Sunset - Paul Chin Pei (1971) - Chatham Road South, Tsim Sha Tsui

One final delve into the Sunset vaults before I move on to the next film. This one is fairly incidental and I wouldn't have bothered for the fact that we catch a quick glimpse of the Park Hotel on the corner of Chatham and Cameron. The view is through a windscreen as well (very similar to this shot from Bons Baisers De Hong Kong) so the view is only fleeting and a bit dark. The hotel (which is still around by the way) is the one with the vertical slats behind the rear view mirror.

Sunset - Paul Chin Pei (1971) - Tai Wo Ping Road, Tai Wo Ping

The very first scene in Sunset is a sequence taken from a car as it drives around a sharp curve in a road. At the time I had no idea where it could be and the sequence is so short I really just forgot about it until I went back to redo the screen captures.

When I first looked at Sunset it was when I was still living in Tai Po back in 2011, but since moving to Kowloon in 2012 many places are now familiar including this one. The reason is because I walk down this very same stretch of road everyday as I take my son to school in Cheung Sha Wan. It's quite strange to see what it looked like all those years ago (in fact, before I was born...just).

Here is the sequence.

The flyover in the distance is the old Tai Wo Ping Interchange that joined Lung Cheung Road (coming down from the right) onto the westbound lane of Tai Po Road. The road the camera is on (according to an aerial photograph of the area) connected Lung Cheung Road onto the eastbound side of Tai Po Road by way of a rather sharp hairpin bend just beyond the view of the camera (though if you look closely you can see a small hint of the bend on the lower right of the last screencap).

I honestly had no idea that the road I had been walking on every day once served this purpose. The existence of the HKWW Salt water pumping station (built 1967, see below) at the end of the current road made me think it was just a service road for that building. These days that's all it is anyway (although it also often serves as an illegal parking zone for tired truckers) and we use it to walk down the side of the Chak On Estate to access a pedestrian bridge that takes us onto the other side of Tai Po Road.

Anyway, on the way to pick up my son from school yesterday I took a few moments to capture what it looks like now. On the right is the HKWW Salt Water pumping station (dated 1967) whose wall can be seen in the top screen grab on the right.

The crash barriers mark the end of the current road and where the old section was removed. On the left is a square concrete hole that is actually a common form of structure covering a turn in the gutter (it stops the water splashing out all over the road). Comparing it to the top screen grab you can see it was there back in 1971 and shows how much more of the slope was cut away when the flyover in front was built. The view beyond has changed drastically as well because the old H blocks of the Li Cheng Uk estate have been replaced by high rise versions.

The picture below shows the old wall I was just talking about, but also what happened to where the road once turned down. It was all chopped away to make space for the flyover.

Sunset - Paul Chin Pei (1971) - Gloucester Road, Hong Kong

Another interesting background location I found after re-watching Sunset is the scene when the two stars go on a boat trip and have a bit of a heart to heart. The start of the sequence shows a junk riding through Victoria Harbour. Look closely at the background though and you can see the buildings along Gloucester Road when it occupied prime waterfront.

Two buildings stand out, the first one is the Rediffusion one on the left. It stood at 77-79 Gloucester Road (now the Fortis Tower Building). But to the right is the Luk Kwok Hotel with the SANYO sign on the roof. This is the same place that gave Richard mason inspiration for his seedy Nam Kok Hotel in his novel The World of Suzie Wong. The Luk Kwok Hotel still sits in the same place today but it is modern replacement, rebuilt in the late 80's.

There is a similar, though earlier, picture of this view on Gwulo.com.

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

It's been several years since I covered the locations for this film and it was also done while I was still living in Taipo. Now I've been in Kowloon for the past four years it's a good time to go back and 1. update the screen grabs and 2. suss out some of the locations I couldn't get the first time round. You can see the newly updated (screen grabs from a DVD rather than the VCD version I initially used) posts here.

Here's a great example of a missed location. It's the section of Lung Cheung Road that runs past the north end of Kowloon Tong.

This part of Kowloon hasn't really changed at all and all the buildings you can see on screen are still there and fairly unchanged. The main building in the top picture, alongside the road, is Pearl Court. Built around 1966 it's one of the older buildings in this area but not by much as most of this estate was completed by around 1970. Compared to today's shoebox flats these older buildings had much higher ceilings and more space and tend to still go for a tidy sum.

