Karate from Shaolin Temple - Kazuma Kenji (1976) - King's Road, North Point

I thought I had finished with Karate from Shaolin Temple but I accidentally stumbled across a location that was previously unidentified. The scene follows this one, as Musashi is stopped by one of Wu's friends and is spotted by the gang boss's men. As Wu's man makes it back to their hideout, there are a couple of location shots of him making his way there. This is one of them and was filmed on King's Road at the curve of the road close to Oil Street. In fact you can see the entrance to Oil Street just to the right of the minibus. It's a bit blurry in the screencap but the building there was called the 宏興鷓鴣菜大廈 - that is the name written vertically down the side of the building in red characters. The building is still around but has been converted into some serviced apartments by "Shama".

City on Fire - Chow Yun Fat (1987) - King's Road Pedestrian Bridge, Quarry Bay

As Ko Chow goes home there is a shot of him walking over a pedestrian bridge in Quarry Bay. The pedestrian bridge looks pretty much now as it did then - although perhaps it was a bit cleaner back then.

V.I.P - Jang Dong-gun (2017) - King's Road, Quarry Bay

After taking care of business, Jang Dong-gun heads off and stops at some traffic lights to ponder the meaning of life. The traffic lights in question are located where Java Road joins onto King's Road between the Hong Kong Funeral Home and Kerry Centre in Quarry Bay. Then as he pulls out onto King's Road we get a brief glimpse to the east as the cars drives off. Actually, this later angle was also used in the opening scenes as one of the driving shots as he makes his way to his rendezvous.

The lower three images show the view along King's Road (looking east) but the first of those is actually from the beginning of the film. The latter two are from the end as he makes his way back to the airport.

Java Road with Towngas Building in the background

Je l'aimais - Daniel Auteuil (2009) - Empire Apartments, North Point

Mathilde's Hong Kong flat is supposedly on the roof top of a building and there is one scene when the two leave the apartment and have to cross the roof in order to get down. These scenes were filmed on top of the Empire Apartment building on the corner of Hei Wo Street in North Point. This is in fact the residential building next to the State Theatre. The building was constructed in 1957 - just two years prior to the construction of the neighbouring Empire Theatre, which was the State Theatre's original name. It looks as though the film crew did use a real apartment that has been constructed on the buildings roof top. Roof top squatting has been a common occurrence in Hong Kong for many decades and lots of old buildings still have illegally built additions at the top - often cemented in to make them look like part of the original building. I reckon this is one of those that has never been flagged by the Govt - out of sight out of mind.

Les Nuits Rouges du Bourreau de Jade - Carrie Ng (2010) - Sunbeam Theatre, North Point

The location for all of Carrie's murderous behaviour is an innocuous locked room at the Sunbeam Theatre. It so happens this is also where her boyfriend/cohort practices his Cantonese Opera. For those who don't know, the Sunbeam Theatre is a very famous local landmark known for its dedication to Chinese opera. The film comes back here time and time again because it is really the core location for the film.

Hong Kong (series) - Rod Taylor (1960) - King's Road, Quarry Bay

This episode, The Dragon Cup, actually has a location in it that took a long time to track down, simply because the area has changed so much over the last 30 years that I was having a hard time reconciling the screen captures with how it looks today. Again, the mapping office aerial pictures were crucial to identifying where this was.

What you are seeing is how the section of King's Road in Quarry Bay used to look when it was largely filled with Swire/Tai Koo-related infrastructure. In the top two images we are looking west back along King's Road. The steep slope with the building at the top was located where Westland Gardens now sits. The building was one of the Tai Koo buildings but I'm not sure what it's role was.

as the car passes the location of the camera, although the background is blurred from the camera motion, it's possible to make out a flat area with a wall and gate. This open area corresponds with today's Fortis Centre/Eastern Centre and Shipyard Lane that runs in a loop around these two office buildings.

These final two images show the view looking east towards the curve in King's Road that existed prior to the road being straightened and becoming Kornhill Road. If you look at modern maps, you'll see that King's Road actually still follows its original route here, turning north where Kornhill Road begins. The tree covered hillside seen at the road bend below was excavated at some point. The road was straightened and the massive Kornhill development (including the north and south developments as well as the plaza) were built in the location. It is completely unrecognisable today. The excavation/removal of the hill and subsequent creation of Kornhill Road et al occurred sometime around the mid 1980s.

This same clip was also used in the later episodes Double Jeopardy, Lady Godiva.

Strangers - John Simm (2018) - Montane Mansion, Quarry Bay

My most popular post on the blog is from the scene in Transformers that was shot around the Oceanic Mansion cluster of buildings in Quarry Bay. In this story it is a building that houses a variety of (seemingly) South Asian refugees. It's where the guy who was following Porter lives and she goes there to meet him to find out what's going on. The building is massive and separated into several (five, I think) differently named sections. This section is the courtyard between Montane Mansions and the Yick Cheong Building (Transformers was largely shot in the neighbouring courtyard).

Golgo 13: Assignment Kowloon - Sonny Chiba (1977) - King's Road, North Point

Another of many establishing shots that show various parts of Hong Kong, this time we are on King's Road in North Point, not far from the North Point tram terminus.

The top picture shows us looking west from the north side of King's Road towards the curve in the road where the State Theatre is situated. You can't see that rather interesting building on screen but the buildings at the far end (Nam Tin Building and Southern Building) are right next to it. The camera then pans left so that it faces the opposite direction. The older buildings next to the "Shell" sign have been demolished and replaced by a pedestrian walkway over the road.

