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.

Ghost in the Shell - Scarlett Johansson (2017) - Maple Street, Tai Kok Tsui

The scene when Batou and Major are driving along and Major suddenly has the flashback of the small Japanese pavilion in the middle of the road was filmed at the intersection of Maple and Boundary Streets. The camera car looks as though it was driving down Tai Nan Street to get the shot because we can see the pedestrian island in the foreground.

Rush Hour 2 - Jackie Chan (2001) - Tai Nan Street, Sham Shui Po

Okay, I know I should've included this on the last post but I only started looking a few minutes ago before realising that this next screen grab was taken a one block to the east of the last Tai Nan St post. Anyway, as before you can still see a few remnants from the shop signs despite the fact that most have been removed. This is actually at the junction with Wong Chuk Street looking east down Tai Nan Street. Lower picture courtesy (as always) of Google Streetview.

And with that we can finally bid farewell to Rush Hour 2.

Rush Hour 2 - Jackie Chan (2001) - Tai Nan Street, Sham Shui Po

Well, I guess I am getting better at identifying these seemingly generic local streets because here is one from Rush Hour 2 that I was expecting to take me longer (it actually took me about 5 minutes). It's just another one of those shots that shows off a bit of local life in HK but is irrelevant to the plot. It's a busy street somewhere, adorned in shop signs of a magnitude in number that is rarely seen since the Govt decided to crack down on them (too dangerous/illegal blah blah blah).

It is in fact Tai Nan Street in northern Kowloon and, as you can see from the Streetview below, its number of signs has been drastically reduced, although there are still a few key ones that help identify the location (if you look closely enough you'll see which ones they are) along with the columned shophouse that can just be seen centre right in the screencap.

Coincidentally, this is the second time we have seen this exact location on this blog because it was this same stretch of road (at the junction with Shek Kip Mei St) that was used in Transformers: Age of Extinction a while back.

Transformers: Age of Extinction - Mark Wahlberg (2014) - Shek Kip Mei St, Kowloon

Some traffic scenes were filmed at the junction of Shek Kip Mei Street and Tai Nan St, a quick stroll over from these previously mentioned scenes. No doubt these were filmed at the same time and if you look at the top picture you may be able to see some of the street signs seen on the earlier Tai Nan St screencaps.

Here are the current Streetview grabs, but as I mentioned in the previous post, I believe these picture were taken in 2010 which already makes them 3 years older than when they were captured on film.

Looking north up Shek Kip Mei St

Looking east along Tai Nan St

Transformers: Age of Extinction - Mark Wahlberg (2014) - Tai Nan Street, Cheung Sha Wan

Some of the "civilians panicking at the sight of big giant robots" scenes were filmed in Sham Shui Po district. The following one was actually along Tai Nan Street - you can just see the red/blue glass of the Pioneer Centre at the far end of the street over in Mongkok.

The area we actually see on film is the section between Nam Cheong St and Shek Kip Mei Street.

You can see that the street signs captured on film were authentic ones. Seeing as this film was shot during October of 2013, it's quite possible the scenes on film are actually more up-to-date than the current Streetview ones. Go figure!