The Lady Professional - Lily Ho Li-li (1971) - Yau Ma Tei Police Station

The end of the film sees Tian-li turn herself in at the local police station. In this case it's the oft-used Yau Ma Tei Police Station on the corner of Canton Road and Public Square Street.

Hacker - Callan McAuliffe (2016) - Yau Ma Tei Police Station

Another popular filming location is this colonial-era police station on Canton Road in Yau Ma Tei. It's been included in a variety of posts on this blog over the years (see here), and in this film it is where Alex and Sye get put in a cell following their arrest after the fight at the nightclub. More recently the building has been decommissioned and I'm not sure what it is currently being used for.

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde - Adam Baldwin (2000) - Yau Ma Tei Police Station

No longer a Police Station because it was decommissioned a couple of years ago. I did make a trip here last year with David Bellis from Gwulo and, after seeing a gathering in the rear carpark area, we popped in to have a look around only to be instantly told to get the hell away. Such is life in the new National Security-conscious Hong Kong.

In the movie this is the exterior used for the Police station in the film where one of the gangsters is set free after he refuses to talk. So Mr. Hyde follows him back to his opium den (yes, quite a few of these Hong Kong cliches pop up) to extract the information he needs.

One of the things I can gather from this sequence is that this was before the local police stations were all given a new grey/dark blue coat of paint. Back in 2000 it was still the white/light blue colour scheme (seeing little things like this please my nerdy brain).

Shanghai Street, Yau Ma Tei - Now and Then

The following screen caps from Ein Sarg aus Hongkong were taken from Shanghai Street looking east over to the old market that once occupied the public square in front of the temple. We can see Heinz Drache and Angela Yu Chien about to cross the road at the corner of Shanghai Street and Public Square Street. The only building still around in this shot (other than the temple which can be just seen through the trees in my photo) is the white building at the back which stands on the corner of Temple Street and Public Square Street. For those who don't know, this is the building that has the Mido Cafe in it. You can see it in the screen cap just above the two actors' heads.

Earlier in the film is a brief view of the area to the right (south) of this one, although it was obviously filmed at the same time. It's the Market Street side of the square with the old toilet block at the junction  (this same shot was later reused in The Million Eyes of Sumuru). Note the Chinese tenement buiding in the background with the wooden arched apertures.

The old film gives a good idea of where Temple Street once emerged onto Market Street - it's the gap between the toilet block and the Chinese tenement. However, that section of Temple Street disappeared with a significant amount of development and, as you can see by my own image, the area at this end was filled in by what is actually a refuse collection centre. The section of Temple Street between here (Market Street) and Kansu Street (one block down) was shifted approximately 20 metres to the east - running along where the old Chinese tenement once stood. Much of the space where Temple Street used to run was taken over by the construction of the YMT multi-storey carpark (currently being demolished as of 2021). As you can see, the toilet block is still going strong and hasn't changed at all over the last 50 years or so.

Election - Simon Yam (2005) - Arthur Street, Yau Ma Tei

The tailor shop where Big D is getting fitted for his striped blazer was located on the corner of Public Square Street and Arthur Street but has since disappeared. As the actors move out of the shop we get a view north up Arthur Street.

Narazumono - Ken Takakura (1964) - Battery Street, Yau Ma Tei

After escaping the hotel where he has been set up, Minami heads out into the street to avoid the police and ends up next to a street market. The area is the top end of Battery and Reclamation Streets where they both merge and meet Public Square Street. We know this because the building in the back right with the white trim used to stand on the north east corner of the junction between Shanghai Street and Public Square Street. The open area on the right with the market stalls is now the Henry G Leong YMT Community Centre.

Narazumono - Ken Takakura (1964) - Nathan Road, Yau Ma Tei

Some more of the intro takes us back down into Yau Ma Tei as the car drives by the camera along Nathan Road close to the unction with Gascoigne Road. We'll come back here for a later post but I wanted to show this because you can see what it looked like before a whole load of development over took this place, in particular the West Kowloon Corridor flyover that was constructed approximately where the low rise dirty white building appears behind the bus. The Alhambra building(built in 1960 and still standing) can be seen behind that. The empty site on the right of the screen is where the Kowloon Government Offices now stand.

In the lower photo we get to see what was north of this location and the rather grand building on the left is the former Yau Ma Tei Government School. This was demolished sometime in the 1970s and the site was turned into a playground/basketball court. That's Public Square Street where the two pedestrians are crossing on the left.

Strangers - John Simm (2018) - Tin Hau Temple Square, Yau Ma Tei

Jonah and David go for a coffee to discuss their common issues at the open square in front of the Yaumatei Tin Hau temple. The last time we saw this on the blog was when a scene in Blackhat (filmed in 2013 but released in 2015).

The Peking Medallion - Robert Stack (1967) - Ferry Street, Yau Ma Tei

After dropping Elke back off at the floating casino, Stack grabs a rickshaw and heads back to his hotel. One of the roads he goes donw on this journey is Ferry Street right next to the old waterfront of the Yau Ma Tei typhoon shelter. The last picture is of course looking up Public Square Street with the Yaumatei Police Station visible on the right hand side.

