The Taxi Driver - David Chiang (1975) - Tung Kwong Road, San Po Kong

Chen picks up a female passenger who needs to get to hospital because her baby is about to be born, but they get stuck in traffic. Here are a couple of screencaps from that sequence that were filmed on Tung Kwong Road. The old Tung Tau Estate is on the left and the Kai Tak nullah is on the other side of the wall next to the driver. He has to stop his car and look for a doctor to help the woman have her baby. The second image shows the place where the car is stopped. This is where Tung Kwong Road turns west (we are looking south in that image) into the Tung Tau Estate. The shanty town in the background is the famous Nga Tsin Wai Village. We then get a view of Block 13 of the Tung Tau Estate which has ringside seats for the whole spectacle. This is now occupied by the newer Yiu Tung House since the estate was redeveloped and upgraded.

The Lady Professional - Lily Ho Li-li (1971) - Kai Tak Amusement Park, Kowloon

In The Lady Professional Lily Ho stars as Ge Tian-li, a cafe owner who is coerced into a contract kill. It turns out later that Tian-li took revenge on the man that killed her father but was recognised by someone (Chang Pei-shan) and he has been blackmailing her ever since. He finally takes it further and uses his leverage to convince her to kill again. The target is a recently released criminal (Chan Shen) who is about to turn key witness in a court case against a criminal gold smuggling syndicate involving a high level businessman.

It looks as though some of the scenes were filmed in Japan - specifically a mid-film sequence when Tian-li follows Shi to a bowling alley. The scenery, as she drives up the hill to "Hotel Paradise", is not Hong Kong and production notes mention Japan, but not exactly where. The same hotel building and its exterior spiral staircase are also seen in other brief scenes. If anyone knows the location, please feel free to share.

The film starts with what we later find out is Tian-li's first kill, where she takes out her target on a rollercoaster using a specially adapted makeup compact. The sequence was filmed at the former Kai Tak Amusement Park in San Po Kong. The old terraces that formed the park are still there but are now part of the Choi Hung Road Playground. Old readers may recall the park appeared on the blog many years ago as part of my Sunset deep dive (one of the first local films I ever covered on the previous version of the blog in 2012).
 

Blade in Hong Kong - Terry Lester (1985) - San Po Kong Factory Estate, Kowloon

Blade drives his model friends into a car park when he spots Mr Key (James Hong) driving out and decides to follow him. This quick scene was filmed along King Fuk Street in San Po Kong with the (then painted blue) San Po Kong Factory Estate in the background. The estate was vacated and demolished circa 2007 and the space is only just now being redeveloped - no doubt into another residential development, but time will tell.

Flight to Hong Kong - Rory Calhoun (1956) - Kai Tak Airport, Kowloon

Back in 1956, Kai Tak airport was located partially in what became the San Po Kong factory estate. The famous runway sticking out into the harbour wasn't built until a few years later. Once again, another of the 1955 films shows it off better (Love is a Many-Splendored Thing). According to the American Film Institute, the productions notes for Flight to Hong Kong mention that these Kai Tak scenes were shot as part of the film's pre-production in January 1956. It's possible the non-main cast scenes were but do films include main cast in pre-production, I don't know? It's possible the main cast scenes were pick-up shots filmed later during main production.

Love is a Many-Splendored Thing - William Holden (1955) - Kai Tak Airport, Kowloon

Most of the visits we have made to Kai Tak courtesy of the various films I've posted about here (and almost every one - with a few exceptions - has a scene at Kai Tak) have been of the post 1958 variety. This means that most of our films show planes taking off and landing along the famous runway that jutted out into Kowloon Bay.

However, in this film we see the airport in its former incarnation (and location) as a rather more modest development on the shores of the bay in the San Po Kong area. It wasn't until a few years later that the airport was shifted south with the building of the new (more familiar) runway and the whole of the area you see on these screen grabs below became an industrial area filled with factories (trivia: it was in one of the factories in San Po Kong that an industrial dispute led to the outbreak of the leftist riots in 1967).

The east of HK Island in the far background

Looking northeast - perhaps with a seaplane in the background?

The next pictures are a sequence where we see Suyin's plane land, supposedly, in Chung King but actually we are just seeing another angle of Kai Tak with Diamond Hill area in the background.

It looks to me as though it may say HAEC on that hangar rooftop. HAEC was the previous name for HAECO.

Later on in the film, Suyin goes to meet Mark Elliot at the airport when he returns from Singapore we get to see the very distinctive eastern slope of Kowloon Peak in the background (and I guess the hill on the right of the top shot was what became Anderson Road Quarry?).

And a final parting shot of Suyin with the iconic Lion Rock behind her as she looks through the fencing.