All About Ah Long - Chow Yun Fat (1989) - Li Chit Street, Wanchai

Whilst I wait for a hard-to-get-hold-of movie to come back from the digital transfer guy, I thought it would be a good idea to repost my All About Ah Long locations. I had removed them (and many more) when I decided focus the blog on foreign movie productions, but now I have set up a different section for local movies I can reinstate some of the older ones that didn't fit at the time.

The movie is about a former criminal, Ah Long (Chow) and his ex-girlfriend Porpor (Sylvia Chang) and their son Porky. It was shot in both Hong Kong and Macau, and for some streange reason that I can't fathom out, also includes a very brief moment that was actually filmed in Singapore. I can only summise that perhaps there was some tax break afforded for the shoot there because the location is still supposed to be in Hong Kong. It's a weird one, but I will include it even though I generally tend to ignore anything outside of HK/Macau (there have been exceptions). Anyway, there's also some later scenes for bike fans shot at the Macau GP (I assume 1988?).

First up is Ah Long's apartment in Li Chit Street in Wanchai. The buildings along here were recognisable due to the curved shape of the balconies but they were all knocked down in the early 90s to make way for a new development (Li Chit Garden) that actually straddles where the road used to be located and essentially pedestrianised the old road space. In a sort of weird and poorly informed nod to these old Chinese tenements, the Govt constructed some weird fake building facades to remind everyone of what they just demolished.

The World of Suzie Wong - William Holden (1960) - Li Chit Street & Johnston Road, Hong Kong

There's one scene in the film when Holden crosses a road in the pouring rain as a tram trundles by. The interesting thing about this location is that although all the older buildings have been replaced (and a tram stop being erected right where that tram is) it's still recognisable. Holden has just come out of Li Chit Street and is now crossing Johnston Road towards the Methodist Church HQ (which can be seen as a brown wall on the last screen cap).

Even the Methodist Church building has been replaced by a newer but similarly-coloured edifice but one relic from this time still exists (or at least it did when I went past it earlier today along that very same tram track) and that is the electrical box that we can see in the foreground of the latter 3 pictures.

I suspect the reason it is still there is perhaps because it is a HK Tramway junction box and there are several similar ones to be found along the side of the tracks at various points (saw some on Kings Road in North Point as well). Now, given that a couple of years ago HK Tramways was taken over by the French company, Veolia, who have promised some major investment, it wouldn't surprise me to see some of these old boxes start to disappear. It's a shame but there you go.

I visited the same location just recently (Sep 2015) and can confirm the old box is still there - for the time being at least.

As you can see it's a bit rusty but has so far withstood the test of time, Here's to another 60 years.