Hong Kong (series) - Rod Taylor (1960) - Kai Tak Airport, Kowloon

The final shot from the series pilot is when Evans' female colleague is shown off at the airport. This image below shows the not-so-clear RAF Officer's Mess on the hill in the background which puts the plane in the RAF section of the airport.

Actually, by 1960 when this series was filmed, the new runway had already opened so this looks to me as though it was most likely stock footage. This isn't surprising given that this was the pilot episode intended only as a showcase for the show in the hope that it would be commissioned. This also explains why much of the on-character shots are either on a studio set or use back projection (in one scene, Taylor is filmed against a back projection that has been reversed - showing the Chinese characters written backwards).

Luckily for us, the series proper does use proper location filming and we'll get to some of those over the next few episodes.

Five Golden Dragons - Bob Cummings (1967) - RAF Kai Tak, Kowloon

Which other blogs out there can give you RAF Kai Tak and Hollywood heavyweight, George Raft, in a single post? Not very many, I suspect.

But anyway, Raft is one of the so-called Five Golden Dragons of the film's title and lands in HK in a helicopter at RAF Kai Tak.

RAF Kai Tak was the RAF base situated just north of the runway in Kowloon. It's been completely redeveloped now and there are a couple of housing estates on the old site including the Kai Yip Estate and Richland Gardens. There are still a couple of remnants left including the former HQ building at #50 Kwun Tong Road and on the opposite side of Kwun Tong Road, the former Officer's Mess - now the HKBU Academy for Visual Arts. I believe that's might be the distant building you can see behind George's head in the lower picture. There is also one of the Nissen huts left on the site which is now used by the Christian Action organisation.

In the top pictures you can see part of the original Choi Hung Estate at the back. That's Pik Hoi House and is still standing, along with the rest of the estate.