Hacker - Callan McAuliffe (2016) - View of Happy Valley

Just before the trio arrive at their hotel we are treated to a nice view across Causeway Bay and Happy Valley. The camera looks to have been located at or near the top of "The Hennessy" at 256 Hennessy Road.

Anti-Corruption - Bill Lake (1975) - Happy Valley Racecourse

Inevitably some of the bent coppers are tracked down at the races where they are gambling all that ill-gotten wealth.

Something Good - Luca Barbareschi (2013) - Happy Valley Racecourse, Hong Kong

Despite being such a major land mark in Hong Kong, this is only one of a very small number of productions to have actually filmed inside the grounds (the others covered so far on this blog have been The Amsterdam Kill and Noble House). Most of the times it has been seen in this blog it has been exterior shots or simply shots with it in the distant background. Anyway, in this film it is where Matteo goes to meet Mr Feng to discuss who may have killed his friends.

Narazumono - Ken Takakura (1964) - Former Ventris Place, Happy Valley

Minami is given a key to the woman's apartment and he heads over there one day. The apartment is on Ventris Road and has a great view of the Happy valley racecourse and looks as though it was in a block that has since been replaced by the much taller Ventris Place residential development. I'm not sure what the older building was called but you can catch a distant glimpse of it on this image hosted over on FLICKR. It's the 7-storey double fronted block on the far centre right of the photograph. If anyone can suggest what it was called it would be appreciated (so I can change the title of the post). It was obviously standing in 1953 but how long it last I don't know. The current Ventris Place development was built in 1985 so the older building has been gone for at least that long. In one of the shots from the window though we are given the view down to the ground and the developments distinctive curved podium is still intact today.

The building may have been redeveloped, but the podium is the same

Supermen Against the Orient - Robert Malcolm (1973) - Happy Valley, Hong Kong

More from the jumpy opening credits. This time we get to see a rather oddly angled shot taken over causeway bay looking towards the Happy valley racetrack. I get the feeling that the cameraman didn't like heights and was bit nervous hanging out of a helicopter to get his film.

Boarding Gate - Asia Argento (2007) - View over Happy Valley, Hong Kong

The angle on this shot suggests the camera was position up on Stubbs Road next door to the famous King Yin Lei. The actual spot overlooking the valley is now obscured because the land there was handed over to the previous owner of King Yin Lei in a land swap deal to secure the aforementioned property as a protected monument.

Anyway, you can just see a corner of Tung Shan Terrace in the bottom right of the screen.

The Amsterdam Kill - Robert Mitchum (1977) - Happy Valley Racecourse, Hong Kong

A quick post to see out the year (it's still 2014 as I type). A brief glimpse of the racecourse at Happy Valley.

Here's looking forward to an interesting 2015 and a whole host of new film locations!

Noble House (Mini series) - Pierce Brosnan (1988) - Happy Valley Racecourse, Happy Valley

There is some nice footage of the race course at Happy Valley in Noble House as Dunross (Brosnan) checks out the form of his race horse. I tend to steer clear of these places (in a past life I worked in the IT dept for well known UK betting company and it was enough to put me off gambling for life) but did make a trip out to Shatin once and had no clue what I was doing.

For those who don't know the Chinese name for this place (and surrounding area) is actually just 'racecourse' (Pau Ma Dei 跑馬地 lit: run horse ground) the English name seemingly more poetic but actually a product of some ironic humour courtesy of the first British settlers due to the high number of malaria related deaths from living in the - originally marshy - vicinity.