My Wife is a Gangster 3 - Shu Qi (2006) - Shek Kip Mei Street

A young woman, supposedly Aryoung (although we don't know it's her because her face is obscured) goes into a local barber shop and executes the triad boss that had previously humiliated her at the meeting. This was filmed at a real life establishment called "彩虹南昌髮型屋" and was located on the ground floor of Block 16 of the Shek Kip Mei estate on Shek Kip Mei Street. You can just make out the sign for the adjoining former Shek Kip Mei Post Office on the right.

This block and its adjacent ones (Blocks 15, 17 and 18) were demolished soon after the film was shot and by the time I moved to the area in 2012 the site was just sitting empty. However it now has two gigantic replacement high rises standing there - Mei Pak House and Mei Hei House. I made a comparison photo a few years ago that can be seen on Gwulo here (Block 16 on the right handside of the original image is where the hairdressers was located).

Killer Angels - Moon Lee (1989) - Garden Hill, Shek Kip Mei

We were at this location not so long ago for Bullet in the Head. This is the levelled off top of Garden Hill that now serves as a "sitting out area", but back then it served the purpose of holding one of the warning lights for the Kai Tak approach. That's the brick pyramid structure you can see. I went here a few years ago and it was a mixture of feral dogs and old people doing exercise. The view from here has change immensely and the pyramid and light are long gone. Remember from my linked post that there used to be vehicular access via Chak On Road South but this was blocked off when they constructed the adjacent reservoir. These days the only way up here is via a few sets of quite steep steps. This is the favoured meeting place of the various factions of the gang.

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.

Flash Point - Donnie Yen (2007) - North Kowloon Magistracy, Shek Kip Mei

The elder brother (played by Ray Lui) is due in court at the North Kowloon Magistracy and it is also outside here where Ma decides to beat him up. This place was built in 1960 and is in a similar style to several other remaining magistracy buildings of the same era. It closed as a legal building in 2005 (hence why it could be used in the film) and was later part of the Govt's adaptive reuse project and leased to the Savannah College and Art & Design (SCAD) for several years. SCAD abruptly closed down in 2020 - just after the start of the pandemic - and pulled completely out of Hong Kong leaving quite a lot of students in the lurch. 

Anyway, the building is still standing, albeit now empty, and I'm not sure of any plans to lease it to a new user. I live not far from here in fact and walk past it most days, so the bottom image is one I snapped the other day.

The Magistracy, snapped by me July 2023

Police Story 2 - Jackie Chan (1988) - Shek Kip Mei MTR Station, Shek Kip Mei

Despite showing the entrance to Tsim Sha Tsui MTR station in the immediately preceding shot, the interior station scenes were filmed elsewhere. The first big giveaway is the colour of the wall tiles. When the MTR was first constructed, each station was given a different colour scheme to help those who couldn't read characters - Chinese illiteracy was a well-established problem amongst the previous generations of Hong Kongers, especially before the introduction of compulsory schooling. TST station happens to be black - at least it is now, it may have been a different colour when it was first built.  The green tiles you can see below belong to Shek Kip Mei MTR Station. In case there was any doubt, in the background of one of the shots of John Cheung (not included here) it quite plainly says "Shek Kip Mei" on the signboard above the platform doors.

This happens to be one of my local stations and I can tell you that it never gets as busy as you can see on the film. Even during rush hour. I suspect the relative quiet of this station is probably why the production crew used it. Crystal Kwok can be seen below practising her "stink eye".

Hong Kong (series) - Rod Taylor (1960) - Shek Kip Mei Estate, Kowloon

We interrupt usual programming to complete our episode breakdown of the 1960 Rod Taylor Hong Kong series. I originally covered this show several years ago (actually 2019/2020) but couldn't complete the whole series because a single episode - Suitable for Framing - was unavailable. I couldn't find a copy anywhere.

The excellent Rod Taylor fansite was my first point of reference for the complete list of epsiodes, which were initially hosted on Youtube. But the list has since been updated to point to the Internet Archive and the missing episode, Suitable for Framing, has been located.

Sadly, it was largely a studio based episode whereby a shady character (played by Richard Loo) tries to get Glenn Evans framed for murder. There are some exterior shots but none that haven't been used before, other than this one.

I know this was taken in Shek Kip Mei because the angle on Lion Rock on the background is the same one that can still be seen from looking NE up Nam Cheong Street (I live in the area so am very familiar with it). But narrowing down the specific buildings seen in-shot is a bit more difficult.

