Legacy of Rage - Brandon Lee (1986) - Petrol Station, Peak Road

Although it's been a year since I was looking into Legacy of Rage, here is a late addition to my already significant number of locations from that film. Stalwart blog supporter and fellow locations fan, AP, mentioned to me a while back that Frank Djeng had identified the petrol station (that's a gas station for the Americans among you) where Brandon was working following his release from prison. So credit where credit is due for this one. This is now a SINOPEC outlet, but the gazebo structures above the forecourt remain the same thirty years after the film was shot. You can see for yourself here.

Flight to Hong Kong - Rory Calhoun (1956) - Peak Road, Magazine Gap

Once the bad guys spot their car, a chase begins. This first shot shows the car driving down Peak Road towards Magazine Gap with 40 Peak Road just out of shot in the top right. Similar shots of the area from other films can be found here.

Away with Words - Tadanobu Asano (1999) - Peak Police Station, Peak Road

The only other major location I can get from this film is the Peak Police Station, and even then it is revealed as an on-screen title so it didn't need any specific powers of identification other than the ability to pay attention and read. There's actually quite a few shots filmed up here including one of the "Peak" scale model (built July 1953) that sits in the station grounds and in which a drunk Kevin decides to go for a dip (bottom image).

La Fine Dell'innocenza - Annie Belle (1976) - Peak Road, Midlevels

Annie goes for another jolly on a motorbike, this time with her new found friend, Cheng (Charlie Chan Yiu-lam). They stop off at what appears to be Peak Road (it could be Bowen Road, but I feel the elevation here is more in line with Peak Road than Bowen Road - corrections/opinions welcome) above Central, but looking over Wanchai - before all the highrises started to obscure the view.

Die Sieben Masken des Judoka - Heinz Drache (1967) - Wanchai Gap, The Peak

Some more of the car chase as Marc Briand drives his car down Peak Road and into the famous junction where 6 (or perhaps 7?) roads all merge into one. It seems to be a blackspot for movie-related car mayhem as he almost hits the car that pulls out in front.

Heisser Hafen Hongkong - Horst Frank (1962) - Peak Road, The Peak

Okay, to make up for the lack of views in the last post, I hope this one is a little better. It's the view from Peak Road looking out towards Lamma island. In this case I can almost match the same angle using Streetview grabs. So once again, many thanks to Streetview :-)

In the above and below pictures, you can see the low wall with the gaps is the same one back in 1962. Sadly, the prominent modern haze prevents us from getting a nice clear picture of Lamma from Streetview - so I shall try and head up in the summer and grab some nicer ones.

This next picture is a little further round the corner (not too far) but you can see the nice views down towards Aberdeen Harbour.

And finally as the car drives past the camera we get a nice clear view over to Mount Kellet. Most of the buildings have been replaced by now. Not surprising really given the fact that this is prime HK real estate here. But it's nice to see that the mid-rise apartment block on the left - Block B of La Hacienda - is still around.

Foxbat - Henry Silva (1977) - Peak Road, The Peak

This is the junction where Peak Road is joined by Barker Road and Guildford Road. The buildings at the back are the former 2 Barker Road  and 1 Barker Road, neither of which exist anymore.

I thought this would be a good time to compare the DVD versus the Bluray versions of this film. It's a great way to show how the buildings that are visible in the DVD version get cut off in the Bluray. I didn't get the exact same point for the second screencap but you can still see the difference.

Foxbat - Henry Silva (1977) - Craigmin Road, The Peak

The fashion designer with whom Silva is trying to strike a deal lives in a nice house up on the Peak somewhere. I'm still not sure about the house's actual location (I'll stick it up on my help page later) but the road where A-Cheung heads up the driveway is in fact next to 62-66 Peak Road. The sloping road is actually Craigmin Road.

Foxbat - Henry Silva (1977) - View from The Peak, Hong Kong

Foxbat is an English language Hong Kong film made in 1977. I've known about this film for a while because Jon Benn plays a small role as some sort of head honcho at the CIA but have had a hard time tracking down a copy until I found a company that had a DVD release. This was great for a first look at the film but some of the locations needed a higher resolution to pinpoint, so I have returned to the film a few years later with a Bluray version and managed to squeeze some extra locations out of it. However, the increase in picture quality has come at the cost of a more restricted aspect ratio so some of the height available on the DVD has been lost from both the top and bottom of the Bluray. I'll show an example in a later post.

The film starts off with a Russian jet fighter (the "Foxbat") being flown into Hokkaido in northern Japan and all the countries around the world are scrambling over themselves to get hold of its technology. The action soon moves over to Hong Kong as the various interests all meet up to strike a deal. So here is our first look at Hong Kong as the camera focuses on a bird flying around i the thermals above Hk Island.

(Edit 2020: I'm still trying to figure out which house is in the foreground. I initially thought it may be Katoomba but that building shows up in a later post and isn't a match. I'll update once I have figured it out.)

Les Tribulations d'un Chinois en Chine - Jean-Paul Belmondo (1965) - Wanchai Gap, The Peak

One of the things that has interested me most whilst looking at locations for this film is the almost complete lack of growth on the hills. As you will see from later posts as well the film crew for Les Tribulations d'un Chinois en Chine covered some really surprising locations and it's quite staggering to see the changes that have occurred since 1965. This is a great example - it involves a car chase scene that ends with a rather impressive and comical pile up in the middle of the road. The location is the junction where several roads all come together at Wanchai Gap: Stubbs Road, Peak Road, Mount Cameron Road, Coombe Road and Middle Gap Road. Modern day visitors tend to go here to visit the (excellent) Police Museum on the nearby hill or perhaps start one of the hikes through the Aberdeen reservoirs, but I doubt many would recognise it from the following film grabs.

