The Merry Wife - Li Ching (1971) - Garden Road, Central

I'll finish this film off with a nice, not often-seen view looking north down Garden Road, from a vantage point around where the road bends...most likely from the pavement on Robinson Road. The first image below is actually a stitch of a vertical panning shot. 

In the background you can see the upper floors of the Murray Building - former Govt offices recently turned into a hotel - "The Murray". In the foreground on the right hand side (with angular balconies) is the previous YWCA building. I'm not sure when it was redeveloped but the YWCA now has a much bigger property at this location. There's still a pedestrian bridge at the same location but I'm not sure if it's the same one. If it is (I think it is) then the footprint of the YWCA has changed slightly because in this image it looks as though the slope of the bridge finished flush with the side of the YWCA. These days the YWCA site is slightly to the right, freeing up some additional pavement.

The building in the right foreground is the old St John Ambulance building on the corner of Macdonnell Road. Again, this has since been redeveloped into a much larger HQ building called St John Tower.

This image below just shows the view past the bend in the road. The small hut is long gone and I think it was probably related to the St John Ambulance building. Feel free to comment if you know.

The Merry Wife - Li Ching (1971) - Estoril Court, Garden Road

Lin Min has an apartment in Central in Estoril Court. This was the previous version of Estoril Court rather than the current one. The older version was built in the late 1950s and therefore has a bit more of an art-deco style look to it, as was popular in Hong Kong at the time, particulary with its circular balconies. The 1950s was definitely a good decade for interesting architecture in Hong Kong, and certainly a lot less generic than today's buildings.

The first two images show the roundabout where Robinson Road, Garden Road and Magazine Gap Road all meet. The entrance to Estoril Court was directly off this roundabout, the current entrance is in the same location but the roundabout has been removed and access to magazine Gap Road from Robinson Road is now via a flyover.

Angel Force - Moon Lee (1991) - American Consulate, Garden Road

The local police are meeting with someone at the American Consulate in order to plan their excursion into Burma to capture the renegade general (Wang Lung-wei). Quite why normal HK cops are allowed to put together a team of jungle-hardened commandos to do an extra-judicial mission is quite beyond me, but this is 90s HK action films so the plot doesn't have to be believable.

This shot shows the consulate prior to it having a significant facelift (and security enhancement). I think by the time I first visited Hong Kong in 1995 the consulate was already looking like the concrete bunker of its current form, so I guess the renovation happened sometime between 91 and 95.

Bloodfight - Yasuaki Kurata (1989) - Garden Road, Central

A few shots from the closing credits now as Masa walks off into the sunset. This shot below is taken from the top of Garden Road looking down towards the Bank of China Tower on the left. In front of that is the skinny St John's Building (where the Peak Tram lower terminus is located) and behind that, Murray House, a former Govt office block that has since been turned into a hotel. The under-construction building on the right of frame appears to be "The Royal Court" which means we are most likely on the flyover section of road that bridges Kennedy Road. 

Love Circles - Michelle Siu (1985) - Murray Building, Central

So whilst Yo-yo changes her clothes in the back of the car on the way to her sister's place, she's managing to catch the attention of a local man (a Cliff Richard lookalike) who can apparently see what is happening on Salisbury Road in Kowloon from all the way over on Garden Road in Central. To be fair, judging by the size of his glasses, I'm not all that surprised. We know it's Garden Road because we can see the white-arched ground floor of the Murray Building in the background.

Tokyo Gang vs Hong Kong Gang - Ken Takakura (1964) - Hilton Hotel, Central

Kirahata's hotel room is inside the Hilton and the view from his window looks down on Garden Road. The old Murray Barracks building can be seen opposite and features in close up because there is someone watching the hotel from the shade of the building's verandah.

The room window looks down onto Garden Road with the Murray
Barracks building in view. It's now the site of the BOC Tower.

According to gwulo, the white building was a Govt Archive building and
later a firestation.

Hilton carpark in the background

Blood, Sand and Gold - Aaron Costa Ganis (2017) - Garden Road Flyover, Central

We were here just a few months ago, except that time we were following a couple of an epic walk from SoHo to Lan Kwai Fong via Katmandu (or at least that's what it felt like). This time it's just a quick scene as a car drives down Garden Road down towards Queensway.

