The Dark Knight - Christian Bale (2008) - View Over Central, Hong Kong

My original screencaps for this film were done from a TV screen so the quality wasn't good enough to include this rather impressive helicopter (or perhaps drone) shot over Central.

The Centre, where all the lobby shots were filmed, can be seen on the left of screen. But the buildings used for the actual office from where Batman kidnaps the crooked Chinese accountant, Lau, were the towers of the International Finance Centre. So Batman launches from 2 IFC (centre right, lower picture) and grabs Lau from the smaller IFC tower (centre screen).

The Dark Knight - Christian Bale (2008) - The Centre, Central

Even though it is the International Finance Centre tower (that's the smaller one of the two) that we know is the HQ of the Chinese criminal (played by Chin Han) and the one that Batman crashes through the window to capture him, it was another building that served as the lobby for the earlier scenes when Morgan Freeman plants the cellphone in the security desk. It was also this other building that we see a police van head towards as the police arrive on the scene to deal with The Batman.

The building in question is The Centre (中環中心) and isn't that far away from the IFC in all honesty - just a few hundred yards at most.

The Dark Knight - Christian Bale (2008) - International Finance Centre, Central

Both towers (International Finance Centre and Two International Finance Centre) feature in the next scene when Batman is preparing to launch his strike at his Chinese target. So, up to the top of 2IFC goes the Dark Knight and he jumps off and after a bit of impressive spinning and flying around, rolls up into a ball and crashes through the windows of the lower IFC1 where his target is located.

The finale of the sequence sees Batman and target being pulled out, up and away from the building by the C130 transport plane that I mentioned in the first film post here.

Of course, most of this was achieved using CGI, but there are pictures of a cabled up Christian Bale standing on a very precarious part of the building for some daytime filming (the scene is set at night so I can only assume they were using filters).

So here we are, with the second film character to leap from the top of 2 IFC (the first one was Lara Croft in case you didn't know).

The Dark Knight - Christian Bale (2008) - Midlevels Escalator, Lyndhurst Terrace

This is another scene that made big news in the local papers, however, for some unknown reason The HK Standard now limits its archive to the previous 4 years (previously we could browse articles from about 1994 onward) and so I can't link to anything useful anymore.

Never mind, this following scene filmed on the section of the Midlevel's escalator was actually done with several thousand people all gathered around the road below taking snap shots of the two stars Christian Bale and Morgan Freeman.

The road below them is Lyndhurst Terrace and Gage Street. In fact, there is the odd amateur film on YouTube of Morgan Freeman doing a walkabout along part of Gage Street, but I'm not sure that was filmed or if it was it didn't seem to make the final cut.

Gage Street in the background

The Dark Knight - Christian Bale (2008) - Tsim Sha Tsui, Kowloon

Although the film was released in 2008, the Hong Kong part of the filming was done during November of 2007. How do I know this? Well, even if it wasn't mentioned in Wikipedia I knew because I was lucky enough to see some of the filming taking place (or at least some sort of rehearsal perhaps) in the harbour area.

I was walking along the TST waterfront with my parents who were over for a visit and this huge big white C-130 cargo plane appeared from the direction of the airport and flew up and down the harbour front for about 10 or 15 minutes.

The plane did actually feature in the film as the aircraft that helps whisk the bad guy and Batman out through the window of the IFC building to bring him back for summary justice in Gotham City.

But anyway, this is not that particular scene. The following screen captures are from the initial HK-sequence when we see Morgan Freeman's character arriving by helicopter and landing on the top of the Peninsula Hotel. We get unusual angles on No.1 Peking Road (on the right), the Masterpiece (on the left) and of course the Peninsula Hotel (centre).