Where Peak Road meets Stubbs Road. Wanchai Gap Road at the back.

Stubbs Road with Black's Link on the right.

Middle Gap Road on the left, Mt Cameron Rd on the right.

The grassy area is now part of Wanchai Gap Park, 

Coombe Road coming from the right.

It's hard to get a comparative view from Streetview so they will just have to wait until my next visit to the Police Museum. Suffice to say all the hillsides are now covered in mature tree growth. The next shot is great, I particularly like the rickshaw puller who managed to find his way to the top of the pile up.

The following is a better, low angled view through the gap. The building at the end is currently a HK Electric substation. I have no idea if it was the same back in 1965. There are some nice houses on the slope at the back. Whether they are still around is hard to say but I think the one above the substation might be the precursor to today's Cameron Lodge. The one further along might be #6 Middle Gap Road and it looks as though the same building is still there today with the two chimneys.

I'll finish on this brief shot of the top of Wanchai Gap Road as the wayward bed starts on its long journey towards...well, actually it ends up in Mongkok as you will see in a later post. If you thought that was daft enough, then pay attention to the next couple of posts as I document its rather convoluted journey to the other side of the harbour.

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

Another section of road that can be seen (and recognised) is the rather precipitous corner of Peak Road just before the intersection with Magazine Gap Road.

The view isn't quite as clear as it used to be courtesy of some nice tree growth, but the corner at the bottom hasn't really changed much at all. You can even see the same drain in the road on the apex of the bend.

Love is a Many-Splendored Thing - William Holden (1955) - Peak Road, The Peak

Many moons ago, when I first kicked off this blog, one of the first films that got my amateur treatment was Love is a Many-Splendored Thing. I've just been updating some of the screen grabs I did back then and realised there were some locations that I had just forgotten about - I think at the time it was because I didn't know where they were. Anyway, it's time to play a bit of catch-up and put up this post.

It's a brief glimpse during the initial ambulance run sequence when the camera follows an ambulance along Queen's Road Central before heading up into the hills to the hospital.

The way the film is edited we are given to believe that the ambulance is on the road to the hospital - which would mean Conduit Road - however, a closer inspection of some of the buildings in the background have revealed that we are actually seeing Peak Road on the southern flank of The Peak.

Here's the reminder. 

 

Look carefully at the buildings in the distance. If you are knowledgeable of this area you should be able to recognise a few. The two-tone house (orange top, white bottom) is #33 Magazine Gap Road. These days it goes by the name of the Pink House - because it has been painted that colour - and is staff quarters for expatriate senior staff at HSBC. For a closeup of how it used to look, as you see it on screen, Andrew tse has an excellent picture of it on his wonderful FLICKR collection.

In front of it is another building still around - #27 Magazine Gap Road. Gwulo has a few more pictures of this and some extra info here.

Anyway, the fact that we can see these buildings, and the size of the gap between them indicates that we are on Peak Road. I believe - although I can't confirm - that the entrance we see on the left on the screen grab is the entrance to #56 Peak Road. It's changed since 1955 of course, and the hedgerows and trees have grown so much to obscure the view to the Pink House, but here is what the road looks like today, courtesy of Streetview.

There is a similar view still available from the road if we move forward a hundred metres or so, so that we are level with the petrol station. The angles on the buildings aren't quite perfect but at least you can see the general area and, surprisingly, many of the same buildings in the background.

Enter the Dragon - Bruce Lee (1973) - View over Central, HK Island

In all honesty, it wasn't until I was looking at Golden Needle's sites that I realised I had never included this sequence from Enter the Dragon on my blog (or if I did it has gone mysteriously AWOL). Anyway, seeing as I just posted scenes from exactly the same location I figured now was the time.

So, yes, here it is the famous panning shot from the opening titles, and there is that same tree we just saw in Golden Needles. Of course in the ETD version we get to see a lot more.such as the newly completed Furama Hotel building at the right of the top picture (the official history says this place wasn't opened until 1977, but there it is in 1973/74, a fact confirmed by David over at Gwulo.com).

You can also see the former Royal Naval Dockyard and grab a quick glimpse of some of the now-demolished barrack buildings from Victoria Barracks (now Hong Kong Park and Pacific Place).

The bottom picture with the film title shows the big open area that was the 1970's reclamation in Wanchai. It's basically the project that extended the shoreline out from Gloucester Road a couple of hundred metres and the space is now largely filled by the Convention centre, some Govt offices, Central Plaza and of course the exit/entry for the original cross-harbour tunnel.

Now for a direct comparison and feel free to chip in as to whether or not Bob Clouse, the director of both Golden Needles and Enter the Dragon, and Warners, the company who made the films, used the same footage for both films. (Hint: Of course it's the same footage).

Golden Needles

Enter the Dragon

Just as an addendum, lots of people believe this shot was taken from "The Peak". It was but not the bit you're thinking of. This footage (as explained in the Golden Needles post) was taken from Peak Road just below what was Cameron Mansions (the development was demolished last year - 2024).

Unfortunately my Google location marker keeps snapping to either 28 or 30 Peak Road, but the specific location where this footage was shot was the layby on Peak Road as seen on this GoogleEarth link.