Noble House (Mini series) - Pierce Brosnan (1988) - Casino Macau Palace, Macau

The floating casino in Macau's inner harbour has appeared a couple of times before on this blog, but usually as the older version that was in service during the 1970's called the Casino De Macau. The version we see in Noble House is the later version that resembles the style used for the Jumbo in Hong Kong (although the latter is not a casino).

The version used in the show was still in use (and might still be as far as I know) although it had been moved from its former place in the inner harbour near Ponte 14 up to the water next to Ilha Verde (aka Green Island).

Noble House (Mini series) - Pierce Brosnan (1988) - Queen's Pier, Central

This place is still in the news despite it being removed several years ago. Apparently, the Govt took the step of dismantling it rather than destroying (unlike its neighbour, the Star Ferry Pier) and have it in storage awaiting reconstruction somewhere appropriate. There are basically two camps - the restore it in its original location (now reclaimed) or build it at the new waterfront area. I'm not sure which camp I fall into at the moment. Restoring it to its original location (if the Govt can actually remember where it was exactly) adds historical context but renders it useless as a pier (although I guess it would make a welcome shade from the intense HK summer sun) whereas reusing it as an actual pier means the public will once again get to use it properly but removed from its original context. Hmmm...

Anyway, this is the point where Dunross and Tcholok catch the former's boat to take the trip to Macau.

 

Noble House (Mini series) - Pierce Brosnan (1988) - Kellet Island Cargo Handling Basin, Causeway Bay

This is the cargo basin on the west side of Kellet Island (the eastern side is Causeway Bay Typhoon Shelter) and is where we see the Sea Witch in its berth, awaiting Bartlett. Currently the place is a bit of a mess because it is part of the harbourfront reclamation that will see the MTR extended via either the South Island line (which is going to head down to Aberdeen) or the Shatin-Central link. I have no idea which bit they are excavating for at the moment, but suffice to say there won't be much of either the basin or typhoon shelter when they have finished.

 You can just see the Hong Kong Yacht Club building at the back in the lower picture.

Noble House (Mini series) - Pierce Brosnan (1988) - Hotel Bela Vista, Macau

Here's a picture I have had to use before when I did a full post on another one of Macau's famous hotels. In this case it is the Bela Vista. At the time of filming this was still operating as a hotel (and commentator Neil MacDonald who later worked with Pierce Brosnan on Around the World in 80 Days told us that this hotel was a major filming location for that later series) and it wasn't until over 10 years later - following the 'handover' of Macau to China in December 1999 - that it was first used as it current occupation as the residence of the Portuguese Consul in Macau.

In the screen grab, the Rolls Royce is driving its occupants along the Avenida da Republica, at the time it was a seafront road, but even that small bit of sea we can see above has now been enclosed into what is now known as Sai Van Lake.

The sea wall remains unchanged however, and here is a Streetview grab from the other side of the new lake. You can see the, now, Portuguese Consul's residence centre screen to the right of the lamppost.

Noble House (Mini series) - Pierce Brosnan (1988) - Marine Pier, Macau

I've bundled these two together because they are essentially the same location, just a small square separating them from each other. The first is the marine pier where Dunross' boat pulls in and ties up.

Back in the late 80's the pier was still just that - a pier - but there has been much development of this area including road construction and now the access to the open water is blocked by a highway called the Avenida Panoramica do Lago Sai Van. In fact the only decent Streetview shot I can get of the pier is taken from this very same highway - it's not completely obvious but the small strip of water where the pier still sits is now completely landlocked.

Across Barra Square is perhaps the second most famous sightseeing spot in Macau - the A-Mah temple. Here it is peeking through the archway of the pier, it's very distinctive with its red-painted walls.

Noble House (Mini series) - Pierce Brosnan (1988) - Lisboa Hotel, Macau

Continuing with a whistle-stop tour of Macau, we now see the regal Rolls Royce rolling past the very famous Lisboa Hotel and Casino. This was Stanley Ho's centrepiece of his gambling monopoly in Macau and I have to admit I find the garish colours and circular-styling quite appealing. This casino is still around although since the Ho clan lost their monopoly, Macau has just grown into a huge gambling territory with casinos and resort hotels popping up all over the place (though largely centred on a piece of reclaimed land between Taipa and Coloane called The Cotai Strip).

I have actually been in this casino back in 1996. It was interesting to see the various games such as fan tan and big/small, but the thing you really have to watch out for is that almost every floor is saturated with young Chinese prostitutes all doing the rounds. They rent rooms for the day and then head downstairs to ply their trade. Not the most salubrious of places to spend your time for many reasons. Just to the left of this shot is the location of Ho's new Grand Lisboa stands. It wins the prize for being the most gaudy, over-the-top, garish piece of architecture ever seen and truly ruins the Macau cityscape.

What we can see in the above picture though is the old statue of Joao Maria Ferreira do Amaral which stood at the centre of the roundabout in front of the hotel. Ferreira do Amaral was a bit of a thorn in the side of the Chinese and it's common knowledge that the statue was eventually removed (and shipped back to Portugal) so as not to piss off the Chinese when they retook Macau in 1999.

