Asia-Pol Secret Service - Wang Yu (1966) - Old Peak Road, Mid-levels

The HK police make their way to the home of the businessman involved in the HK-side of the gang's operations - who happens to be Wang Yu's biological father. The car is shown driving around the circular ramp that connects Old Peak Road with May Road. Spot the previous version of Queen's Gardens at the left hand side. The same location was filmed the following year in Five Golden Dragons but from a slightly different angle.

For long term readers, you will know that the landslide scenes in the Noble House miniseries were filmed on the empty slope after the old Queen's Gardens was demolished and before the construction of the new one commenced.
 

Tokyo Gang vs Hong Kong Gang - Ken Takakura (1964) - View from Old Peak Road, Hong Kong

Another entry from the 60's-era Japanese gangster films in the form of Tokyo Gang vs Hong Kong Gang (aka Tôkyô gyangu tai Honkon gyangu or 東京ギャング対香港ギャング in the original Japanese)

This was released the same year as Narazumono but appears to have been shot earlier (I'm not sure though) and shares at least two of the same cast (i.e. Ken Takakura and Tetsurô Tanba). The plot revolves around a Japanese gangster, Kitahara (Takakura), who has arrived in Hong Kong in order to do a drug deal with a local Triad group run by "Dragon". The deal falls sour and instead Kitahara strikes a deal with another upcoming gang represented by the behatted Chang (Ryōhei Uchida). The story moves around Hong Kong for much of the first half before transferring to Macau and then finally back to Yokohama for the denouement. Suffice to say it's only the Hong Kong and Macau locations I'll be looking at.

Before I start though, I must give a big shout out to Mamiko Oka of FLICKR, who has already done a great job identifying many of the rather obscure and difficult to find locations used in the film. Check out their list of photo albums for a large selection of movie locations. It was actually via their FLICKR photo albums that I first found out about this film, so credit where credit is due.

Anyway, first up is an easy one because the very first shot of the film is a close up of an Old Peak Road road sign. The camera then pans left across what I believe may have been the old Victoria Peak Apartments before settling on the harbour and zooming in towards Kowloon-side.

Blood, Sand and Gold - Aaron Costa Ganis (2017) - Old Peak Road, The Peak

The two Hong Kong based characters are out for a run and they are filmed at the top of Old Peak Road not too far from the Barker Road Tram Stop. This bend in the road is less than 200 metres down the road from there. The triangular roofed building the guy is looking at is the Tavistock 2 and Aigburth towers on Tregunter Path.

Noble House (Mini series) - Pierce Brosnan (1988) - Queen's Garden, Midlevels

I haven't looked at Noble House for a while but was recently contacted by a friendly chap, called Sean, who was living in Hong Kong at the time of filming. I can't post a link to the video he showed me but it was some home movie footage he took of the collapsed building set from the final episode.

Anyway, it turns out that the set was in fact a real slope up in the Midlevels.The film makers took advantage of the recently demolished Queen's Garden building at 9 Old Peak Road and used the slope behind the empty plot to stage the disaster scenes.

Before you get too excited, the slope no longer exists. Just after filming finished work began on construction of not just the new Queen's Garden but also another development behind it called Dynasty Court. The slope was removed and a podium was constructed on which Dynasty Court now stands. The driveway of Queen's garden covers the area where the cars are in the above screengrabs.

Anyway, a big thanks to Sean for letting me watch his excellent home movies and helping identify a location which I had never really considered possible to find. You can click on the location link below to see the exact spot.

Les Tribulations d'un Chinois en Chine - Jean-Paul Belmondo (1965) - Robinson Road, Central

Here's one that took a bit of effort to find. It's a great shot that shows why (I think) HK is now well past its best and far too cluttered. Take a look.

Just look at that wide open view when owning an apartment in the mid-levels pretty much guaranteed unimpeded views of the harbour and beyond. Can you guess which part of Robinson Road this is? It's the junction where Albany Road and Old Peak Road meet. There are a couple of key features that helped identify it (other than the general topography). The concrete base in which the large tree sits is still around. I doubt the tree is the same one from 1965 but the concrete base seems to be the same.

The second clue can be seen in the last screencap just above the red pillar box (that's a post box for the non-UK crowd). It's a white slab that runs along the top of a wall of the one the properties down the road. It turns out that it is still around and belongs to the only property that has stood the test of time: 1A Robinson Road. It's age (built in 1963) means it's been spared the indignity of some crap pretentious name and goes simply by its address. You can still see the white slab in the Streetview grab below. The red pillar box has been replaced by a new green one, but it's interesting (and often useful when it comes to identifying locations) to note that it still occupies the same position as its Colonial predecessor.

