Black Mask - Jet Li (1996) - British Military Hospital, Kowloon

The hospital sequence in this film was shot at the former British Military Hospital in Kowloon. Really old readers (many thanks for hanging around for so long, and returning following the accidental deletion) may remember that I first identified this building as a filming location for an episode of Yellowthread Street called Middleman. This post led to a comment (and subsequent email) from stuntman and stunt coordinator, Jude Poyer, who gave me a few examples of other films that had used this place. One of them being Black Mask, which his friend Mike Lambert worked on as one of the bad guys. You can see Jude's comment at the bottomof the Yellowthread Street link I provided above. So here I am, ten years after Jude's comment, finally getting to cover Black Mask. The hospital site was later developed into the "Parc Palais" residential complex.

Bloodfight - Yasuaki Kurata (1989) - King's Park Reservoir Steps, Waterloo Road

Although this is also King's Park related, it's a little distance from the location of the other post and I thought this would be worth including because it is rumoured that Bruce Lee himself used to run up and down these very same steps to keep fit. Although I've never been able to confirm this myself, it is quite possible given that the steps have been there as long as the reservoir as far as I can tell (circa 1934) - and we know he went here on at least a couple of occasions with his dad. Perhaps Yasuaki knew this about Bruce and was paying a small homage to his former friend?

I can confirm that going up this set of steps is an absolute killer, especially if it's a warm day, but the reservoir park at the top is worth a look-see and has been featured on this blog in the past. In the film, Masa runs up the steps with his weighted wooden sandals on to train his legs.

Bloodfight - Yasuaki Kurata (1989) - King's Park, Kowloon

The establishing shot for this scene is the Queen Elizabeth Hospital as seen from King's Park. Masa harasses Ryu to become his student as Ryu plays basketball on the King's Park Recreation Ground basketball courts.These are still around should you feel the need to shoot some hoops like Simon Yam. The modern looking building in the background is the HK Red Cross Blood donation centre.

The bottom images show the slope down from the hill where it joins King's Park Rise, just next to the aforementioned basketball courts.This is seen in a slightly later sequence as Masa is still harassing Ryu to become his student.

The Chinese Stuntman - Ho Chung Tao (1981) - King's Park Garden, Ho Man Tin

Quite a few of the film's fight scenes were filmed on top of the King's Park covered reservoir garden. I've mentioned this place previously on my other blog because it's the same area that the real Bruce Lee was photographed training in kung fu with his dad and "uncles".

In this film it's the area where Ho's character trains and seems to always get ambushed, you'd think he would learn after the first couple of times. Anyway, the first two images are of the steps and path way that lead up from the back of Cliff Road and Wing Sing Lane.

The steps and path are still there but the steps now have a green canopy covering them. You can access them , as mentioned, from Cliff Road just off Nathan Road. Later on, there is also a snippet of a training scene that was filmed actually in the rest garden atop the covered reservoir.

 The small white building at the back of the first two images above is the pump house that can still be seen today. There is a close up picture of it on the link I provided earlier, but you can see it here as well.

China Rose - George C. Scott (1983) - Former British Military Hospital, King's park

A few years ago, when I was looking at Yellowthread Street location, this building gave me a bit of a runaround because it seems to have gone virtually undocumented in terms of photographs other than a select few on FLICKR. 

Anyway, it turns out to have been the go-to place for hospital film scenes in the 80's and 90's. If you click on the Yellowthread Street link above you should be able to see a comment made by Jude Poyer regarding a few films he worked on that were also shot there. In China Rose we see, what I believe, is the back (north facing) side of the building being used as an establishing shot for where Scott goes after he gets injured helping his son escape the triads. It's a shame it's so brief but at least I know enough about the place now to recognise it when it pops up.

Chinese Box - Jeremy Irons (1997) - Former British Military Hospital, King's Park

You may recall some time ago I was scratching my head over a hospital location used in Yellowthread Street. It looks as though it may have been the 'go to' hospital for film productions because here it is again popping up in Chinese Box as the hospital Irons goes to for his treatment/diagnosis. It's now a residential development called 'Parc Palais'.

I should mention that soon after the Yellowthread Street post was published, I had a very nice message from former Hong Kong Stuntman extraordinaire, Jude Poyer, with some screen grabs from various films also shot at the hospital: Black Mask (1996), Purple Storm (1999) and The Wesley's Mysterious File (2002) - the latter two he was directly involved with. Anyway, many thanks to Jude and you can see his ongoing work here: Reel Power Stunts.

Shatter - Stuart Whitman (1974) - Princess Margaret Road, Ho Man Tin

A brief glimpse during the credits of the area just north of Hung Hom train station, in fact covering a bit of the road system we saw a short time ago when looking at That Man Bolt.

This bit is from the opening credits as Shatter is in a cab on the way to see the contractor. We see the car, from a distance, driving down Princess Margaret Road as it passes the eastern side of King's Park. Unfortunately it's impossible for me to recreate this same view using Streetview, because it looks as though the camera was mounted somewhere along Chung Hau Street. However, looking at the top screen grab there is a building we have encountered before: it's the British Military Hospital in Kowloon and can be seen far left in the picture below.

In case you need a reminder, it was used in an episode of Yellowthread Street that I covered last year. These days the site contains a rather large residential development called Parc Palais.

The bottom picture is at the end of a right to left pan and shows the subject car driving up the entry ramp onto what becomes Chatham Road South near to the intersection with Gascoigne Road. Here's a Streetview taken from the same road the car is travelling along, looking back north towards the KCR tunnel we can see in the top picture (with Parc Palais at the back).

Yellowthread Street (TV Series) - Bruce Payne (1990) - Former British Military Hospital, King's Park

This next one has had me literally chasing my tail because it has been really difficult to track down. The location is quite important because it occupies a large section of Episode 4 called Middleman which concerns a criminal taking Pak (Tzi Ma) hostage in a local hospital.

The film makers made quite a bit of effort to disguise the real location, more than is warranted, I feel, but here are a few examples...

A few red herrings here because, yes, there is a place called Central Hospital, but it's not this place. Secondly, there is the Chinese name 中央醫院 (Jung Yeung Yi Yuen), which is the original name of a venue now known as the Sai Ying Pun Jockey Club Polyclinic, and no, it's not that place either.

Then there is another red herring in the form of an address we see at one point (when Marenta - played by Robert Taylor - heads off to do some investigation on the 'Middle Man'). We see a hospital invoice. Check out the address below. It says 222 Waterloo Road.

This, coincidentally (or not, as I suspect is the case) is the actual address of the Baptist Hospital in Kowloon Tong. Hmmm.

So, why these guys went to so much trouble I don't know. But either way, it has had me scratching my head until I was doing some research on another matter (as is usually the case) and I discovered some great pictures on FLICKR of the old British Military Hospital on Wylie Road in King's Park.

Here's the ink: https://flic.kr/p/8CAhHr.

A wiki entry can also be found here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Military_Hospital,_Hong_Kong#King.27s_Park

Anyway, suffice to say, the other major reason I had so much difficulty is because this building has been replaced by a huge apartment complex called Parc Palais. You can read a bit more on wiki but the upshot is that the hospital was decommissioned on 30th June 1996 and eventually demolished in the early 00's before Parc Palais was built (opened in 2004).