To be honest, the modern version of the roundabout is a complete mess as you can see courtesy of Streetview below (yes, that gold thing on the left is the Grand Lisboa...)

Noble House (Mini series) - Pierce Brosnan (1988) - St Paul's Church Facade, Macau

Moving over to Macau, when Dunross and Tcholok head out to supposedly visit Lando Mata in his Macau retreat (which was in fact located in Shek O on HK Island). Anyway, it's a good excuse for the film makers to give us some of the main sights in Macau including perhaps its most famous facade of St Pauls.

The eighties was still a time when you could still get a clear view of the place before the thousands of Mainland Tourists turned up and chaos ensued. These days the place is so busy it's unbelievable.

Noble House (Mini series) - Pierce Brosnan (1988) - Stanley Bay, Hong Kong

This next location initially had me completely stumped because I just could not place it anywhere. Then along came my good friend Thomas to the rescue and identified it as Stanley Bay before the redevelopment works that removed the shanty town and moved the seafront several metres down the beach.

Anyone who is familiar with Stanley today would be astonished to see that Stanley Bay actually had a sandy beach at all - these days the promenade and playground by Stanley Main Street has encroached on pretty much all that was there and left a rather stony, rocky cove. In fact, pretty much all of those buildings you can lining the seafront are still there - it's just that they now have the Stanley Waterfront Playground in front of them.

The lower picture is looking west towards a shanty town called Ma Hang Village. Ma Hang occupied the coastal area that is now taken up by the *ahem* "reconstructed" Murray Barrack building and Blake Pier.

One of the great comments that came out of this original post over on my old Wordpress blog post was left by a former (anonymous) Policeman Inspector who was in charge of Stanley the day the film crew arrived. I've copy/pasted his comments below because they're worth preserving.

Stanley Boy Says:

Hi there. 

I was a Police Inspector in charge of Stanley Sub-division in the mid-1980′s. I was required to live in a quarter within the station during my term of office. I will never forget the day that the film company responsible for the making of Noble House “descended” on Stanley early one morning, with all their vehicles, and effectively took over the waterfront on Stanley Main Street. 

My people called me at the station and I remember rushing down to the location, getting hold of whoever was in charge from the film company, and giving them 10 minutes to get all their vehicles out of Stanley village. Many of the Stanley villagers were not best-pleased at having the whole street taken over by such vehicles as Pierce Brosnan’s trailer and goodness knows what. The film company were not happy but complied with my instruction. 

Incidentally the beach at that location, at that time, was NOT attractive. It was little more than an open sewer. It was very rocky and bore no resemblance to the rather more attractive Stanley Main Beach or St. Stephen’s Beach nearby. The “gentrification” of Stanley Main Street, including the pedestrianisation of the bar/restaurant area, and the elimination of the ghastly Ma Hang Squatter Area, (with its pig breeding activities), are some of the finer achievements of the HK Government. The reconstruction of Murray House and Blake Pier at that location is also commendable, in my opinion.

My memories (particularly of that period) were very happy ones! Obviously it wasn’t every day that we had an international film company descend on our peaceful little village and take it over, but it certainly livened up the place when it did happen. Problems involving filming at various public locations in Stanley were not uncommon, to the best of my recollection, and I often had to respond to complaints from the public regarding location filming.

The question of filming in Hong Kong is covered in detail on the following website: -http://www.fso-createhk.gov.hk/main/guidetofilming.php. That website also covers the contentious issue of triad involvement in location filming.

To add some icing on the cake, Neil MacDonald, who regular readers will know from a while back and the great comments he left on this blog (worthy of their own post) was, coincidentally, a location manager for Salon Films, who helped produce the Noble House series and was also a policeman for a time. Here are his comments as well:

Neil MacDonald says:

Interesting comments from Stanley Boy… I probably know him as his time in the force would appear to coincide roughly with mine.  

I don’t know if anyone managed for the filming of Noble House, but I always informed the police when we were going to film in particular locations. But we would often deal with what was known as the Police Public Relations Bureau (PPRB) who were ‘supposed’ to let the relevant regions/districts/divisions know – as I knew they didn’t always bother, I would often seek out the appropriate divisional commander and inform them personally.

Also, I’d like to reply to Stanley Boy’s comments regarding people complaining about film units, though I can only speak for my film crews and shoots I was involved with.
We never parked in places where it obstructed people from going about their legitimate business; and if we did require a location which might affect their business we would ALWAYS negotiate with, and often paid them, beforehand. The people who complained the loudest and most often fell into two camps; either one, they were people who had tried to extort money from us by placing themselves in front of camera unless we paid them not to (I made it a matter of course that we refused), or two, they were hawkers, street vendors without licenses who felt their trade had been affected by our presence. I would say yes, we did sometimes cause traffic problems because of the number of vehicles we often needed, but that was often the reason we spoke to both the traffic police and PPRB beforehand. 

With regard to triads – with some locations they were a problem, in the vast majority they were not. Though as is always the way with the Chinese, it’s really only ever about business. 