Far right of picture two is the edge of Beverly Heights, a name that should be familiar with Bruce Lee fans because it's where he died about 2 years after this film was made. The yellow podium next to it belongs to Chermain Heights which sits on the opposite side of Beacon Hill Road.

The playground (called Lung Cheung Playground) is also still there but now the view is interrupted by sound barriers and tree growth.

Sunset - Paul Chin Pei (1971) - Kai Tak Amusement Park, Choi Hung

Just when I think I have done all I can with a film, up pops up a stumper that has been solved by consulting an excellent old HK Photography book called "Early Kowloon" by Cheng Po Hung. Sunset features a section when the two protagonists spend some time at an amusement park.

Now, I know of several amusement parks that HK used to have such as Lai Yuen (in Lai Chi Kok), Luna Park on HK island but none of my known sites seemed to fit the photos above. Anyway, I found an old photo of Kai Tak Amusement Park of Cheng Po Hung's book and it looks to be a match (same ferris wheel, monorail etc) and can only think it is this one that we can see on film.

If you haven't heard of this place before it's not surprising because it was only open between 1965 and 1982 after which it was demolished and the site was redeveloped into the modern day Choi Hung Park/Choi Hung Road Playground.

Sunset - Paul Chin Pei (1971) - Lung Ha Wan, Sai Kung

One of the more iconic locations from the film because its seen at the very end when Paul goes to the seaside to watch the sunset. Lung Ha Wan aka Lobster Bay has two sides to it on either side of a small headland. The northern beach is a popular shore diving spot for local scuba enthusiasts and was for a long time an area where stolen luxury cars were loaded into modified speedboats and smuggled over the border to China. A concrete ramp that aided the loading of these cars was eventually blown up by British Army engineers and the fragments of it still litter the beach.

The southern side of the headland has a direct view down the coast towards Trio Rock, which can be seen amongst others on the following screen grab (in fact the larger island directly above his head in the first shot).

Now, I can't say for certain whether the shot looking back towards Paul was filmed at the same location, it certainly could've been but it's not possible to say for sure without going there myself and looking for the same rocks (which I'm not going to do any time soon).

Anyway, there is a very similar angle to this found on Panoramio courtesy of kc22jordan.

Sunset - Paul Chin Pei (1971) - Princess Margaret Road, Kowloon

Here is one found inadvertently thanks to Dan Thomas managing to spot a difficult location from Police Story. I've never been to this part of Kowloon and was thrown for a while by the Chinese writing on the wall of the building in the right of the shot which (I think?) says "Mongkok" - or at least the proper Chinese equivalent.

I can't recreate the exact angle but here is a shot from street view where you can see that the church above is still around. The church is the Kowloon namesake of a perhaps more famous one on HK Island called Hop Yat Church. Here is the (Chinese) website: http://klnc.hopyatchurch.org.hk/klnc/web/index.php.

The next shot afterwards is a bit wobbly (I had de-interlace turned on and only later realised that for moving screenshots it wasn't so great) but you get to see the corner with the small low-rise Kowloon Hospital out clinic tucked into the bend. It's still there, by the way but the flyover has an additional flyover built over the top of it now running east to west along Argyle Street.

Sunset - Paul Chin Pei (1971) - Ferry Point Estate, Yau Ma Tei

There is a part of the film when our young couple take a trip on a boat - I'm assuming it's a ferry but the route it takes is perhaps not the most efficient way across the harbour because it ends up at the waterfront in Yau Ma Tei (I guess it could have been the old vehicular ferry). Well, it doesn't matter but one shot does show some buildings that can still be found.

The buildings at the back of this shot are the Ferry Point Estate along Man Cheong St - a street that, as you can see, was once right at the water's edge. The west Kowloon reclamation has put a stop to that and they are now marooned 300 metres inland.

These buildings make up the Ferry Point Estate. All eight of them are called Man...something and were built in stages throughout the 60's - the oldest ones were actually built circa 1964 and the last completed circa 1970. So they were fairly new when this film was made.

