Yellowthread Street (TV Series) - Bruce Payne (1990) - D'Aguilar Street, Central

A bit of in-between-films time gives me a chance to go over old stuff and see if I can recognise anything that was missed previously. So here is a blast from the past and a zoom back to 1989 and the very first Yellowthread Street episode (called Power Play). One of the very first scenes in the series was Eden (Bruce Payne) having a drink in a bar before heading out and witnessing a man being chased by a gang. It looks to me as though Payne is walking down D'Aguilar Street (although since this was filmed the retaining wall at the back has been upgraded with smaller bricks) and stops at Wing Wah lane where he sees the chase.

Yellowthread Street (TV Series) - Bruce Payne (1990) - Wharf Road, North Point

It's been a while since I largely finished with Yellowthread Street locations, but this one particular place left me and others quite stumped. It's the site of the AMF Superbowl that I couldn't seem to track down. Here's the reminder.

It's where Eden goes in and starts shooting up the bowling alley with a big shotgun - as you do - from the very first episode, Power Play. Anyway, many thanks to AP for tracking this one down via an old map, from 1994, over at the HKU website which gave details of a superbowl centre at the Provident Centre on Wharf Road. A quick look on Streetview reveals the same locations seen in the top picture has since been remodeled and the superbowl has now become a subterranean branch of the local supermarket, Park N Shop.

So many thanks to AP for finally solving this 1+ year mystery.

Yellowthread Street (TV Series) - Bruce Payne (1990) - Kennedy Road, Central

In addition to the excellent bit of spotting Arthur did for us on this previous Kennedy Road post, he has also pulled out all the stops to identify a very obscure (to me, at least) piece of the same road that actually features a few seconds after the sequence from the previous post - another case of geography being manipulated in the film world.

Anyway, the location is just down from the...wait for it...Office of the Commissioner of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People's Republic of China in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region. Yes, that is the full name for the administration offices that now sit at 42 Kennedy Road - a site previously inhabited by a Govt quarters building called The Hermitage (though it had the address: 75 MacDonnell Road).

Anyway, the lens on the film camera makes the steps appear much closer than they are, so even though the following Streetview was taken closer to them, they actually appear much further away.

Once again, many thanks to Arthur for his help.

Yellowthread Street (TV Series) - Bruce Payne (1990) - Kennedy Road, Central

Another spot by Arthur, so many thanks to him for helping me out. Funnily enough though I went past here just yesterday, completely unintentionally, and agree that not much has changed, if anything. I would have taken a  picture for myself but I was speeding past in a taxi.

The scene is from the first episode called Power Play and the location is, supposedly, near to where Bruce Payne's character, Eden, lives. I still need to nail that place as well, but in the meantime here is Kennedy Road.

Here is the Streetview, unfortunately the camera angle is too close to see the whole area.

The only difference I can see is that a concrete wall has been constructed so that the street numbers of the apartment blocks up this small road can be seen.

Incidentally, this is the same spot that cause so much trouble for me (in terms of identification) when I was looking at The Million Eyes of Sumuru.

Yellowthread Street (TV Series) - Bruce Payne (1990) - Shek O Road, Hong Kong

Bruce Payne is following some dodgy Triad guys in his Mustang in the first episode: Power Play. The scene involves some nice driving along a picturesque rural road which turns out to be Shek O Road on the southside of Hong Kong Island.

This particular section of the road involves an almost right angled bend towards the east above Tai Tam bay (see location at the bottom of the post). Here's what the same area looks like today courtesy of Streetview.

Yellowthread Street (TV Series) - Bruce Payne (1990) - Wanchai Aerial View

Another one of the series' cityscapes that shows off Hong Kong in all its glory. This time we have what can only be a helicoptered shot taken from above the streets of Wanchai District. The shots, which pans south, starts off over looking the HK Island-side of the cross harbour tunnel and continues across Causeway Bay area. On the first shot we can see causeway bay Typhoon shelter and the tunnel entrance below it. The flat land to the right of the shelter (in reality to the south) is Victoria Park.

