To Be Number One - Ray Lui (1991) - St George's Building, Central

Ng's right hand man, Wan (Waisee Lee) goes to the travel agent to book tickets for him and his family to Canada when things get a bit hot. The angle on the top image could only have been taken from the ground floor of the St George's Building in Central. I have no idea if there is/was a real travel agency in there.

Yellow Emanuelle - Chai Lee (1977) - Connaught Road Central, Hong Kong

In the film, and possibly in real life, the J.A.L offices are in the old P&O Building - located at 13-14 Connaught Road Central. We get some good views of the general area including the old G.P.O next door and its postal bridge that spanned the road to the harbour front. Both the GPO and P&O Building have been redeveloped, but next door where it says "New Life Temple". This is the "Grand Building" and is currently still around - although the "New Life Temple" sign has been replaced by one for a Catholic Centre.

The second visit to the office was shot from a different angle showing the aforementioned postal conveyor spanning Connaught Road.

Love in Hong Kong - Pauline Teutscher (1983) - Connaught Place, Central

Julie's office appears to be located inside the former Connaught Centre (now Jardine House), but judging from the tiny interiors I think it's safe to assume the interior scenes were not filmed here and it was used for establishing shots only. 

What I find interesting in my nerdy brain is the fact that in the second image you can see Henry Moore's "Oval with Points". According to wiki, this is "cast 3" of the sculpture but I can tell you it has since been moved to Exchange Square and the sculpture now in its place at this location is another Moore called "Double Oval".

Supermen Against the Orient - Robert Malcolm (1973) - Central Harbourfront, Hong Kong

Talking of the Central Harbourfront as we just were, the next film to be given the blog treatment is a 1973 Italian production with the name of Supermen Against the Orient, although its Italian title is Crash! Che botte... strippo strappo stroppio. The film centres around a US Agent (Malcolm) sent to Bangkok and then Hong Kong in search of some kidnapped compatriots. Given the fact that the film was shot in both places I find it a bit strange that more wasn't made of Hong Kong as a backdrop. As it turns out most of the best locations appear in the rather choppy opening credits, so the next few posts will feature these. Starting with the Central waterfront.

The picture quality means there's not much to make out, but we do get some closer helicoptered shots around Jardine House (then called the Connaught Centre).

The base of the building still shows signs of construction, although this may have just been the concrete garden/water features being built rather than the building itself (which supposedly opened for business in 1972).

Oliver's Story - Ryan O'Neal (1978) - Central Waterfront, Hong Kong

The final shot from this film comes at the denouement of Oliver's relationship with his heiress girlfriend/ It all takes place along the old Central waterfront. We can see Jardine House (Connaught Centre) and the post office in the background which shows that this particular area of seafront is now part of the IFC development - in fact probably slap bang where the centrepiece IFC2 now stands.

To Candice Bergen's left is the City Hall block, followed by the Furama Hotel and then Hutchinson House etc. But interestingly, in the lower picture you can see the under-construction Prince of Wales building that still forms part of the former HMS Tamar (now the PLA HQ).

Challenge of the Tiger - Bruce Le (1982) - Central Walkway, Connaught Place

A quick shot of Brad Harris surveying the area around Jardine House from the vantage point of the walkway that crosses Connaught Place. The bit of water that looks like the harbourside (or at least it did to me initially) is one of the ornamental pools next to Jardine House.

Meteor - Sean Connery (1979) - Connaught Road, Central

The tsunami strikes Hong Kong Island after it washes away most of the Yau Ma Tei typhoon shelter. The first place it hits here is the waterfront between Jardine House and City Hall right smack on top of the Edinburgh Place carpark.

Stoner - George Lazenby (1974) - Central, Hong Kong

Stoner, also known as The Shrine of Ultimate Bliss, is the first in a series of three films that George Lazenby completed under contract to Golden Harvest. I already covered one of the three a while back (The Man from Hong Kong). What happened was that Lazenby had been to Hong Kong to sign on for the original Game of Death when it was still in pre-production with Bruce Lee. Lazenby was there to work with Bruce and my understanding is that The Man from Hong Kong was originally intended to be a Lee vehicle as well (as was Robert Clouse's Golden Needles which was also originally meant to star Lazenby). Sadly, Lee died whilst Lazenby was on his HK trip (he was supposed to be meeting him the night he died) but Raymond Chow being Raymond Chow made the ex-Bond star honour his recently signed film contract and the end result was Stoner, The Man from Hong Kong and finally, A Queen's Ransom.

This film also ties in with the documentary Kung Fu Killers because Lazenby was interviewed by Grant Page on that documentary whilst in the process of making this film and some BTS clips from it are included.

Despite being largely set in Hong Kong (as well as some shots in Sydney), there are surprisingly few locations to be found and most of the key scenes were done in the studio. But here is a brief shot of the Connaught Centre (as it was known then) as the Hong Kong establishing shot.

