The Fighting Dragon - Yasuaki Kurata (1975) - Hilton Hotel, Central

Lung is at the hotel to inquire about ferries to Macau when he is attacked by the blowpipe wielding "Purple Snake" (yes, that is the character's name). 

Felicity - Glory Annen (1978) - The Wan Fu

Following on from a really interesting discussion over on Gwulo a few months back, Stephen Davies (the former head of the HK Maritime Museum) gave a very detailed background to the vessel that became the Hongkong Hilton Hotel's company pleasure craft. I'm quite pleased to see that Stephen had referenced my Wan Fu sightings from the various films on the blog, so, this is another that can be added to its growing list of cameo roles. Check out the same thread on Gwulo to find out where this vessel finally ended up.

Black Cobra Woman - Laura Gemser (1976) - Views across the harbour, Hong Kong

Coupled with the initial Kai Tak landing sequence, the opening scenes from Black Cobra Woman also show a little bit of the Hong Kong Island waterfront. Some familiar views here, even if many of the buildings no longer exist. Just in the top image you can see the Furama Hotel, Sutherland House (with the circular BAYER advert), the Hong Kong Club, the Hilton Hotel behind them all and the older HSBC building which have all gone the way of the dodo.

Casse-tête chinois pour le Judoka - Marc Briand (1967) - Hilton Hotel, Central

This location has popped up a few times now and it took a while before I worked out it was an inner courtyard at the Hilton Hotel. No one seems to have been able to confirm or deny it so far, but the fact that it keeps popping up confirms it was a real location and not any kind of studio set. We've already seen it previously in The Million Eyes of Sumuru but it was The Yin and Yang of Mr Go that helped actually place it properly.

Foxbat - Henry Silva (1977) - Queen's Road Central, Hong Kong

Immediately after Garden Road we see the vehicles - in a rare show of movie geographical accuracy - pull out onto Queen's Road Central. This was before the right turn (towards Wanchai) was replaced by a flyover.

This shot actually captures the former Hong Kong cricket ground (closed in 1975) undergoing its transformation into the now rather bleak and overly-concreted Chater Garden, which I believe opened the following year in 1978. Sorry, but in my Western-oriented foreign-deviled mind I am forever destined to associate the word "garden" with things like grass and the colour green rather than a drab grey and a proliferation of concrete. In Hong Kong, as long as it was built using Li Ka-shing's "Green Island" cement than that is about as green as it needs to be.

Anyway, note the very elegant and still standing Hong Kong club in the background. That was to stick around fora few more years before its eventual redevelopment. You can also spot the lower floors of the Furama Hotel at the back. And a little further along the road (see below) we get to glance back and can see the Hilton Hotel as well as what looks like a newly constructed Murray Road car park on the right.

Les Tribulations d'un Chinois en Chine - Jean-Paul Belmondo (1965) - Hong Kong Hilton Hotel, Central

For some reason the Hongkong Hilton was the number one place to shoot films during the 1960's. It features a couple of times in this film, initially as an office where Belmondo goes to meet someone (could be a lawyer, could be a bank manager - unfortunately I don't know because I can't understand French). Later on, one of his buddies (one of several expecting to benefit financially from his death) tries to shoot him from one of the hotel windows.

I'm fairly certain that this room/suite is the same one seen in Five Golden Dragons and again in The Million Eyes of Sumuru.

The last shot also gives us a nice bird's eye view of the previously mentioned Cricket Ground. You can probably get a similar view today but would need to head into the Cheung Kong Centre which replaced the hotel in the mid-to-late 90's.

Five Golden Dragons - Bob Cummings (1967) - Hong Kong Hilton Hotel, Central

Sadly, I missed ever seeing this iconic building by just a few months as my first trip to HK was in November 1995 when the building had already been demolished and the construction work had already started on the piles for what would become the Cheung Kong Centre.

What you can see is Bob Cummings running onto Queen's Road Central to grab a cab. However, one of the most interesting pictures for me is the view from the hotel room window. It sparked a recent memory and I suddenly realised I had seen a version of that view before.

Five Golden Dragons: 1967

Bruce Lee and I: 1976

Even if it's not quite the same room (though it could be) the view is comparable in terms of aspect if not content. Look how much it has changed!! In case you are wondering where the latter screen grab is from, it's from 1976's Bruce Lee and I starring Betty Ting Pei. The difference of around 10 years is quite staggering but not surprising. Also look carefully and you can see that the Hilton looks as though it didn't change its furniture very often. The rattan settee in the foreground is exactly the same!

Yellowthread Street (TV Series) - Bruce Payne (1990) - Edinburgh Place, Central

More specifically the carpark that has sat here for many years. Interestingly, once referred to as the Star Ferry Multi-storey Car Park on local maps but since the sad demolition of that famous ferry pier, it's now just the Edinburgh Place car park.

