Bullet in the Head - Tong Leung Chiu-wai (1990) - Garden Hill, Shek Kip Mei

The opening scenes of the film feature a gang fight on a hill somewhere. This is Garden Hill in Shek Kip Mei - so called because it is located next to the Garden Bakery office where Castle Peak Road splits off from Tai Po Road. At the time of filming it still contained a large light located on top of a stone pyramid used for the approach to Kai Tak. Since the decommissioning of the airport, the light has been removed and the concrete platform is now the Garden Hill Sitting Out Area. At the time of filming there was still vehicular access via Chak On Road South but this has since been removed following the construction of two reservoirs on the summit (circa 2002), and the only way to get up here now is via some very steep and exhausting stone steps from next to the North Kowloon Magistracy, or behind Mei Ho House.

I did venture up here when I first moved to Kowloon and took some pictures of the location, not knowing at the time that they shot quite a famous film here. The shelter in the first image below marks the location of where the old warning light used to be. I feel they should have left the old stone pyramid in place, but sadly not.

Bullet in the Head - Tong Leung Chiu-wai (1990) - Lei Cheng Uk Estate, Sham Shui Po

It's been 30+ years since I last saw Bullet in the Head so I thought now would be a great time for a rewatch given its imminent re release by Shout on August 19th 2025. Who knows, perhaps one of their researchers will stumble across this site and be able to use to the locations for some sort of documentary (although no one has ever asked me, hint hint)?

Directed by John Woo, the story follows three friends in 1960s Hong Kong as they try to break out of the poverty they have grown up in by engaging in some smuggling to Vietnam during the war. The "Vietnam" scenes were shot in Thailand but there are still afew Hong Kong locations to look at including the estate where the three grew up. These resettlement estate scenes were shot in and around the old Lei Cheng Uk Estate just prior to its final demolition. This place is famous in Hong Kong for a couple of reasons. The first is that it is the location of a Han Tomb discovered during excavation works for the estate in 1955. The tomb is still there and can be visited - for free. The following year, in the run up to the Double Tenth celebration (10 October), some housing officials decided it was a good idea to rip down some Nationalist flags on display and inadvertantly triggered the 1956 Nationalist riots.

Much like the neighbouring Shek Kip Mei estate, the resettlement blocks were all subsequently replaced by larger, more modern blocks and facilities, and the former "H-block" type blocks have now all gone. The only remaining example of this type of block in this area is Mei Ho House in Shek Kip Mei which now operates as a rather excellent youth hostel (yes, I have stayed there and can recommend wholeheartedly).

Much of the film was shot around Blocks 13/14/15 and 16 which were located where the Lei Cheng Uk Playground now sits, so this film does provide some historical insight into what the estate looked like. I believe these blocks were the last to be built and also the last to be demolished. The site was cleared by the end of 1991 and the new park was completed a couple of years later.

Garden Hill in the background

Rich and Famous - Chow Yun Fat (1987) - 97 Nam Cheong Street, Sham Shui Po

Next up is a mid-80s Triad film that was brought to my attention by Rodney (thanks Rodney) during a discussion about Tsing Bik Villa. I'll come to that later but in the meantime I'm starting this movie with a bit of a shot in the dark. I don't normally post locations until I am pretty certain (>95%) I have the correct place, but I have got it wrong before a few times and sometimes being wrong can encourage people to comment to help correct mistakes.

This film is set in the late 1960s and is about the wayward path taken by a pair of adopted brothers, Kwok and Yung (Andy Lau and Alex Man, respectively), in their efforts to make a success of their lives. They get mixed up in all kinds of trouble, largely due to the idoicy and arrogance of Yung, until one day they go a bit too far and run up a debt with local gang boss, Ah Chai (Chow Yun Fat). From there on they work for him and loyalties are tested as Yung increasingly makes his adopted brother pick sides between him and his loyalty to Chai. The film has a sequel, Tragic Hero, filmed around the same time but set in 1980. But for some weird reason that I can't fathom, Tragic Hero was released first. Go figure.

The opening scene shows how Yung's dad (Peter Yang) makes it across the border from China with Yung and his sister, Wai Chu (Pauline Wong), in tow, and had planned to meet with his friend - only to find he has died and left his son, Kwok, orphaned. Kwok is taken in by them as one family.

The first bit of action starts as Yung is caught cheating in an illegal gambling house and the two brothers try to fight their way out of it. Sadly, I have been unable to confirm 100% that I have the correct location given the dearth of information and images of the particular area I am talking about. So this identification has come about, more or less, by eliminating allother possibilities, followed by a educated guess according to building shapes in early 80s aerial imagery. In other words I found enough evidence to be fairly confident but am lacking the definitive 'smoking gun'.