The panning shot finished looking over to the Mandarin Oriental and Furama Hotel (in the background). Ooh and before I forget here is another view of  some of the same buildings but from the vantage point of the harbour.

Foxbat - Henry Silva (1977) - Gloucester Road, Wanchai

The next shot of the ambulance is as it turns onto Gloucester Road from Arsenal Street. This is a great picture and it's a shame I haven't got a better quality version because there is a whole bunch of stuff to be seen. As well as the recognisable buildings in the background (which include the Bank of America Tower - then perhaps still known as the Gammon Centre? - Hutchinson House, Furama Hotel and the Connaught Centre - now Jardine House), there is a tantalising glimpse of Caine House in its former red coat of paint as well as the old China Fleet Club (behind the lamppost).

A little further on down the road and the ambulance is passing by the old Luk Kwok Hotel. That's the building with the red signage at the top. It's hard to see from this angle but it was actually a big advert for SANYO (it's the building immediately behind the ambulance in the picture below). I'm not to knowledgeable on the various buildings that can be seen but suffice to say most have already been replaced. I think the only survivors are the PICO Tower (newly built and on the other side of the Luk Kwok Hotel) and the Malaysia Building - the gold-coloured building in the background. Can anyone remember what the white building was on the right hand side?

Ultraviolet - Milla Jovovich (2006) - Connaught Road Central Walkway, Central

Anyone who has used the walkway over to Jardine House in Central should be able to recognise this spot. It's the steps that lead down to the south side of the building. You can see the Exchange Square building on the right as well as The Centre in the background.

Day of the Panther - Eddie Stazak (1988) - Central Harbourfront, Hong Kong

This is the clip that confirms that Trenchard-Smith cheated a bit on the HK footage. The film was made in 1988, but the following screencaps show us this footage was made several years previously.

We have the usual suspects to look at including the Furama Hotel, City Hall, the Mandarin Oriental, Jardine (then Connaught) House. But look closely and you can see some stuff that really shouldn't have been there in 1988. The most obvious is the old HSBC Building (see second pic above the "Exe" of "Executive Producers". This building was demolished in 1984 and replaced by the current Foster designed iconic (but ugly) structure. But actually, there is a building that was demolished even earlier, it's the Hong Kong Club - you can just see it on the far left of the second picture. This place was demolished in 1981. Sadly, my knowledge can't place it any earlier than that, but feel free to comment if you can see a building in there that was knocked down even earlier.

So, I wonder if this was footage that Trenchard-Smith still had from his earlier forays into filming in Hong Kong? It certainly wasn't filmed for the purpose of this movie.

Spider-Man: The Dragon's Challenge - Nicholas Hammond (1979) - Jardine House, Central

The finale of the film takes place on what would have been the territory's highest structure at the time, the Connaught Centre, now renamed Jardine House. We get some great views from the top looking down onto the neighbouring roads, as well as a rather impressive shot or two of some intrepid (and sadly anonymous) stuntman crawling up the side of the building.

But first some establishing shots showing the area around the building including the various piers we saw in earlier posts.

Vehicular ferry pier bottom left

Blake Pier

Blake Pier and the later version of the General Post Office. Star Ferry at the back

The GPO and Jardine House next door.

Can you see the small dot on the side of the building? It's our intrepid stuntman, attached by wires to a cradle at the top of the building. We get a close up as well which reveals the concrete finish on the building before it was clad with aluminium tiles.

Definitely not Nichloas Hammond!

Once at the top, Spidey uses his radio transceiver to try and locate his buddy. Cue some rather spectacular views from the top of Jardine House.

Spider-Man: The Dragon's Challenge - Nicholas Hammond (1979) - Central Waterfront, Hong Kong

The following screen grabs show a decent swathe of the Central Waterfront prior to the reclamation that saw the Connaught Road ousted from its long-standing position next to the harbour (of course the road didn't move, the waterfront did). We'll start off with a couple of nice harbour shots showing some very small boats bobbing up and down in the harbour. In all honesty, I'm not sure if any of these smaller boats are brave enough to risk going into the harbour these days with all the big boats passing through, but I rarely go there these days despite it being just a few kilometres away. Note Jardine House (formerly the Connaught Centre) centre screen in the top picture followed by a closer view of the General Post Office (with Jardine House being) in the lower picture.

The next few pictures though show the various piers that used to sit along the waterfront. Starting with the outer-island piers (top picture) and moving over past the vehicular ferry pier (left side of picture 2/right side of picture 3) to rest upon the dogleg shape of the final version of Blake Pier and one of the Star Ferry piers. Of course reclamation has long since removed these from their original locations, but the Star Ferry did manage to survive here until 2006.