This scene involves a bit of action as the cops follow the Middleman down from the Peak and a gunfight ensues when some local gangsters turn up and he escapes in a cloud of burnin' rubber.

Bottom of the carpark ramp with the HK Club in the background

Bruce Lee & I - Betty Ting Pei (1976) - View from the Hilton Hotel

Quite unexpected but welcome nonetheless is the following picture. No, this screen grab isn't from the film per se, but is a nice by-product of uploading photos to this Google blog.

In case you didn't know, Google has this funky new algorithm that goes through your photos looking for effects it can apply. It's already found a few of mine that it has automatically ,merged into panoramas etc.

The following picture, as you should know from my last post is taken from a room in the Hilton Hotel where Betty was supposedly staying during the story in Bruce Lee & I. Google took the three screen grabs I uploaded and simply removed Betty! - I think there are probably a few Bruce Lee fans around the world that wish they could do the same, though I'm not one of them.

Anyway the result is a nice clear view over to the buildings and out across the harbour and Betty being abducted by aliens.

Bruce Lee & I - Betty Ting Pei (1976) - Hilton Hotel, Central

Speaking of the Hilton Hotel, as we just were, here is a shot taken from it rather than of it. Betty is staying at a hotel in the film when she starts her liaison with Bruce. In reality she was staying at the Hyatt Regency over on Nathan Road in Kowloon, and Bruce was first introduced to her there, but in the film we have switched over to HK Island and she is shown staying at a nameless hotel, but as we can see from the film it is in fact the Hilton Hotel.

How do we know this? Well, looking out of her suite window we can see several buildings opposite: the yet-to-be-opened Furama Hotel, Hutchison House and what is now Bank of America tower.

The only building tall enough (because I am pretty sure this was not a back projected studio scene) to fit is the Hilton Hotel which was directly opposite the Furama.

Sadly, the Furama disappeared several years ago and was replaced by the AIG building that now stands in its place. Despite walking past it on several occasions I never went in to sample the revolving restaurant nor the bakery on the ground floor(?) that my wife says had the best cakes in HK :-)

Hutchison House (the shorter of the three) and BoA tower are still standing, for the time being.

Men of the Dragon - Jared Martin (1974) - Des Voeux Road, Central

Another blurry shot from Men of the Dragon as we see the car (in fact a Mercedes Taxi, which I am assured was a common sight in HK during the 70's) containing Katie Saylor drives past the Hilton Hotel and down towards the old Bank of China.

Of course the Hilton went in 1994 and was replaced by Cheung Kong Centre, but the old Bank of China building is still around thankfully and remains unchanged. The angle on Streetview isn't really a match so I have included an angle which shows the lattice stonework that we can see in the last screen grab above, and you can see the glass frontage of the Cheung Kong building where the Hilton Hotel used to stand.

This sequence was actually immediately following the previous post I did featuring the old Cricket Club pitch, which would have been off screen left in the above series of pictures.

Men of the Dragon - Jared Martin (1974) - HK Cricket Club, Central

Not many modern visitors, or even residents for that matter, realise that Chater Garden in Central (and the term 'garden' is applied in the liberal HK sense of the word here i.e. no grass, just concrete) was once actually a nice wide open cricket ground (with real grass!!) used by the HK Cricket Club. It's quite ironic that a large piece of grassy land should be need to be concreted over in order to get the name 'garden' bestowed on it, but I guess care of all things natural and green weren't (and still aren't) of great concern to those in Govt.

The club moved up to its current location at Wong Nai Chung Gap Road ('The Gap') above Wanchai when its lease on the ground was not renewed by the Govt and the 'Gap' site was offered as an alternative. It moved pretty much around the time this film was made (circa 1974/75) so it is quite possible that the producers of Men of the Dragon caught one of the last few games of cricket being played on this pitch.

Anyway, once again the grabs are not the greatest of quality but if you would like to see some better pictures of the ground, Gwulo.com has a decent selection here.

In the first picture below you can see Garden Road in the background where it hooks up with Queens Road Central. The building on the corner right there was the old Hilton Hotel - demolished around 1994 to make way for the Li Ka-shing monolith that is the Cheung Kong Centre. When I first visited HK back in 1995, I had just missed the hotel by a few months and the workers had started to do the pile driving for the new building.

As the camera pans from left to right across the pitch, the last screen grab shows the side of the old Bank of China, and look carefully you can see a little bit of the decoration that adorned the front of the Hilton. Chater Garden was officially opened in 1978 and these days seems to be a focal point for protest march gatherings. It's named for the road it sits next to, Chater Road, which is itself named after Sir Paul Chater who was a central figure in HK development. Some of the businesses he founded or helped found are still around including Hongkong Land (now controlled by Jardines) and Hongkong Electric.