The gambling den location was shot inside (and outside) of one of Hong Kong's old curved corner shophouses (there is now only two left in the whole of Hong Kong as far as I am aware, and both are not that far away from this place). It was located on the north corner of Nam Cheong Street and Ki Lung Street in Sham Shui Po, where Yau Nam Mansion now stands. The latter was completed in 1993 which means this old shophouse probably still had a few years left in it following the shoot (the film was released in 1987 but actually shot through 1986).

If anyone has any images of that area from the time it would be nice to find a picture of the old building that can confirm (or deny) my deduction.

Flight to Hong Kong - Rory Calhoun (1956) - Sham Shui Po Waterfront, Tung Chau Street

My memory has just been jogged by some posts over on Gwulo that feature various shots of the old Tsim Sha Tsui Star Ferry terminal taken from Flight to Hong Kong. I did a deep dive on this film a few years ago but also went back over it during the slow months of the pandemic and found quite a few more locations that I forgot to post about. So here is the result of the second look starting with an almost unrecognisable old waterfront in Sham Shui Po on what is now Tung Chau Street near Kiu Kiang Street. The big clue to the location here is the balconied building in the background. This was the Jubilee Buildings, a private tenement block that was later acquired by the army and incorporated into the Sham Shui Po Army Camp. It later became a transition centre for Vietnamese refugees awaiting approval for emigration overseas. The street corner where the car is parked is the entrance to what is now the lower section of Kiu Kiang Street.

Love in Hong Kong - Pauline Teutscher (1983) - Fuk Wah Street, Sham Shui Po

One of the locations that the gang try and capture their newspaper-circulation-stimulating shots is on Fuk Wah Street just next to the junction with Tai Po Road. This area looks pretty much the same today as it did then. Looking at the bottom image, I'd say they managed to grab the attention of quite a few passers-by. It's not surprising given the scene involves a girl getting out of the car and flashing everyone.

Tai Po Road Electrical Substation on the right behind the "P" sign

Infernal Affairs - Andy Lau (2002) - Audio Space, Ap Liu Street

A real audio business that was used for the scene when the two main characters first meet, without knowing who the other one is. It was, and still is, located at 151 Ap Liu Street in Sham Shui Po. The establishing shot was filmed on Ap Liu Street in front of the shop at a time when there were a significant amount of signs hanging overhead. These have all pretty much disappeared courtesy of a Government crackdown on illegal and dangerous structures a few years back. But the shop space hasn't been moved. In fact the company appears to be quite proud of its fame and has some images on its own website.

V.I.P - Jang Dong-gun (2017) - Tai Po Road, Sham Shui Po

Another part of Jang Dong-gun's car journey takes him back over to Kowloon and we see a high level view of the car driving onto Un Chau Street from Tai Po Road. I'm not sure why this particular spot was chosen by the film makers over a million other possible locations but there you go. The camera most likely placed in one of the flats located in either the Hong Po building or The Merrylands next door.

6 Underground - Ryan Reynolds (2019) - Ki Lung Street, Sham Shui Po

This next establishing shot that 6 Underground uses for its "Hong Kong" scenes does actually appear to be new to me. It certainly didn't crop up in Transformers: Age of Extinction although I believe it was still probably shot at that time because that film did have a couple of scenes on adjacent roads.

Anyway, it is a brief shot along Ki Lung Street looking west. The shiny building in the distance is actually the Dragon Centre on Yen Chow Street. This was basically shot on the block between Shek Kip Mei and Wong Chuk Streets. I may have noted this fact during my Transformers posts but all the overhanging signage here was removed quite some time ago during a Govt safety drive.

Geostorm - Gerard Butler (2017) - Wong Chuk Street, Sham Shui Po

After zipping along Tai Nan Street, Wu (his character name in this film is the very uninspired "Cheng Long"), makes a left onto Wong Chuk Street in his attempt to escape from the exploding roadway.

I'm surprised Robert Chow from the so-called "Silent Majority", or someone equally soft-minded, here in Hong Kong hasn't hijacked this footage and edited it to make it look like the result of Hong Kong protesters...

Geostorm - Gerard Butler (2017) - Tai Nan Street, Sham Shui Po

Taking a leaf from Michael Bay's playbook the action quickly moves to Tai Nan Street in Sham Shui Po. I say Michael Bay because he filmed at exactly the same location just a few months before when he was shooting Transformers: Age of Extinction. If you follow that link you can see exactly the same shop signs in the top image (the corner we are driving around is Shek Kip Mei Street) as can be seen in Geostorm below.