Noble House (Mini series) - Pierce Brosnan (1988) - King's Road, North Point

Another brief snippet of Hong Kong normality is this quick look at a tram traveling along the road. This was filmed all the way over in North Point where there is a pedestrian flyover where King's Road meets Tong Shui Road.

It looks as though the tram will be terminating at Sai Ying Pun but I'm not sure. Anyway, this view is looking east, much of the signage has been removed but the flyover is still around as are some of the building in the background.

Transformers: Age of Extinction - Mark Wahlberg (2014) - Quarry Bay Part 4 - King's Road, Quarry Bay

The final Quarry Bay location is along King's Road at the junction with Mount Parker Road. The pedestrian bridge you see in the screen caps below starts on the north side of King's Road and extends all the way over to the Quarry Municipal Services Centre mentioned in previous posts.

Here's a shot I took a couple of days ago. The building in the background is the focus of much of the action around Quarry Bay. Mount Parker Road (and slightly further in - Quarry Bay Street) starts it's slow climb uphill just past the walkway on the right hand side.

Transformers: Age of Extinction - Mark Wahlberg (2014) - Quarry Bay Part 1 - Oceanic Mansion, Quarry Bay

In the first of quite a few posts concerning the Quarry Bay area, we are looking at the residential building that was used as the initial location for all the subsequent To Kwa Wan rooftop shots. In the Quarry Bay case the building in question - although very similar in shape to I-Feng Mansion, with a large front section with 3 rear sections perpendicular to the front (a bit like a digital "3" shape) - is actually made up of several separately named blocks: Oceanic Mansion and the Fook Cheong Building front King's Road, whilst Montane Mansion, the Yick Cheong Building and the Yick Fat Building make up the three rear prongs.

This location was actually the place where the film crew, and Michael Bay in particular, ran into a spot of trouble with a couple of local businesses who felt they were owed some money for the inconvenience of the filming and attacked the crew with aircon units!! The culprits were arrested and, in fact, given prison sentences.

You can see the entirety of the building in the following screencaps that show it from the north looking south. The new building left of screen is One Island East.

Another view from the south looking north (i.e. rear to front of the building) as the spaceship is about to crash (and in a bizarre twist of geography ends of in a scenic country park in rural China - I don't recall seeing it when I went hiking over there not so long ago...)

We also get some close up views of one of the podium levels at the back of the building.

As well as some shots of the roof top, where you can see all the clutter and why the other roof in To Kwa Wan had to double for this location's chase scenes.

Yellowthread Street (TV Series) - Bruce Payne (1990) - Quarry Bay MTR Station on Finnie Street, Hong Kong

Staying in the Quarry Bay locale with Angel Eyes as Tzi Ma & Co continue to try and keep Bruce Payne under surveillance. We get to see a view of the entrance/exit of Quarry Bay MTR station that sits on Finnie Street.

Okay, strictly speaking it's not the actual station, because that's on the opposite side of King's Road, but this place is entrance to the pedestrian flyover that leads into the station.

I used to come here quite often because the missus worked nearby so it's nice to see that it looks pretty much the same as it did 25 years ago.

A few differences I guess are the change in tiling on the outside of the station entrance as well as the building on the right seems to have filled in part of the window space on the 2nd floor. However, 成記 is still doing roaring trade even after all these years down on Hoi Hong Street, although they have reversed the order of the characters on their shop sign (red/yellow sign on the left of both Streetview and screen caps). There is a relic of a sign in the background as well - the vertical red on white on the distant left. You can see it in both pictures and it is advertising a plumbing supplies/hardware shop.

Yellowthread Street (TV Series) - Bruce Payne (1990) - King's Road, Quarry Bay

Moving on to episode 5 - Angel Eyes, and Bruce Payne goes undercover to bust a drug gang run by HK-Canadian actor (now barrister), Melvin Wong. However, before we get down to the location I thought it would be fun to share a personal experience I had back in December of 1996 on one of my trips to HK.

I was invited to a friend's son's birthday party out in a village in Lam Tsuen called Tong Sheung Tsuen. It was a small affair with just a couple of the kids' school friends there and about 5 other grown ups. One of the dads looked a bit familiar and I subtly asked my friend if it was who I thought it was (i.e. Melvin Wong) and it was! I couldn't believe it! I had only just been watching Yuen Biao's Above the Law and ol' Melvin played the [SPOILER ALERT!] bad guy who gets an axe in his head at the end of the film.

It turned out that Melvin's son, Wesley, was in the same class at school as my friend's son: Shatin Junior. They were about 9 or 10 at the time. So it was great, I got to chat to Melvin about some of his films and I got to meet his totally gorgeous wife, Angie Chiu. I have to say they were a completely down to earth family and very friendly. It made my holiday...

Anyway, so back to location finding and this part sees Payne being taken to a secret rendezvous as he is tailed by his colleagues. Loads of sites around the Quarry Bay area of North Point including this one on King's road.

Anyone who has watched the latest Transformers film may or may not recognise the building on the left of the screen grabs. It is the Fook Cheong Building/Oceanic Mansion where some of the film was made and became famous when one of the shop tenants on the ground floor decided to attack the film crew.

Speaking of buildings, the small block of apartments in the trees on the south side of King's Road, are Govt quarters at 992 - 998 King's Road. I have no idea who lives in them now but having been this way a few times (the Mount Parker Green Trail starts just after the trees' end) I can say they are fairly hefty but seem to now be privately owned because they have an owner's corporation (#4937) which I'm not sure Govt buildings would need...

Anyway, here is a rough approximation courtesy of Streetview.

What you can spot is the pedestrian flyover in the distance, it's just above the car roof in the last screen grab, but it looks as though the retaining wall on the Streetview picture may be a more recent addition. The ex-Govt flats are obscured by tree growth from this angle.