Erotic Journey: Love Affair in Hong Kong - Hirokazu Inoue (1973) - Ladder Street, Sheung Wan

Following the initial top down view, the next camera angle is located on Ladder Street as the thugs try and snatch Sumio's money before a passer-by intervenes and saves him.

Erotic Journey: Love Affair in Hong Kong - Hirokazu Inoue (1973) - View from Kung Lee Church Mansions

Kung Lee Church Mansions on Bridges Street is the only location from where this view could be filmed as we see Sumio walking up Ladder Street before being attacked by a couple of thugs who try to steal his wallet. The sequence starts with a view over towards Central before panning down to focus on Ladder Street. The building next to the steps on the left is the Chinese YMCA building that is still around.

The Taxi Driver - David Chiang (1975) - The Hong Kong Macau Ferry Wharf

The head robber and girlfriend make an attempt to flee Hong Kong for Macau via the ferry terminal. So it's all hands on deck as the fleets of taxi drivers descend upon the place to help prove that Chen is innocent.

Hong Kong 73 - Yueh Hua (1974) - Hollywood Road, Sheung Wan

The last location from this film is Hollywood Road in front of Man Mo Temple as Chan's father returns home from work and learns that his neighbour has committed suicide by jumping off a building. He was a stock broker and suffered a huge loss when he mistakenly bought fake shares. It's one of the weirder subplots for a "comedy" but I guess satire comes in manay forms. Anyway, the scene shows a red minibus driving along Hollywood Road and stopping outside the temple where Mr Chan alights.

The Champions - Stuart Damon (1967) - Bonham Strand East, Sheung Wan

More general shots of Hong Kong with this interesting image below showing what I believe to be the famous pharmacy owned and run by 唐拾義 Dr Tong Sap-yi (Tang Shi-yi) - a famous Western-educated Chinese doctor who introduced several medicines onto the Hong Kong market. My understanding is that this building was located on Bonham Strand East at the junction with Hillier Street. This image from Gwulo (it shows the two words of the good doctor's name on the right hand side) seems to confirm it was located where the Hillier Commercial Building now stands at #65-67. Funnily enough, Google Maps still has the pharmacy marked although the current business on the ground floor is a gold dealer. I would need to check in person but it could be the company still has offices there.

Benson - Robert Guillaume (1984) - Ladder Street, Sheung Wan

While the Governor and Benson are out looking for clues around Upper Lascar Row, they find a pot with an emblem on it which may be related  to Clayton's kidnapping. Benson suspects someone is following them and hangs back only to find out it is Kraus. Meanwhile the Governor spots the car that Clayton was abducted in and jumps in a taxi to follow. All this takes place around the area where Upper Lascar Row, Ladder Street and Hollywood Road join up.

Bullet for Hire - Simon Yam (1991) - Caine Lane Garden, Sheung Wan

Han takes San away from Ngok's apartment and tries to escape with her, but she gets nervous and jumps out of the car on Caine Lane right next to the weirdly designed garden/playground there (it looks like someone assembled it with Duplo™ bricks). Shan catches up with them and a gunfight ensues between them and Boss's men. The film's finale takes place a the boss's house which I covered back in this post, so this is the last one for this film.

The Scavengers - Vince Edwards (1958) - Hong Kong Macao Ferry Wharf

Allison (Vince Edwards) looks out of the window where he is chatting with Puan (Efren Reyes) and sees his estranged (and until then, missing) wife on the street below. We are looking directly down onto the old Hong Kong Macao Wharf where ferries such as the Fatshan and Tai Loy (later renamed to the Chung Shan) berthed. This place started life as a Japanese owned wharf called the Osaka Shosen Kaisha Wharf (O.S.K) but following the war/occupation was confiscated by the HK Govt earning it the name "Custodian Wharf" and later becoming the HK Macao Wharf sometime in the 1950s.

This film gives us a really nice view of the building that fronted the pier along Connaught Road. I've never seen it this close before. We also get some shots waterside as well as a close up of the rear of the aforementioned Tai Loy.

For modern day context, the pier was located along Connaught Road at the end of Gilman Street.

...and Millions will die! - Richard Basehart (1973) - Rumsey Street carpark

Just when you think you have run out of films, one appears that you feel you should already have known about it a long time ago. So next up we have ...and millions will die!, a 1973 Australian TV movie that was a pilot for a series that never was. It stars Richard Basehart (his second appearance in Hong Kong, and on this blog, following the earlier Visa to Canton) as Dr Pruit, some sort of Australian-based investigator into chemical weapons. He is called to a gas poisoning incident in a small Asian territory in the midst of a civil war and the incident leads him and his team to Hong Kong where a former Nazi chemist has planted a time bomb attached to some cannisters of the same poison gas.

