Yellowthread Street (TV Series) - Bruce Payne (1990) - Hanaevilla, Tung Shan Terrace

Another one from the Yellwthread Street archives. This one is from the Episode 4, Middleman. It's the location where the ex-wife of the hostage taker lives. It's a grand old building called Hanaevilla on Tung Shan Terrace but is accessed via a sloped driveway from Stubbs Road area. We've seen it only once (briefly) before on this blog for a post a while back for Detonator 2: Night Watch. The building was constructed in 1959 making it quite a rarity for HK.

1989 Construction of Greencliff in the background

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

Yellowthread Street (TV Series) - Bruce Payne (1990) - Mount Austin Road, The Peak

More specifically the area around the famous and rather antique "Umbrella Seat" that sits at the junction of Mt Austin Road and the nameless path that connects it to Lugard Road down the slope. The cops are following the so-called Middleman and follow him here from the vehicular ferry pier (because its just a short walk away, right...?). The first shots esatablish the location bu giving us a nice (although a bit hazy even for 1989) view over the harbour starting with a side view of #25 Lugard Road (see first pic below).

A familiar view to anyone who has been up to the Peak, but vastly different from the current view due to the addition of many new buildings - too many to list.

We get to look down the nameless path that connects Mt Austin Rd with Lugard Rd.

Those last two shots show the so-called Umbrella Seat with its great view over the harbour. According to comments over on Gwulo (see earlier link), this 1989 version of the seat was actually erected in the 1920's. The roof was changed at some point to a slatted version before the original was restored - perhaps because the people responsible (don't ask me who it would be, HK Govt is notoriously filled with Depts and sub-Depts that spend all their useful time passing the buck around themselves, no one ever willing to take responsibility for anything) realised its provenance?

Here's how it looks today courtesy of Streetview. Note the roof seen in 1989 is back in place following its short vacation sometime in the 00's. Or perhaps it is just an identical replacement? Who knows...?

The final shot shows us looking back down Mt Austin Road as the Middleman is not-too-subtly followed back. There isn't much of a wide angle in the screencap, but you can see from the Streetview that the garden on the right has had a bit of a revamp. We've also lost a lot of trees in the background - I'll assume that happened when they built the houses on the left - part of The Mount Austin development.

Yellowthread Street (TV Series) - Bruce Payne (1990) - Hong Kong Tennis Centre, Hong Kong

During Middleman, Marenta (Robert Taylor) heads out to the tennis club to pick up the bad guy's ex-wife to see if she can coax him out of his hostage holding. The drive takes just a couple of minutes - fairly impressive when you consider the hostage taking was being done at Kowloon's British Military Hospital in Ho Man Tin and the tennis club Marenta ends up going to is the Hong Kong Tennis Centre along Wong Nai Chung Gap Road on HK Island.

The main difference these days just seems to be that the opposite side of the road has seen a lot of plant and tree growth and is looking much greener.

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).