Former Marine Police HQ - Now and Then

Here's a recent set of pictures I took at the Marine Police HQ. If I was a more diligent location documentarian I would be doing this for all the locations I post about but the problem is that I have over 3000 location posts on this blog so it's a bit overwhelming.

Anyway, here are some rough comparisons for a few locations around the former Marine Police HQ. It's now a boutique hotel that has gone through a variety of names, the current one being 'FWD House 1881'. I have no idea where the 1881 comes from because the building was built in 1884 but I suspect it may be due to the '4' bit being a bit unlucky (so many '4's are dropped in HK because it sounds similar to the word for 'death').

The first images are from Soldier of Fortune (1955). Below is the view looking west along the front of the building. The building was constructed on a hill and when the area was 'revitalised', the whole front of the hill, including where Ronald Chow and Michael Rennie are walking, was excavated to make room for shops. By the 80s, that whole area was covered in mature tree growth, all of it chopped down to make way for jewellery stores no one visits (and hence why many of the shops are now empty).

1955 v 2024

1955 v 2024

The image above of Michael Rennie was shot at the eastern end of the front facade. It looks as though there was a partition wall to the right of him that was removed at some point.

Next up are some relatively more recent film grabs, although they show the place before it was renovated and still had its white/light blue colour scheme. The image below is from Takeshi Miike's 2002 Dead or Alive: Final. The top image below shows (what were) the stables on the west side of the compound. I believe this building has since been converted into a Sushi/Sashimi restaurant.

And finally a location that was a bit harder to get a decent compariosn of because of the time ball machinery that has been reinstalled smack bang in the middle of the room. The old time ball tower, located at the front of the former Marine Police compound, had a metal ball on a spike that was dropped every day at 1pm so that ships in the harbour could calibrate their onboard clocks to allow more accurate calculation of longitude. This responsibility was later (1908) passed on to the tower at Blackhead Point/Signal Hill. As you can see from the screengrab, the mechanism for the time ball was absent in 2002, so I can only assume it was in storage somewhere and was reinstalled when the whole compound underwent its renovation and was reopened back in 2009.

Dead or Alive: Final - Shô Aikawa (2002) - Lok On Pai Desalination Plant, Tuen Mun

The weird finale/showdown between the two main android characters takes place in an old abandoned warehouse. In fact this warehouse has featured quite a few times in both local and overseas movies. It's the old desalination plant at Lok On Pai near Tuen Mun.

Some trivia: Although I have never bothered including it on this blog, The Expendables 2 had some scenes filmed inside the plant due to Jet Li's China-based film commitments. The US production company flew a bunch of interior sets to Hong Kong and installed them inside the Lok On Pai factory so that jet just had a quick trip to HK to complete his scenes. Now you know this you can go back and watch the film and see how they managed to edit him into the plot line.

Dead or Alive: Final - Shô Aikawa (2002) - Catchick Street, Kennedy Town

There is a brief shot of the famous Hong Kong tram in the middle of the film. Honda is riding it to get to the police station. However, given that this strip of the tram track is located along Catchick Street in Kennedy Town. The tell tale sign here is the proximity of the track to the pavement (most other sections of the tram route along the whole of the island runs down the middle of the street rather than the side) and the presence of the latticed podium structure of Harbourview Garden in the distant background of the top image.

Dead or Alive: Final - Shô Aikawa (2002) - Harbour View from Lei Yue mun

In this shot, Aikawa's cyborg character is sitting on a concrete pier with a view across the harbour towards Tsim Sha Tsui and Hung Hom (you can just make out the Coliseum if you squint). As the camera pulls out there's an element that has been added afterwards: the large ship that is hovering behind Harbourfront Landmark (centre right). The tall building with the pyramid shaped roof on the left is the Prosperity Millenia Plaza in North Point which means we are probably somewhere near to Lei Yue Mun again. Back in 2002 there was an old concrete pier that jutted out from the shorefront but I notice that recently a bit of beautification has gone on and it no longer exists. I think that's where Aikawa was sitting.

I would have included this post with the previous Lei Yue Mun one, but it took me a while to realise where it was because the angle was so confusing.

Dead or Alive: Final - Shô Aikawa (2002) - Little Palm Beach, Sai Kung

A few scenes where the heroes plot their revenge against the mayor were filmed close to the location of Honda's home. Just down the road is Little Palm Beach. You can just see Ngam Tau Sha on the far right of the top two images. The island opposite is Shelter Island.

Dead or Alive: Final - Shô Aikawa (2002) - Lei Yue Mun

A fair bit of the film appears to have been shot in and around the various small villages that sit around the Lei Yue Mun headland. Getting definitive locations from these images is difficult without going there and wandering around all day, so I'll just say that the top image was taken somewhere at the southern tip of the headland because that is Hong Kong Island in the background.

Dead or Alive: Final - Shô Aikawa (2002) - Yau Lai Estate, Yau Tong

When Honda goes for his meeting with the Mayor (who has a penchant for skinny boys with saxophones) they usually meet in what looks like a building site. It turns out that it was indeed a building site, one which was turned into the Yau Lai Estate in Yau Tong. The identifying feature that helped me pinpoint this location is the building in the background of images one and two. It's the St Antonius Primary School on Yau Tong Road.

Dead or Alive: Final - Shô Aikawa (2002) - Former Marine Police HQ, Tsim Sha Tsui

One of the real gems of this film in terms of locations is the use of the old Marine Police HQ for the main police station where Officer Honda works. Miike took the opportunity to use the place when it was in a state of complete emptiness and looking rather neglected and dilapidated. Of course, it has since gone on to become the rather gaudy Hullet House/1881 Heritage shopping mall.

We get a fair amount of interior scenes of the main building, as well as a couple of scenes shot inside the round time ball tower, a brief scene on the roof and also at the side where the garages are. Perhaps there are some former HK Police and Marine Police members who are able to identify some of the interior locations within the building.

Inside the roundhouse

Dead or Alive: Final - Shô Aikawa (2002) - Saigon Street, Yau Ma Tei

In film you can make everything look like anything and Miike takes this pedestrian subway and turns it into the front entrance of a school attended by Honda's son. In reality this is the underpass that connects both parts of Saigon Street in Yau Ma Tei. That's Nathan Road in the background with an urban taxi heading southbound.

Dead or Alive: Final - Shô Aikawa (2002) - Mei King Mansion, To Kwa Wan

For that gritty future Yokohama look, the director went to a location that has been seen quite a bit on films in this blog: Mei King Mansion.

Dead or Alive: Final - Shô Aikawa (2002) - Hang Hau Wing Lung Road, Sai Kung

New year, new film and this time back just a few years to 2002 when Takeshi Miike was in town to direct a dystopian (ish) scifi thriller, Dead or Alive: Final, starring Shô Aikawa as a former battle cyborg wandering around Yokohama. In fact, it was entirely shot in Hong Kong. The film starts at the family home of Officer Honda (Riki Takeuchi), a Yokohama police officer responsible for rounding up gangsters and people with illegal pregnancies - births are Govt regulated in the future.

Anyway, it looks to me as though the location for Honda's house is located along Hang Hau Wing Lung Road in the Clearwater Bay area of Sai Kung District. It's hard to see from what's publicly available online but I think this is House 4 of Wing Lung Villas. Google Streetview shows the same 6-pane window of that house and matching wiggly ceiling decorations here (you need Chrome to view, I think).