The movie has been edited to make you think this is close to the last location, but actually its more than a kilometre away. This place blows up too.

Spearhead in Hong Kong - Stafford Gordon (1981) - Former Sham Shui Po Barracks, Kowloon

In episode 3 (inspiringly called Another Happy Day), one of the sqaddies' fathers comes over to visit his son and family (the dad is played by Milton Johns - a famous face to anyone growing up in the UK during the 70s and 80s) and his daughter in law (played by Pik Sen-lim) takes him for a dose of reality at a Vietnamese refugee camp in Kowloon. The only Kowloon refugee camp I know about was the former Sham Shui Po barracks and from the various images below, it looks as though this is where they do visit.

By 1981, the northern section of the old camp had already been redeveloped into the Lai Kok Estate but the southern section (now Sham Shui Po Park) was still intact and converted into a refugee holding camp. In the top image below you can see the pair walking past one of the old camp buildings (you can see a good example here on Gwulo.Com) as well as the temporary corrugated iron sheds used to house the refugees.

The last picture shows the old coastline through the trees and Stonecutter Island in the far distance. This was before the coast was reclaimed and stopped abruptly where the West Kowloon Corridor flyover now sits. The buildings on the right were part of the camp that was redeveloped into the Sham Pui Po public swimming pools at the NW end of the park. Since posting this originally, I found out that this camp was most likely part of the Jubilee Transit Centre that was open for a few years at the tail end of the 70's and early 80s. 

The Peking Medallion - Robert Stack (1967) - Lai Chi Kok Road, Sham Shui Po

Further on his his trip, Stack finds himself followed by a car and gets the rickshaw to stop to find out who it is. In true geography-stretching movie land though he is actually about 2 miles back to the north, traveling along Lai Chi Kok Road in Sham Shui Po.

How can I tell it's Lai Chi Kok Road? The most obvious clue is the corner of the Sham Shui Po police station that can be seen sicking out behind Stack at the end of the row of shophouses in the top two pictures. Until the police went for the current grey/blue paint scheme on the outside of their stations they had a sort of beige/brown thing going on which can be seen in the picture. By the position in the second picture, it looks as though Stack's rickshaw is just passing Kweilin Street.

Actually, this part of Sham Shui Po still has a lot of 60's era buildings and another example is the building on the far left of this third picture. It's the one painted red at the front. It's the Chew Onn building (yup) at 369-367 Lai Chi Kok Road and was built in 1964.

In the next two grabs, the scene has moved down the road a fair distance but there are still buildings that help us identify the exact location. The first one is the distant curved tenement just behind the rear of the bus in the first picture. This building (the Kon Hing Building) still stands at he junction of Lai Chi Kok Road with Nam Cheong Street. But there is also the closer grey building with the blank wall and windows at the end of the bus in the second picture. This is also still around and is at 219-221 Lai Chi Kok Road. It is just next to the junction with Shek Kip Mei Street which puts Stack just around the junction with Wong Chuk Street.

Golgo 13: Assignment Kowloon - Sonny Chiba (1977) - Lung Cheung Road, Tai Wo Ping

This next one shows Lung Cheung Road next to the Shek Kip Mei Service Reservoir Playground in Tai Wo Ping. I live close by so I have been able to replicate the lower shot almost perfectly courtesy of a pedestrian bridge that crosses the Lung Cheung Road.

Look carefully and you can spot some circular objects at the far end of the playground (to the left of the brown hut). There were once some 1960's-style circular canopied seats (like the ones still found at the nearby Lung Cheung Road Lookout). These were removed when the road system was enhanced and there is now a flyover connecting Tai Po Road to Lung Cheung Road zooming overhead.

Das Mädchen von Hongkong - Joachim Fuchsberger (1973) - Shun Ning Road, Cheung Sha Wan

The "girl from Hong Kong" of the title works in a street market. Luckily for me this is an area I am familiar with because I live not far away and had the unfortunate experience of attending the nearby hospital on more than one occasion. This whole area in undergoing redevelopment and there aren't many of the old tenement buildings left.

These first two screengrabs show us looking west along Shun Ning Road. The sloped retaining wall at the back is the old entrance to what is now Caritas Hospital - I'm not so sure about the history of the hospital or how long it's been there but the buildings occupying that space now are fairly new.

Part of the market also extended down Hing Wah Street, Even today the road is very wide and there used to be market stalls that occupied what is now a beautified central reservation. The road slopes considerably up towards the junctions with Shun Ning Road and Po On Road and at the top was the old So Uk Estate. You can see one of the old buildings in So Uk in the background.

Hing Wah Street with So Uk at the back