It's a bit of a weird film that pretends several Singapore locations are actually in Hong Kong (for example, the Tiger Balm Gardens sequences were filmed at Haw Par Gardens in Singapore, not Hong Kong) but there are some interesting locations to see and I like it when obscure films like this show upon my radar, regardless of quality. It also includes Leslie Nielsen in the first of his two outings (that I know of) to Hong Kong. You may remember he was also in Blade in Hong Kong.

I've managed to get hold of a slightly better definition version from some nefarious corner of the internet and uploaded it to Youtube here, so please feel free to go and watch.

The film starts with long drawn out sequence that turns out to be a dream, as two gunmen meet in a carpark and make their way to their target. The carpark is the Rumsey Street carpark on the Sheung Wan waterfront.

Shing Wong Street - Now and Then

There is a scene in Painted Faces where the boys are being led along a pathway and are called "Bald Headed Pigs" by the local children. This was filmed along Wing Lee Street and Shing Wong Street. I was here just the other day and tried to capture the same angles.

The first two images show the view looking along Wing Lee Street from where the boys are being led by Sammo.

These second images show the view up the steps of Shing Wong Street as they turn uphill and walk up the steps.

Bloodfight - Yasuaki Kurata (1989) - Man Mo Temple, Hollywood Road

A brief view of Man Mo Temple precedes the scene where the gang beat up a stall owner before her daughter turns up and kung-fus them all.

Bamboo Gods and Iron Men - James Iglehart (1974) - Square Street, Hong Kong

In the film, they order a wooden buddha statuette and ask the shopkeeper to deliver it to their hotel. He gets an errand boy to deliver it, but as the youngster is walking along Hollywood Road he is pulled aside by a gangster who wants to smuggle the "secret powder" in the statuette. The scene shows the boy walking along Hollywood Road before being pulled to one side - however, the next scene cuts to a different location - given away by the street sign in the background. From the angle on the street sign, I believe this is the narrow alleyway right next to the Ladder Street steps.

Boy walking along Hollywood Road

Grabbed off Hollywood Road but appears around the corner in Square Street

Bamboo Gods and Iron Men - James Iglehart (1974) - Hollywood Road, Hong Kong

As mentioned in the previous post, the pair exit "Cat Street" and head into the "Yue Po Chai Curios Store" on the corner of Hollywood Road and Ladder Street. This place is quite popular for filming. In fact we were here just a few months ago during the exploration of locations for Blade in Hong Kong. And remember, this is the same location (but not the building) that served as the "Nam Kok Hotel" in The World of Suzie Wong.

Hong Kong Confidential - Gene Barry (1958) - Connaught Road, Sheung Wan

Next up is another one of those 50s era movies that had a story set in Hong Kong, but the low budget nature of the movie meant the close ups were shot in unconvincing (to a modern eye at least) studio sets and authentic footage of the place, for establishing shots, was just taken from stock footage. I still find these films interesting because aside from the movie plot, they still offer a bit of a glimpse to past times, even if it was only library footage. It's possible that, like with Target Hong Kong, the only stock footage available at the time was pre-war because I'm not convinced these are 1950s era images - but perhaps more knowledgable readers can comment below. 

Gene Barry stars as a secret US agent who has been tasked with tracking down and rescuing an Arab prince (i.e. Californian white kid in brown face) from the nefarious clutches of the Chinese commies who are using him as leverage over the prince's father to get him to sign some sort of economic treaty.
This is about the most authentic bit of the film because everyone knows that the current version of the Govt still partakes in a bit of coersive "retention", shall we say, when it feels the need.

Anyway, first up is a view of Connaught Road West. The taller building in the image was actually a hotel called the Tung Shan Hotel which means we are looking at the bit of road between Morrison Street and Des Voeux Road West. Talon Tower now stands in that location.

The second image below shows a much wider view from further out in the harbour. The two buildings sticking above the others coincide with what I believe to be the aforementioned Tung Shan Hotel on the right, and the taller, more prominent Sun Kwong Hotel on the left. The Sun Kwong Hotel was located on the other side of Morrison Street to Western Market. I could be completely off with the second image, so please feel free to correct if you know anything.

Blade in Hong Kong - Terry Lester (1985) - Ladder Street, Sheung Wan

After a tour bus chase (a location I haven't been able to identify yet), the bad guys run into the antique emporium on the corner of Hollywood Road and Ladder Street. The sequence starts with a view of the junction of Ladder/Square Streets as Blade loses sight of the baddies. He asks a young passerby - "Half-time" - and after some haggling learns they had entered the shop. This same location also features at the very end of the film as Blade goes back to see Half-time in front of the Man Mo Temple.

So we see Square Street, Ladder Street, Hollywood Road and Man Mo Temple. The first five images are from the initial chase scene, and the lower ones in front of Man Mo Temple are from the end of the film. 

Blades runs onto Ladder Street from Square Street

Back onto Square Street after failing to catch the bad guys inside the shop 

Kam Ho Mansion in the background is still around