Judging from the angle of this shot the boat must have been somewhere off the eastern side of Tsim Sha Tsui - probably the area where the iconic Arch now stands (on solid ground!). The nearest is the Man King Building followed by Man Fai, Man Yiu and finally Man Cheong Buildings. These four are the ones that used to face the water and another four older ones on the right of these facing Ferry St.

Sunset - Paul Chin Pei (1971) - Deepwater Bay, Hong Kong Island

At the beginning of the film, after the boys follow the girls from the Castle Peak Hotel, they have a bit of a race along what looks like Castle Peak Road before coming to a stop in...Deepwater Bay - yes, all the way over on the south of HK Island without even using the vehicular ferry to cross the harbour. Ah! the wonders of film reality.

Of course they have just collided their cars and all jump out to see the damage and have a bit of a set to. First we see them driving into a roadside parking area. Actually believe it or not this parking area is still around and there are still trees growing out of the middle of it (can't confirm they are the same ones though).

You see the very steep hill in the background above? Well this is also known as Brick Hill and these days has the Ocean Park cable car going up the side of it.

In the background of the above shot we can see the golf course for the Hong Kong Golf Club - a venerable HK Institution that although only having 9 holes, gets an extra 'hole each day when Li Ka Shing goes and plays his morning round.

In the background of our last screen grab we can see Middle Island, the home of the south island venue of the Royal Hong Kong Yacht Club. To round it all off here is a modern day grab courtesy of Streetview.

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

Sunset - Paul Chin Pei (1971) - Perth Street, Kowloon

One of the benefits of going back over stuff I did a few years ago is that I have the chance to reassess some of the locations I did then. I do sometimes get stuff wrong and unless I go back or someone points out a mistake they tend to get left up here. Here's a perfect example that I initially put as Ho Man Tin Hill. After reviewing the film in better definition something struck me about the background and it turns out that although I had the angle from the mountain fairly well, I had gone south too far by about 300 metres.

It turns out that the hill that Ching Li runs up after visiting Zhongkang's house used to sit just to the north of King George V school on a plot of land now occupied by the Shun Tak Fraternal Association Seaward Woo College at the end of Perth Street.

A good clue is seeing the south facing checkerboard in the background (above) which gives a general impression of which way we are facing, but the detail I noticed second time around was the presence of the various Chinese-styled buildings of Kowloon Hospital in the background. You can see the ridge of a roof in the centre left background of the picture below and between the actors heads in the second photo below is the distinct shape of what I believe is Block A of the Kowloon Hospital buildings. This means that the building that can be seen behind the actors in both captures below is the precursor to today's The Astrid development. The address now is 180 Argyle Street, but I have no idea if that was changed when the plot was redeveloped.

Further confirmation can be found below when the two turn back to run down the hill and a few buildings seen in the background including St George's Court on Kadoorie Hill (immediately above their heads). In fact you can see some of the houses that line Kadoorie Avenue below it. Also the tall buildings on the left hand side are a development called Mount Trio. Far right is Kowloon Hospital West Wing.

Sunset - Paul Chin Pei (1971) - So Kon Po Stadium, Happy Valley

The location of the two lovers first official rendezvous looks as though it may have been held at the previous incarnation of what is now known as HK Stadium i.e. the location where the Rugby 7's is held every year. Back in the early 70's it was still a concrete monstrosity.

In case you didn't realise that this is what the So Kon Po stadium used to look like there is a good clue in the second screencap which shows the external wall of the neighbouring South China Athletic Association sports ground along Caroline Hill Road. The small building behind Paul Chin Pei's head is the Indian Recreation Clubhouse. He's standing in the east side stands.

Sunset - Paul Chin Pei (1971) - Waterloo Road nr Lion Rock, Kowloon

Here's another shot taken on Waterloo Road on the corner close to where the road enters the Lion Rock Tunnel - again it's during the scene when Zhongkang is followed to their rendezvous by his mother.

Compare it to the Streetview shot I have below, you can see that many of the buildings seen on film are still around - even further down the road are some buildings that are still standing (and I think they are part of the Baptist Hospital and University). Also note that the second picture, which is looking up Waterloo Road in the other direction, the petrol station is still there, albeit noi longer run by Texaco.