Hong Kong (series) - Rod Taylor (1960) - Garden Road, Central

There's a very brief scene in With Deadly Sorrow that is very similar (exactly the same angle and exactly the same time of day) to one from Blind Bargain where we see a car driving up Garden Road and turning into Magazine Gap Road. Although, in this image a couple of pedestrians can be seen, I believe it was probably a different take from the same footage shot for the older episode mentioned above. The position of the tree shadows is too similar for it to have been coincidental.

Hong Kong (series) - Rod Taylor (1960) - U.S Consulate, Central

Episode 13, When Strangers Meet, only has a couple of locations, largely because this was really when the series shifted to more studio based scenes and an extended musical interlude at the new hangout, the Golden Dragon.

The episode uses one of the same shots from a scene from Blind Bargain, but then shows us a slightly different angle as Taylor walks up the stairs.

Hong Kong (series) - Rod Taylor (1960) - Garden Road, Central

There is a much longer garden Road sequence later in the show when the two main characters are being followed in their car by the bad guys. The first part of the sequence takes us past the former Murray Barracks building. This is its original location at the lower end of Garden Road before being packed away and semi-reassembled over in Stanley (no, it wasn't rebuilt brick by brick. A concrete core was poured and the external verandahs were reattached to make it appear it was rebuilt - typical Govt 'heritage' smoke screen). This spot is now occupied by the I.M Pei Bank of China Tower. 

There is then a shot of cars driving up what could be Garden Road, but actually, I can't confirm, so instead I'll end on this shot of the section where Garden Road turns abruptly up the hill and becomes magazine Gap Road. There was a very similar angle used previously in this show, but on subsequent examination you can see the angle is not the same as the previous post.

Hong Kong (series) - Rod Taylor (1960) - U.S Consulate, Central

Here is another view of the USA Consulate on Garden Road before it was all sealed up behind the great big concrete walls that now surround it. As you can see here (and in previous films featured here including: Golgo 13: Assignment Kowloon, Die Sieben Masken des Judoka and China Rose) it was once a rather open building with balconies. Even before I had first visited in 1995 though the exterior of the building had been renovated to remove the balconies and the massive security wall had been constructed. This was long before 9/11 so I imagine some other perceived threat had arisen to give the US Govt cause for concern.

In the episode, Blind Bargain, Glen visits his friends at the consulate to find out whether or not the female reporter he has spotted (and knows to be trouble) has registered there for an assignment. It turns out she hasn't because she is up to no good. The building in the background of the top image is the old Govt Offices East Wing.

Hong Kong (series) - Rod Taylor (1960) - Garden Road, Central

Some nice old footage of Rod Taylor driving up Garden Road and then turning onto Magazine Gap Road just past the junction with Robinson Road. Obviously this is way before the flyover was built and the view was much more open.

Casse-tête chinois pour le Judoka - Marc Briand (1967) - Garden Road, Central

After the meeting at the US Consulate (which was actually the Hilton Hotel), the two cross Garden Road and pick up a cab. The consulate has had a complete external makeover since then including a large foreboding wall (it was also recently revealed that the land it is on has the longest lease in China). Down the road the view was once very open. You can  see the old Govt HQ east wing on the left, but these days the whole road, and view, is crowded with skyscrapers.

China Rose - George C. Scott (1983) - US Consulate, Central

Up Cotton Tree Drive and back down Garden Road to visit the Consulate General of the U.S.A. As mentioned previously, at some point the external balconies were removed and replaced by the flat external wall that can be seen today. The building on the left in the top picture (and at the back of the bottom one) is The Helena May.

 

Golgo 13: Assignment Kowloon - Sonny Chiba (1977) - Garden Road, Central

Some car action around Central takes in some of the sites along Garden Road including the US Consulate and the old Govt offices East Wing where the road joins with Lower Albert Road. The interesting thing about the Consulate is that in the 1977 it still had the external balconies - no doubt removed for security purposes and to give the place a rather more imposing appearance.

Looking up (south) Garden Road

 

The old front of the US Consulate

The view to Lower Albert Road and East Wing

Looking down (north).

You can just catch a glimpse of the Murray Building's columns in the lower picture. This former office block is currently being turned into a hotel.