However, I believe this was taken from Berwick Street between - what was - Block Q and Block P looking up to Block CC in the far distance with Lion Rock above it. This equates to where the Shek Kip Mei "Shopping Centre" (i.e. wet market) now stands at the corner of Berwick Street and Nam Cheong Street (same view today on Street View).

Narazumono - Ken Takakura (1964) - Tai Hang Tung Road, Shek Kip Mei

After disembarking from the Peak Tram, the next shot shows our plotting couple riding rickshaws alongside one of the old resettlement estates. This scene was filmed way up in the north part of Kowloon along Tai Hang Tung Road - in fact not very far from this earlier view along Boundary Street. The resettlement blocks seen on the left were from the original Tai hang Tung estate. The building with the red squares on it is the original Concordia Lutheran School. The school has a history page on its website and the fourth image down you can see a close up of the same view seen below.

Narazumono - Ken Takakura (1964) - Nam Cheong Street, Shek Kip Mei

Part of the initial car chase takes us up to Shek Kip Mei and in specific there is one shot taken on Nam Cheong Street with its well-known view all the way up to Lion Rock.

Strangers - John Simm (2018) - Shek Kip Mei Police Station, Shek Kip mei

The full title, also seen in the screen grabs below, is the "Shek Kip Mei Reporting Centre and PTU KW Operational Base". It just goes to show how little I know about filming taking place in HK because this is, quite literally, just down the road from where I live. Anyway, in the show it's where David and Jonah have been languishing following the discovery of the body on the beach. Jonah is freed because David turns up with the murder weapon, and then he is freed because a mystery person has paid his bail.

I thought it was rather sporting of the police to be so cooperative for the show considering how it shows them all in a not-so-great light (one of the more realistic aspects of the show, I feel).

Oliver's Story - Ryan O'Neal (1978) - Shek Kip Mei Estate, Kowloon

Oliver heads out on a car tour to visit one of the factories his girlfriend owns. Secretly he's hoping it's a sweatshop so he has an excuse to dump her (because he's a bit miserable and pitiful) but in reality it turns outo be a modern facility that treats its workers fairly. On the way the car he is in passes through the Shek Kip Mei estate. How do I know this one is Shek Kip Mei? There is a street sign on one of the buildings that says "Woh Chai Street".

In fact, I could be mistaken but I believe the junction seen here (in the top two pictures) is the intersection between Woh Chai Street and Nam Cheong Street. I'm only guessing but on the second picture you can see another building further up the road (under the street sign) that looks like the old St Francis of Assissi school building.

Weiße Fracht für Hongkong - Dietmar Schönherr (1963) - Tai Hang Tung Estate, Kowloon

In one scene with Dietmar Schönherr and Brad Harris going for a wander, it appears that they manage to cover the whole territory in just a few short seconds. The walk starts off next to one of the H blocks of what was part of the Tai Hang Tung Estate. I initially believed this to be Shek Kip Mei Estate, but the orientation of the building relative to the view tells me otherwise.

In terms of modern location, this block was Block 8 and was located at the junction of Tai Hang Tung Road and Wo Chai Street. There is a square building here now (it's still part of the modern version of the Tai Hang Tung Estate) with a restaurant inside called the Lucky Dragon Restaurant (彩龍大酒樓).

That's the ridge line between Beacon Hill and Lion Rock up there in the background. The squatter village on the hillside is where the Nam Shan Estate now stands.

L'Inconnue de Hong Kong - Dalida (1963) - Aerial View of Kowloon Part 3

The final few shots of the Kowloon panorama take in the rest of the space between Mongkok and the Kowloon hills. You can't see the famous ridge line of Lion Rock because it has been chopped off by the camera however, it's the hill on the centre right in the third picture. The ridge line rises on the left hand side up to Beacon Hill. 

On the lower slopes of the hills you can see a faint line running across, made more obvious by the shaving of the hills at various points. This is Lung Cheung Road and is still the main highway linking north and east Kowloon.

Above the previously mentioned Tai Hang Tung recreation ground is a small hill called Woh Chai Shan - you can see it on the left in the upper picture and centre left in the lower pictures. These days it is a fairly anonymous hill in Shek Kip Mei (though it seems to be popular with walkers and bird watchers) with a service reservoir on the summit, but for a long time it also housed a large number of squatter huts up and down its various slopes. As part of the response to the fires (in Tai Hang Tung in 1952 and Shek Kip Mei the following year) the Govt constructed the two housing estates that can be seen above - Tai Hang Tung estate t o the right of Woh Chai Shan and Shek Kip Mei to the left. Both estates have since undergone subsequent regeneration/rebuilding.

