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.

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!