing Wah Street and was about to turn across at the junction with Un Chau Street (this road is actually called Yuen Chau Street but the missing initial "Y" is taken from an older form of anglicisation/romanisation).

Although the main block at the back has been redeveloped, at the far right you can see the Castle Peak Road facing section of the Wo Hing Building. This place is (currently) still around, albeit covered in scaffolding (see my comparison pic). This could mean imminent destruction, but I think it might just be because they are renovating the exterior. Time will tell. This photo shows you what has happened to the central reservation.

As the truck rattles past the camera location we get to see a bit more of the area. To take both of these last two images I had to stand on the SE corner of the junction with Un Chau Street and I think it is a fairly good match to where the film camera must have been sited at the time. As you can see, as in the previous image the old buildings here have all gone. Both sides of this junction have been replaced by a pair of matching developments called Heya Aqua and Heya Crystal (don't ask me what it means, HK residential development names are some of the most pretentious, nonsensical things I've ever come across).

The thing to note is how much space the older buildings took above the pavement. Pretty much all building stock of a certain era in Hong Kong (pre-70s?) was able to build over the pavement area. This maximised the liveable/usable area of a building from the first floor up, but also meant pedestrians could shelter from the stifling heat/sun or torrential rain. Modern buildings, due to their height/weight, no longer have these cantilvered levels and as such the space along each side of a road is more open - as you can see from the above newer images - but to the detriment of pedestrian comfort/safety and certainly to the detriment of a building's character. But that's just my old fashioned opinion, apparently.

Anyway, that's your lot for now but expect more of the same over the coming months.

Righting Wrongs - Yuen Biao (1986) - Cheung Sha Wan Police Station, Cheung Sha Wan

I have to thank Daniel Thomas for doing the heavy lifting on this post as he identified this location many years ago on his still published but dormant Hong Kong On Film blog (come back Dan!!). This is the Police Station where the main cops in the film are all based: Cynthia Rothrock, Corey Yuen (also the film's director) as her subordinate, Wu Ma as Yuens beat cop father and Melvin Wong as the rather menacing boss of them all. Most of the surrounding buildings you see in these scenes have since been demolished and redeveloped as the area now sports quite a few new multi-purpose commercial blocks.

Soldier of Fortune - Clark Gable (1955) - Cheung Sha Wan Boatyard, Kowloon

Despite me covering most of the locations from Soldier of Fortune some years ago (I did a post over on Gwulo back in 2009 which served as a sort of precursor to the establishment of this blog), there are still a couple of places that had defied pinpointing. One of the locations is a fairly innocuous street scene, but the other was a local boat yard to which Michael Rennie - in his role as the Marine Police Inspector, Merryweather - visits just prior to him getting stuck on board Hank Lee's adventure-bound fishing junk.

The scene is quite interesting because it looks like a real event going on (as opposed to being staged for the film) as a new boat is launched from its dry dock into the nearby water. The only problem I was having is the exact location as to where this may have been filmed.

It's taken a while but I have finally managed to pinpoint it to one of the local boatyards that operated along the pre-reclamation waterfront where Cheung Sha Wan becomes Lai Chi Kok. The key to the location was a familiar looking ridge line that I couldn't place until it dawned on me that I was looking at Lion Rock from the west.

Anyway, after consulting some aerial images from 1949 and 1959 it appears that the location for this particular local ship yard was at the very southern end of Hing Wah Street and this location tallies with the current location of Sham Shui Po Sports ground. The NW corner of the track to be precise.

Hugh farmer's Industrial History of Hong Kong has an article on ship breaking in the area and one of the images contains a similar angle of Lion Rock in the background, albeit slightly more south because it looks as though the ship building activities were along the south west facing Cheung Sha Wan waterfront area, whereas the ship breaking industry discussed in Hugh's article appears to have taken place along the south eastern facing section, essentially the space now occupied by Lai Chi Kok MTR station.

In the penultimate image above the actor, Michael Rennie (playing Merryweather), has moved his head and you can see Lion Rock poking out from behind the distant ridge line. The derrick in the background of the last shot is the landmark that can be discerned on aerial imagery and helped me pinpoint the location.