Coincidentally, another film shot the very same year also used this location. Here's a reminder.

Heisser Hafen Hongkong - Horst Frank (1962) - Public Square Street, Yau Ma Tei

This one was a bit cheeky because it is related to the last post. In the scene the actor is standing in the middle of Nathan Road at the junction with Public Square Street and then looks right to see his reporter friend turn up in a yellow taxi. Only the taxi scene below was filmed over at the junction of Public Square Street and Shanghai Street - about 150 metres to the left.

Anyway, the giveaway here is the Yau Hing pawnshop (又興大押) that used to stand on the northwest corner of the aforementioned junction. In fact, it has cropped up on this blog before because Thomas once used the very same pawnshop to identify this location from the I Spy series. Thomas's identifications just keep on giving...thanks Thomas! ;-)

Heisser Hafen Hongkong - Horst Frank (1962) - Nathan Road, Yau Ma Tei

Another shot along Nathan Road, this time we are at the junction of Nathan and Public Square Street. The identifier in this shot is the brown building with the balcony to the left of the first picture. It turns out that this was the former Yau Ma Tei Government School and Richard Wong has a few pictures of it on his FLICKR page.

Interestingly, it looks as though part of the space once occupied by the school playground was never redeveloped and simply left as a...playground! It looks as though the school's wall stayed in-situ until at least the late 1990's despite the rest of the building disappearing sometime in the mid-70's. I suspect the phone booth was a prop but if anyone knows differently then feel free to comment.

Shirley's World (TV Series) - Shirley MacLaine (1972) - Public Square Street Playground, Yau Ma Tei

The playground scene when Shirley is snapping pictures of the band's singer playing on the slide and roundabout with the local kids was filmed at a playground right next to the famous Yau Ma Tei Police Station. You can see the back wall of the station in the first screencap. The playground is still there but the childrens' rides have long gone and now it is more of your typical Hong Kong-style rest garden (i.e some planters and seats and not much else other than a view obscured by the flyover)

Also quite prominent in the background is the Ferry Point Estate which can be seen in almost its full glory in the lower picture. That waterfront ceased to exist about 20 years ago. It has since been reclaimed and redeveloped.

Ein Sarg aus Hong Kong - Heinz Drache (1964) - Shanghai Street, Yau Ma Tei

A couple of posts ago we saw Market Street on the southern side of the public square in front of Yau Ma Tei Tin Hau Temple. In this post we see the other end of it where Public Square Street joins with Shanghai Street at the northern side of the square.

Look carefully and you can see the building behind and above Heinz Drache's head is the same one today that houses the famous Mido Cafe on the corner of Temple Street.

Blackhat - Chris Hemsworth (2015) - Tin Hau Temple Square, Yau Ma Tei

The crew discover a common meeting point of their three fraud suspects and it just happens to be the public square in front of the famous Tin Hau Temple in Yau Ma Tei. Over they head along with the rather excellent Andy On (playing a HK police officer) to see if they can find out how the bad guys are getting all their information.

This temple and the square in front has been seen on this blog previously but doesn't appear to have been used for movie filming since 1960 when The World of Suzie Wong included some scenes (at least not that I know of just yet) so it's nice to see it on screen again.

The Million Eyes of Sumuru - George Nader (1967) - Ferry Street, Yau Ma Tei

Maria Rohm's escape through the streets of Kowloon terminates at a ferry pier along, fittingly, Ferry Street in Yau Ma Tei. In fact there are two locations used in this shot, the first is this one Ferry Street, and the second one appears to be the Star Ferry Pier in Tsim Sha Tsui. A quick editing job makes it look like they are the same place. The older buildings along ferry Street seen below have long since gone, they were once part of the "six street slum" that was replaced by Prosperous Garden, but the Yau Ma Tei Police Station is still around for the time being and you can see it in the lower pictures where it sits along Public Square Street.

We had a glimpse of this area when we were looking at Ferry to Hong Kong a couple of years ago, and in fact this jetty is the same one used for the berth of the ferry in that film. I keep banging on about how much this area has changed, especially with the creation of the west Kowloon reclamation (which basically filled in the old typhoon shelter). But pictures speak a thousand words, so here's the Streetview.

Rush Hour 2 - Jackie Chan (2001) - Public Square Street, Yau Ma Tei

Some of the action takes place in the famous Yau Ma Tei police station on Public Square Street. It's long been a popular location for filming and has recently been decommissioned (May 2016) and it's future doesn't look very clear at the moment which is a big shame for everyone. Let's hope sense shines through and the building can be retained.

Anyway, there's also a lot of the scenes involving the explosion at the station where we are out and about on Public Square Street following Carter as he wanders off in general ignorance of the events unfolding around him. The top picture shows us looking east up Public Square Street, the building on the right is the Henry G. Leong YMT Community centre.  

In the third picture we can see a residential building behind Carter with a Wellcome shop at the bottom. This is Block 5 of Prosperous Garden and according to Streetview the Wellcome is still around. I've stuck a Streetview image below to try and match the angle in the lowest picture.