 The flyover that snakes away through town is Canal Road West.

Hennessy Road starting bottom left and
Morrison Hill Swimming Pool complex bottom right

Yellowthread Street (TV Series) - Bruce Payne (1990) - Kowloon Panorama

The problem I am finding with several episodes of Yellowthread Street is that they were filmed in often generic looking side streets that I simply don't recognise - it's compounded by the fact that, actually, my knowledge of streets on HK Island is fairly limited having spend all of my time here living on the other side of the harbour (i.e. New Territories and now Kowloon).

However, there are some nice aerial shots used in the program that give us a brief look at the colony circa 1989/90 (it had a 1990 broadcast in the UK). Here's a nice zooming shot from a Kowloon vantage pointy over to the Island. The angle makes me think this shot was taken from the pavilion on Fei Ngo Shan Road where the road curves north off the ridgeline and down towards the Sai Kung side of the mountain (see the location label at the bottom of the post.

 

Yellowthread Street (TV Series) - Bruce Payne (1990) - Kui In Fong, Sheung Wan

Just before we see the fight that gets started on Sai Street, we see Brady (played by a very wooden Mark McGann) driving a car down a road pretending to be a buyer but really just trying to see what the girl owner is up to (selling drugs in case you didn't know).

Like in the show, this road is the one that leads down to Sai Street, so when we catch a passing glimpse of the fight that is erupting there between Bruce Payne and the triads, it's not a bad approximation of what you would see in reality - although the place has undergone a huge amount of redevelopment since Yellowthread Street was filmed in the late 1980's (it was shown in the UK in 1990...I think?). The fenced area on the right of the screen grabs is Blake Garden. Here's the modern streetview.

Yellowthread Street (TV Series) - Bruce Payne (1990) - Shun Tak Centre, Sheung Wan

Yellowthread Street seems to have spent a lot of time filming in small streets on HK Island, which is making my location ID's a bit hard. So bear with me. In the meantime, here is a hazy shot looking towards the Macau Ferry Terminal and the Shun Tak Centre rising up on its left.

If you look closely you can see the Star Ferry plying its trade at the bottom of the screen, before much of that part of water was reclaimed. I'm gonna make a stab in the dark and say that the building on the near left was the Harbour Centre in front of Wanchai Star Ferry pier. If so then pretty much all of that harbour area to its right has now gone.

Yellowthread Street (TV Series) - Bruce Payne (1990) - Sai Street, Sheung Wan

It all kicks off between the cops and the gangsters, in Power Play, when Bruce and co are sitting down for noodles and minding their own business. Up comes some bully boys and all hell breaks loose. The location was the rather hidden away dead-end of Sai Street - where it intersects with Tai Ping Shan Street.

Awesome hair Bruce! Anyway, here is how it looks today, sadly no noodles in sight.

Yellowthread Street (TV series) - Bruce Payne (1990) - Mongkok Police Station, Kowloon

I've been putting it off for a while and got sidetracked over the last 6 months or so with the abundance of locations to be found in the I Spy series, but now that is slowly drawing to a close I can start doing some of this UK series from 1990.

The series was a bit hit and miss, and is no better second time round for me. It's nice to see the locations and at least try and spot some, as well as some early turns by people such as Bruce Payne and Tzi Ma. But on the whole the program was let down by a slightly plodding pace and wooden acting from some (though not the two mentioned). The thing didn't really pick up pace until later in the series, but by then I think people had lost interest and a planned second series, aimed to be more centered around HK-style action, never got off the ground.

Anyway, it has a great opening theme and lots of familiar faces from the local film and TV industry as well as some interesting locations, starting off with this one - Mongkok Police Station. This is a grab from the very first episode called Power Play.

Mongkok station is indeed a working station and this block seen on TV is the last remaining one. There was at least one more similar columned block that fronted Nathan Road (you can just see a tiny bit of it here in the I Spy series) that was demolished to make way for the MTR construction. The shot above was taken through the main gate on Playing Field Road (yes, that is a real street name!).