I'll leave you with a couple more shots from 1965 which show a small corner of the building that once occupied the location of what is now a high rise called "The Albany", plus a nice retro taxi cab.

I believe the previous version of The Albany (seen on the left in the above pictures) was in fact Govt quarters but that's about all I know of the place. The current high rise development was opened in 1989 so I can only assume the Govt quarters were still around until 1987. By the way, in case you hadn't realised, the wide open space behind the tree was and still is part of the Zoological and Botanical Gardens. The view is now blocked by the Robinson Road elevated road.

Noble House (Mini series) - Pierce Brosnan (1988) - Old Peak Road, Central

I guess this is a fairly insignificant location in the general scheme of things, but it provides a good example of how much HK has changed for those people who haven't been here for a while. The scene is when Four Finger Wu and his son are driving around when they come across a landslip preventing them from proceeding. The small road is Old Peak Road and at the time you can see how open the view was.

Here's what the same view looks like today. 

Noble House (Mini series) - Pierce Brosnan (1988) - View from The Tregunter, Central

As we have already established, Rose Court in the series is actually The Tregunter in Central mid-levels. The only thing I wasn't completely certain of initially is whether it was Tower 1, 2 that was being used, however, after reviewing the following panorama, I think I am wrong about both of those. Here's why. 

The screen grab is an edited view from Orlanda's balcony in Rose Court. The building on the right is Garden Terrace (built 1983) and moving left the smaller one with the blueish decor is Hollywood Heights (1977). The Albany is missing because it wasn't completed until 1989, which means construction probably hadn't begun yet (remember, the missing Standard Chartered means filming took place probably in 1986 or early 1987). The small low rise buildings at the very bottom of the picture are the roofs of Pine Court and Kam Yuen Mansion, and of course this view would now be completely blocked by the wall-like edifices that are Queen's Garden and Dynasty Court. But what is also missing is Tower 3 of The Tregunter itself.

Tower 3 is a bit of a mystery, but it seems that an initial Tower 3 was built at the same time as Towers 1 and 2 but was significantly smaller in size. It wasn't extended to its current height until 1993. I say extended, but actually, it looks like the original tower was demolished and rebuilt from scratch. Anyway, it seems that Tower 3 was the one that stood in for Rose Court throughout the series and a quick comparison of the entrance on Old Peak Road seems to confirm as such (see this updated post).

If anyone knows the actual reasons behind the redevelopment it would interesting to hear about because at the moment I can only suppose that either there was an initial height restriction due to plot ratio/height restrictions (this seems to be the main reason in HK but also appears to be ignored anyway while the Govt Depts responsible for oversight wring their hands nervously).

Five Golden Dragons - Bob Cummings (1967) - Old Peak Road, Midlevels

Next up we have the famous little elevated ramp that connects Old Peak Road to May Road. Despite being a Hong Kong ignoramus, even I am quite familiar with this little bit of road - I've been up here a few times at least.

Most shocking to me - and I suspect everyone else - will be the complete lack of high rise development in the area. It seems to me that the best time to live in the mid-levels has gone way past already and these days you may be lucky if your view doesn't include someone else's bathroom in a nearby block (or maybe some of you would consider that lucky anyway...).

The white building on the left of the second screen shot is the previous version of Queen's Garden. The name has been around a long time even if the buildings have been regularly changed. But look at that clear view through the bridge opening! Just for posterity, here is the modern Streetview for comparison - look what happened to that nice view!

Shatter - Stuart Whitman (1974) - Barker Road Peak Tram Station, The Peak

We've been here a couple of times before, most notably on Bud Spencer's Flatfoot in Hong Kong and of course with Clark Gable in Soldier of Fortune. Here we are with Stuart Whitman as he ascends Hong Kong's very famous Peak.

The tram station hasn't changed at all, it's pretty much the same as it was then, but the view at the back has increased in height significantly. The lone tower block you can see on the lower picture is the circular Century Tower (1) - a rather nicely shaped residential block that is still around (and still very stylish), but these days it isn't so prominent, being surrounded with a whole bunch of new stuff. I can't recreate this view using Streetview (or anything else for that matter) because it looks to have been filmed from the side of the track itself, rather than the more easily reachable roadside below, but here is a picture of the station I took at the beginning of the year when I walked up Old Peak Road.

Flatfoot in Hong Kong - Bud Spencer (1975) - Barker Road, The Peak

After Rizzo has hijacked a car to help him chase his quarry, we see a shot of them driving up a small road and under a bridge that is part of the tram track.

Barella alights at the Barker Road stop, not realising Rizzo anticipated his movements once again.
The Barker Road station has been seen in quite a few productions covered on this blog.