Awarapan - Emraan Hashmi (2007) - Statue Square, Central

Shivam follows Reema and her buddies to Statue Square where one of the film's musical numbers breaks out.

City on Fire - Chow Yun Fat (1987) - Statue Square, Central

The location where Ko Chow initially meets with Tiger (Danny Lee) is Statue Square in Central. The inital shot shows a view along Chater Road before focussing on Ko Chow dancing around in front of the former Supreme Court building (it's now the Court of Final Appeal which was previously based in the former French Mission building).

La Fine Dell'innocenza - Annie Belle (1976) - Connaught Road, Central

After crossing the harbour, the pair are eventually stopped on Connaught Road next to the Hong Kong Club, and a naked Annie makes a run for Statue Square and plunges into the ornamental ponds there to try and escape the police. Note the old Electra/Mercury House on the left and the old Hong Kong Club building. CCB Tower now stands on that site.

Electra/Mercury House on the left, next to it is the old Hong Kong Club

I'll never look at these pools in the same way again

SPL - Donnie Yen (2005) - Statue Square, Central

Kwok (Danny Summer) is desperate to meet his daughter for Father's day and so heads out with Lo (Dick Liu) to Statue Square in Central so he can see her.

Hong Kong (series) - Rod Taylor (1960) - Statue Square, Central

One of my favourite shots from the Freebooter episode is this one of Evans (Rod Taylor) parking his car in Statue Square and crossing Des Voeux Road Central. As you can see from the images below, this was a time when there were parking spaces to be had and Prince's Building was still around.

A Queen's Ransom - George Lazenby (1976) - Central, Hong Kong

A Queen's Ransom is the last of the three films that George Lazenby was obligated to complete after he had signed up to Golden Harvest expecting to work with Bruce Lee back in 1973. It revolves around an assassination plot against Queen Elizabeth II during her famed 1975 trip to Hong Kong. You may remember that the French film, Bons Baisers de Hong Kong, also used this trip as the plot for the film and both that and A Queen's Ransom use archive footage from that trip to establish scenes and follow the plot as the police try to protect their Royal guests.

And so the introduction to this film uses quite a bit of archive footage shot around Central, showing some of the sights and sounds going on at the time. So here are a few screengrabs.

Lord Jim - Peter O'Toole (1965) - Old Supreme Court Building, Central

It's difficult to know how to refer to this building these days. It's now officially the Court of Final Appeal but for many years was the home to the Legislative Council and that is how it stood when I arrived here to live ten years ago. However, before all that it was the Supreme Court and, I suppose, this is the role it plays in the film because the exterior was filmed for the marine court building where Jim's tribunal is taking place.

Chinese Box - Jeremy Irons (1997) - Statue Square, Central

The location of Cheung's confrontation with her 'supposed' ex-boyfriend (played by Jared Harris).

Flatfoot in Hong Kong - Bud Spencer (1975) - Chater Road, Central

We are suddenly spirited back to Hong Kong-side as Rizzo and the Japanese boy walk along Chater Road with the old Hong Kong Club building behind them, as well as the Cenotaph, City Hall and the Supreme Court Building. Rizzo sits the kid down on the side of one of the Statue Square pools.

Flatfoot in Hong Kong - Bud Spencer (1975) - The Cenotaph, Hong Kong

Just a brief shot here as Rizzo walks across the Cenotaph garden. Of course these days it's off-limits to the public but at least we get a nice view of the previously mentioned HSBC building and Standard Chartered Bank HQ and the current version of Prince's Building (and just a glimpse of the corner of the Supreme Court/ex-LegCo building peeking out behind the Cenotaph).

The World of Suzie Wong - William Holden (1960) - Statue Square, Hong Kong

Actually, this area was and still is dissected by Chater Road and the part featured below is really the area next to the Cenotaph (though we don't see this on film), I've used Statue Square in the title because it's perhaps more familiar and we still get to some see the buildings that encircle(d) it anyway.

Well, immediately after crossing Connaught Road from Edinburgh Place, Holden (as Robert Lomax) walks to ask directions to the Nam Kok Hotel. Unfortunately the filmmakers at this point thought it would be more interesting to have a rickshaw blocking the foreground whilst the fantastic old Queen's and Prince's buildings get largely obscured in the background and as such we get only glimpses of how impressive these buildings were.

Queen's Building was of course replaced by the Mandarin Oriental Hotel in 1963, not long after this film was made (the COOKS sign above can be spotted on almost any old photo of the place) and the Prince's Building still exists - albeit in name only.

Interestingly, on this last shot above we can see the former versions of both the Standard Chartered Bank Building (then just known as "The Chartered Bank") and part of the previous (and much more pleasing to me) HSBC building.