On the right of the lowest picture is the low-rise areas of Yau Yat Chuen and Kowloon Tong, but at the mountain end of that area you can see the relatively high rise white buildings of what were the Kowloon Tsai military quarters. These have since been replaced (quite recently - 2004) by a large residential development called One Beacon Hill.

I Spy (TV Series) - Robert Culp (1965) - Shek Kip Mei Estate, Kowloon

I wasn't too sure about this one at first given the number of H-block estates Hong Kong has had over the years (I know of at least two others but there was probably more). And it wasn't helped by the fact that the ultimate clincher for the identification was courtesy of the sole remaining block left over - but the problem was that at some point over the years, even that place had a bit of a facelift.

The snap at the top shows what Mei Ho House (formerly Block H, renamed to Block 41) on the left in green. Note that the design is the same as the other blocks we can see (and yes, that is Lion Rock you can see in the gap at the top). However, more recent pictures of Mei Ho House, as it is now known, show it with some stairwells built onto the front and much of the open walkways covered up. When this happened I am not sure, perhaps sometime in the late 70's or 80's? But why this one and not other I am a bit confused, so if anyone can enlighten me please leave a comment.

Anyway, here we are in 1965 and the car at the bottom is driving along the Kowloon end of Tai Po Road. As mentioned, all those blocks save for Mei Ho House have been ripped down and replaced or their bare former sites are in the process of redevelopment.

Incidentally, the sloped road you can see in the top photo is still around and the two gaps underneath it look to have been made into storage space (perhaps?), you can see them covered with blue doors in the Streetview shot below, along with the slightly modified facade of Mei Ho House. For those who didn't know, Mei Ho House has recently been graded, and turned into a museum/hostel. I live very close so may go and get some snaps very soon.

(Note: Wiki has evidence of Mei Ho House's original facade here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:1956riot_02.jpg).

I Spy (TV Series) - Robert Culp (1965) - Shek Kip Mei Estate, Sham Shui Po

Pretty much done the screen shots for Affair in T'sien Cha now, a couple of street shots left which I may put up on my help page for those interested in helping out, but before then here is a small shot taken in what I can only assume is the H Blocks of Shek Kip Mei estate. I'm fairly sure that Kwun Tong Resettlement Estate also had these particular H-shaped blocks (as well as Wong Tai Sin and Cheung Sha Wan estates), but from a practicalities of filming point of view I feel this was taken in SKM. Please feel free to correct me, the good things about these posts is that they aren't set in stone and it wouldn't be the first time I have had to change what I previously thought was a spot on location...

What I am not sure about is which street this is, although to be fair in the estate there is only really two that had this aspect: Berwick Street and Woh Chai Street. I can't decide which it is until I get more info. Anyway, until then, corrections welcome :-)

Sunset - Paul Chin Pei (1971) - Lung Cheung Road, Kowloon

This scene is the end of the section when he goes to meet his mother and they drive through various parts of Kowloon before pulling in to stop at a sandy quarried hilltop. I can confirm that this sandy little area was just off Lung Cheung Road, about 100 metres west of the famous Lung Cheung Lookout. I live nearby here and have had a jolly good look around and can tell you that although some large boulders remain, the sandy area has long been excavated to make way for various CityU associated dorms and buildings down the hill. However, look at the shot below and you can see the shaved hillside in the background which IS still around and forms the edge of the road immediately north of the aforementioned lookout.

The car almost immediately turns off the road onto the sandy area and this is where the rendezvous between Chin Pei and his onscreen mother takes place. The thing I hadn't realised before is that the famous Checkerboard Hill in the background (you can see a checkerboard at the top of the picture immediately below) actually had two checkerboards. It had one facing south which can still be seen from various parts of Kowloon despite the weather's best attempts (the the Govt's lack of willingness to preserve it) and it also had a west facing one that can be seen in the shots below as well as in this photo over on Gwulo.com. These days it is almost completely covered in tree growth and thus is out of site (but perhaps better preserved as a result?)

Lion Rock at the back

We can also make out various aspects of Kowloon Tong in the background including the barracks.

The west Checkerboard in the background