Many of the hawkers, street vendors etc. had ‘protection’ from supposed triad members – basically, they just paid the tough guys so they could conduct their illegal businesses uninterrupted. If we were filming street scenes, it would sometimes behove us to speak with the triads (and pay them) to ensure the street trades under their protection didn’t kick up a fuss or try to stop us filming. Rarely, if ever, did we put ourselves in a location which was DIRECTLY involved with a triad activity – prostitution and brothels, drugs and the dealers, that sort of thing. 

Only once did I have a serious problem with the gangs and that was when I was filming ‘Cracker’ for Granada TV. We were in and around Lockhart Road, on the streets, at night. All the bars were open. One of my HK-resident but American-born stunt guys became a bit of a dick and confronted a local triad who’d got in the face of Robbie Coltrane. 

Mistake. 

I was shortly approached by two senior triad members who told me we were not going to be prevented from filming any longer and that it was better we stopped before they stopped us. I offered them HK$50k to carry on, which they declined; they weren’t holding out for money, they simply decided they didn’t want us there. So I wrapped the unit after just four or five hours filming. The British producers were livid, but then of course they didn’t understand… 

I spoke to the senior triad guys the following day, and arranged for us to return to complete the scenes the next day. No problems. And then he told me what the issue had been....That night had been a long-earmarked night in the triad calendar. Two top gangs had agreed to meet in a Wanchai restaurant to discuss who was going to have control over what area – and they were concerned an altercation between our film unit and low level ‘enforcers’ would attract the police to the area and they didn’t want that. So they shut us down. It was, after all, only business.

So there you go, a great bit of behind-the-scenes info and many thanks to everyone who participated. 

Noble House (Mini series) - Pierce Brosnan (1988) - The Regent Hotel, Tsim Sha Tsui

What we now know as the rather plush Intercontinental Hotel, used to be called The Regent Hotel and was owned and operated by New World Development (Cheng Yu-tung's company - he also owns the Chow Tai Fook jewellery chain) before being sold off to the Intercontinental Group circa 2001. It was rebranded and has operated as the flagship Intercontinental since then.

Funnily enough, Intercontinental have also just recently sold off the hotel to another owner. But all is not lost for your IC fans because the brand will continue thanks to a deal they struck to retain management of the hotel for at least the next 40 or so years...

In the above picture we are looking back the other way towards Salisbury Road and it's quite interesting to see (if you can just make it out) the old signal tower on Blackhead Point (top right). The grey building beyond the van is the Mariner Club along Middle Road. Suffice to say the open sky at the back is now filled with high-rises.

The two shots above are snipped from Episode 2, but we also return to the hotel during Episode 3 when Dunross goes to meet Brian Kwok, only to find out he is 'indisposed'. So in Epsiode 3 we also get a brief look inside the hotel lobby. From what I can remember of the place it hasn't changed much.

Noble House (Mini series) - Pierce Brosnan (1988) - St Michael's Catholic Cemetery, Happy Valley

Filling up the terraces on the west side of the dip that forms the Happy Valley racecourse, the cemeteries along here are some of the more historical areas of the territory - at least in terms of its colonial history. So much so that Patrica Lim recently spent a rather large amount of time and effort documenting the graves for her most recent book "Forgotten Souls". Actually the Catholic area of the cemetery is just one of several (don't forget about the Muslim one just next door to the north) but is perhaps one of the most impressive due to its sometimes huge elaborate grave stones and mausoleum entrances. If you are familiar with your HK history then wandering around the graves here will reveal a whole host of well-known names.

In Noble House we get to see it when the Chen's are burying their recently murdered son John.

Noble House (Mini series) - Pierce Brosnan (1988) - Clearwater Bay Golf Course, Clearwater Bay

Just as in real life, business is conducted largely on the golf course in the world of Noble House. In this case the rather large course attached to the nearby country club at Clearwater bay - one of HK's more exclusive private clubs. I'll admit I have been there, but sadly only as a lacky helping out with a discover scuba course in the 3 metre pool (a great time was had by all I should say, and despite some rather pushy parents, the kids were rather more down to earth and fun to be with).

The main giveaway for this location is the proximity of the sea and High Junk Peak - a very distinctively-shaped mountain.

High Junk Peak at the back

I'll be honest, I find golf about as interesting as other peoples' flatulence, however, with these kind of views to behold I can see one of the main attractions of playing around this particular course: stunning east coast scenery.

Noble House (Mini series) - Pierce Brosnan (1988) - No. 2 Shek O Road, Hong Kong

In the series this house is depicted as Lando's and somewhere in Macau. In reality it's on the southside of Hong Kong island in a highly desirable seaside residential area called Shek O - very popular with wealthy business owners and leaders, but these days perhaps more famous for its surfer beach.

The house is, well what can I say, gorgeous and we get treated to a view of the long shielded driveway as well as the exterior and a small bit of Shek O Road. As you can see from Neil's comment below (Neil MacDonald worked on the series as part of the production crew) the interior was indeed filmed in the actual house. On the map this house goes by the name of "Seaway".

Shek O Road

 And finally a nice shot of the interior, or at least the lounge area.

The most recent owner (a record from 2008) show it as being owned by a senior executive of Jardine Matheson (quite apt I guess considering that Struan's is based on the very same company).