Hong Kong (series) - Rod Taylor (1960) - Cheung Sha Wan, Kowloon

For episode 18, Double Jeopardy, I'm re-posting a clip that was used way back in episode 2, Murder Royal, because in this later episode we see a bit more of the Cheung Sha Wan area as the camera pans from right to left. Recall from the original post that this clip was initially shown reversed but for this later episode it is shown in the correct orientation.

As I mentioned on the old post, the large white block on the right is about the only recognisable structure that is still around today but what is interesting is that this image captures some of the old So Uk estate still under construction (lower left of bottom image). The estate, quite famous in Hong Kong, has also undergone a complete demolition and rebuild over the last few years or so and, like all new Govt housing, the lower height blocks are now all replaced by new high rises. The footage looks like it was taken from Tai Po Road in the vicinity of the former Carlton Hotel.

Hong Kong (series) - Rod Taylor (1960) - View over Stonecutter Island, Kowloon

We move on to episode 2 in the series and this one is called Murder Royal. This episode looks as though it was mainly shot in the US with a few HK-based establishing shots to try and keep the authenticity up. I can't think of a single scene involving the actors that made me think it was shot on-location. The plot involves a foreign King arriving in Hong Kong with his son and entourage for the purpose of undergoing a serious medical procedure. At the same time a plot is afoot to have him and his son assassinated so that the throne can be usurped by certain nefarious characters.

It's never mentioned as far as I can remember, but the attire of the Royals and their entourage reminds me a little bit of the formal dress in Brunei.

Anyway, to start with there is a rather nice panorama of Stonecutters Island in its original form i.e. as an actual island. These days it has been subsumed by the West Kowloon reclamation and the whilst most of it still contains the off-limits naval base (now with the PLA), a small section is partly accessible to the public as part of the container processing zones and surrounding road infrastructure.

Can anyone see what is wrong with the panorama? The capture below is a stitch of a camera pan from left to right.

Okay, so if you thought something looked odd, it does. This footage used in this episode has been flipped horizontally. A more-frequent-than-you-realise phenomenon that I have observed over several years of this blog. here's how it should really look. The more familiar orientation of the Hong Kong hills in the background. The large building in the bottom left is still around, its actually the two long terrace blocks that make up the old tenements (built in 1959) between Fuk Wing Street and Fuk Wah Street in Cheung Sha Wan. There is an alleyway between the two called Kim Shin Lane. The slant on the buildings on the right hand side are where the two blocks meet Castle Peak Road at an angle.

Das Mädchen von Hongkong - Joachim Fuchsberger (1973) - Shun Ning Road, Cheung Sha Wan

The "girl from Hong Kong" of the title works in a street market. Luckily for me this is an area I am familiar with because I live not far away and had the unfortunate experience of attending the nearby hospital on more than one occasion. This whole area in undergoing redevelopment and there aren't many of the old tenement buildings left.

These first two screengrabs show us looking west along Shun Ning Road. The sloped retaining wall at the back is the old entrance to what is now Caritas Hospital - I'm not so sure about the history of the hospital or how long it's been there but the buildings occupying that space now are fairly new.

Part of the market also extended down Hing Wah Street, Even today the road is very wide and there used to be market stalls that occupied what is now a beautified central reservation. The road slopes considerably up towards the junctions with Shun Ning Road and Po On Road and at the top was the old So Uk Estate. You can see one of the old buildings in So Uk in the background.

Hing Wah Street with So Uk at the back

Ein Sarg aus Hong Kong - Heinz Drache (1964) - Castle Peak Road, Kowloon

Here's one I forget to post several weeks ago. It is a car-based scene in Ein Sarg aus Hongkong with the three actors driving along (for real, no crappy back projection for this film) Castle Peak Road. This road is one of those long ones that goes on to form a large part of Route 9 that encircles the New Territories. However, the particular section we are looking at here is not far from its starting point (or end point, I guess, seeing as it is only eastbound traffic along this section) down in the Cheung Sha Wan part of Sham Shui Po District.

The top picture shows us a small section of the road just west of the junction with Tonkin Street, and the lower picture shows us that very same junction. The zig-zag style decoration of the building at the back of the second picture is where the current Hing Lung Building (202 to 210 Castle Peak Road) stands today. You can vaguely see the wall of the Tonkin Street nullah behind Heinz Drache's head as well. The nullah was covered up only recently (about 3 or 4 years ago).