Powaqqatsi - Godfrey Reggio (1988) - City One, Shatin

The last post from this film is a long shot, again from a helicopter, of the City One development in Shatin. This place is locally famous for being one of the biggest and most extensive residential developments in the New Territories with 52 blocks housing around 25,000 people. Siu Lek Yuen Road is in the bottom of the image.

Powaqqatsi - Godfrey Reggio (1988) - View of Kai Tak, Kowloon

There are a couple of shots of the Kai Tak area in this film, the first one is a view across the bay towards Richland Gardens. The angle and power of the lens makes it difficult to know exactly where the camera was placed when filming, but I am guessing somewhere at the tip of Hung Hom - possibly around where the Laguna Verde development now stands.

The second sequence is one following an aircraft as it takes off along the old runway. The three buildings in the background of the bottom image still exist. The one on the left with red window trim is the Fen Hin Industrial Building. In the middle is the Peter Leung Industrial Building and on the right is a building called the CCF Building. All sit along Wai Yip Street in Kwun Tong which is now largely obscured from this angle by a new round of waterfront development.

Powaqqatsi - Godfrey Reggio (1988) - Nathan Road, Yau Ma Tei

It should be noted that most of Hong Kong and Kowloon is now completely devoid of the neon signage that can be seen below. Many establishments have switched to more energy efficient LED lighting, but the main reason is because the Govt has decreed that lots of these signs are not safe to have hanging above peoples' heads and so they've largely been removed.

The New Buckingham Restaurant and Club appears to have disappeared, but its name pointed me to the Buckingham Building at the corner of Nathan and Ning Po Streets. Lo-and-behold the "Jade City" Karaoke Niteclub  (翡翠城) - the sign with the pink writing on the left of the third image - is still around. These places have extreme longevity because most often than not they are owned and run by triads. Let's face it, if you're the landlord of this building, are you brave enough to raise their rent?

Powaqqatsi - Godfrey Reggio (1988) - Former Whampoa Dock, Hung Hom

The tail end of the 1980s was when Hutchison Whampoa was putting some of the finishing touches to the Whampoa Garden development that occupied the site of their former dockyard. The reason there is a mall in the shape of a large boat in the area is as a sort of homage to the area's former identity. Although most of the estate had been constructed, Hutchison Whampoa still had a working dockyard at the very end of the peninsula and that is what you can see captured in the image below.

The old dock office building on the right was demolished some time later to make way for redevelopment and the space was later turned into One Harbourfront and the Harbour Grand Hotel. The waterfront where the boat is docked is actually now the Whampoa promenade in front of those two buildings.

Powaqqatsi - Godfrey Reggio (1988) - Shatin Racecourse, Shatin

It's not immediately obvious until you see the faces of the people in the video, but the combination of Chinese features and the downcast look can mean only one thing...Hong Kong punters leaving/arriving at the racecourse at Shatin.

Powaqqatsi - Godfrey Reggio (1988) - The Kornhill, Quarry Bay

Another of the large developments that is featured in the film is the Kornhill over by Tai Koo Shing MTR station. The Kornhill is named after some of the older staff accommodation blocks that used to serve the nearby Tai Koo sugar refinery and docks. The sole survivor from that time, and style of building, is Woodside up on Mount Parker Road.

Powaqqatsi - Godfrey Reggio (1988) - Fairview Park, Yuen Long

It's quite hard to believe that anything like this exists in Hong Kong but there are a few areas that were deliberately designed as low-rise garden estates. One of the more significant ones is Fairview Park, built on the old wetlands up close to the Chinese border near Yuen Long. I hadn't realised the place was quite as old as this but there you go. Judging from the images we see in the film, part of it was still being constructed.

Powaqqatsi - Godfrey Reggio (1988) - Far East Finance Centre, Central

Actually, this building has cropped up a few times on the blog previously, but usually in its full golden glory. In this film it is just shown from the very top with the sun glinting off it making it hard to see the window colour.

Powaqqatsi - Godfrey Reggio (1988) - Hotel Furama, Central

Here's another close up that may have been missed by those not familiar with Hong Kong's recent past. It's the facade of the, since demolished, Hotel Furama. Built and opened in 1973, this hotel was a popular addition to the waterfront in Central and a great many people mourned its subsequent demolition in the early 2000s. By the time I moved here full time in 2006, the plot had already been filled in by the AIA building.

Powaqqatsi - Godfrey Reggio (1988) - Wonderland Villas, Kwai Chung

Wonderland Villas actually appears twice in this movie, except the first time it is in extreme closeup that makes identification a bit more challenging unless you are familiar with the building's configuration. The initial appearance is below - it's a fairly drawn out sequence as the camera pans from left to right , taking in the rather long expanse of the building. I believe this is the western facing part of the facade. To be fair there aren't that many developments in Hong Kong that form such a long contiguous structure so it's not surprising that it caught the attention of Godfrey Reggio, the director. The more recognisable appearance towards the tail end of this musical-documentary can be seen at the bottom. In that image we see it from the opposite side, looking across towards Tsing Yi in the background.

Powaqqatsi - Godfrey Reggio (1988) - Cross Harbour Tunnel, Hong Kong

I'm interrupting the black and white transmission for a little spot of colour before getting back into the 1960 Hong Kong series.

The film I am interrupting it with is a bit of a weird one in that it's a documentary with no commentary other than a rather cool Philip Glass soundtrack. I think I first heard about Powaqqatsi via a comment when this locations blog was first set up. It really slipped my mind until recently when I went on another seek and find and managed to locate an old copy in one of the used DVD stores in Mongkok. Anyway, for those that don't know it is a sort of music and film compilation that takes us through various places in the world . The cinematography is absolutely stunning and luckily there are several sequences that were shot in Hong Kong. I think I captured them all but I may have missed some because of the way the filming was done. So if anyone is familiar with the film and recognises a snippet that has been bypassed, please feel free to let me know.

Anyway, the first scene I recognised - helped by the addition of the Hong Kong urban taxi in the frame) is the Cross Harbour Tunnel. This is the original tunnel, from Hung Hom to Causeway Bay, that was first opened in 1972.