The Merry Wife - Li Ching (1971) - View from Estoril Court, Central

We get treated to an old view of Central from the vantage point of the couples' apartment in Estoril Court. The only way you could get a view from Estoril Court these days is from being on one of the top floors - views come with a premium these days. This sequence below is a panning shot from east to west as Zhenzhen surveys the view and then sees Lin Min coming down Robinson Road on his way home.

The building is the original "Albany Flats" - a Govt qtrs

The house on the left is the former #1 Robinson Road
(Villa Elegance now occupies that site)

Hong Kong (series) - Rod Taylor (1960) - Canossa Hospital Steps, Robinson Road

There is a brief scene of Lloyd Bochner walking along a raised concrete pathway during the "looking for Tully" section in the middle of the Colonel Cat episode. This is a view I have never seen before but thankfully there are a couple of background landmarks that help narrow the location. Look carefully and you can see the Roman Catholic Cathedral down below in the background. This puts us somewhere in the vicinity of the section of Robinson Road that skirts the higher, southern edge of the Zoological and Botanical Gardens. Also, there is a large rectangular structure on the left of the sequence that is still there and is Raimondi College.

Initially, I thought this may have been part of the small walkway that creeps up the hill from Glenealy to Robinson Road, but closer examination of older aerial images confirms that this set of steps was located at the front of the podium terrace where the previous version of Canossa Hospital stood.

The current version of the hospital is an amalgamation of the old building (that Bochner would have been looking at) and a curved addition that goes right up to the edge of the terraced podium level. It looks as though the area where these steps were was incorporated into the car park that now sits under the new facade. Corrections welcome.

Hong Kong (series) - Rod Taylor (1960) - Garden Road, Central

Some nice old footage of Rod Taylor driving up Garden Road and then turning onto Magazine Gap Road just past the junction with Robinson Road. Obviously this is way before the flyover was built and the view was much more open.

Foxbat - Henry Silva (1977) - Robinson Road, Mid-levels

A big thanks to Thomas for spotting this next one from Foxbat. It's one of the locations involved in the bus/ambulance/car chase through town that started in Pok Fu Lam and ends in Wanchai. The main clue here was really the s-shaped bend in the road and the buildings in the background that turned out to be a development called "The Panorama".

The two balconied buildings in the foreground have both sadly been redeveloped into something with less style and character. "The Panorama" is the white building at the back and sits on Conduit Road. You might be able to make out the construction of a new building below it - covered in scaffolding. This looks to be the start of what became "Right Mansion" at 29 Robinson Road and was completed in 1978, so the timeline for the filming fits quite well. Anyway, the modern Streetview version can be seen below.

Foxbat - Henry Silva (1977) - Robinson Road, Central

The chase continues along a main road and all the cars converge at a curved junction. This one was quite tricky to find but I got there in the end. It doesn't help that the whole road has been redeveloped since then and in fact you can see some of the redevelopment work going on in the film. In the top picture.

Believe it or not this is the circular junction where Robinson Road joins onto Garden Road next to Garden Terrace. The two bits under construction in the top picture are the beginnings of the concrete supports for the elevated road that now crosses here.

The second picture (above) shows the buildings that used to stand where Garden Terrace and No.1 Garden Terrace now stand. I am not familiar with the history of this area but it wouldn't surprise me to find out that the terrace always went by that name, especially when you consider that it overlooks the Zoological and Botanical Gardens. Here is a modern day comparison of the second picture courtesy of Streetview.

Les Tribulations d'un Chinois en Chine - Jean-Paul Belmondo (1965) - Robinson Road, Central

Here's one that took a bit of effort to find. It's a great shot that shows why (I think) HK is now well past its best and far too cluttered. Take a look.

Just look at that wide open view when owning an apartment in the mid-levels pretty much guaranteed unimpeded views of the harbour and beyond. Can you guess which part of Robinson Road this is? It's the junction where Albany Road and Old Peak Road meet. There are a couple of key features that helped identify it (other than the general topography). The concrete base in which the large tree sits is still around. I doubt the tree is the same one from 1965 but the concrete base seems to be the same.

The second clue can be seen in the last screencap just above the red pillar box (that's a post box for the non-UK crowd). It's a white slab that runs along the top of a wall of the one the properties down the road. It turns out that it is still around and belongs to the only property that has stood the test of time: 1A Robinson Road. It's age (built in 1963) means it's been spared the indignity of some crap pretentious name and goes simply by its address. You can still see the white slab in the Streetview grab below. The red pillar box has been replaced by a new green one, but it's interesting (and often useful when it comes to identifying locations) to note that it still occupies the same position as its Colonial predecessor.

I'll leave you with a couple more shots from 1965 which show a small corner of the building that once occupied the location of what is now a high rise called "The Albany", plus a nice retro taxi cab.

I believe the previous version of The Albany (seen on the left in the above pictures) was in fact Govt quarters but that's about all I know of the place. The current high rise development was opened in 1989 so I can only assume the Govt quarters were still around until 1987. By the way, in case you hadn't realised, the wide open space behind the tree was and still is part of the Zoological and Botanical Gardens. The view is now blocked by the Robinson Road elevated road.