The Taxi Driver - David Chiang (1975) - View of Northern Kowloon

I've been waiting a while for the Celestial Shaw Youtube channel to upload this because it was one of the first "local" films I covered on my blog many years ago. Sadly, at the time I only had a VCD version and those things are not very good for decent screen captures. Also, it was at a time when I decided to concentrate on foreign movies only and so, regrettably in hindsight, the posts were deleted (along with some for Shaolin Temple I think).

Well, now that local films are becoming the bread and butter of the blog, it's nice to be able to look at this movie again and perhaps get some locations that I missed the first time around.

The film centres around Chen Guang (David Chiang) a humble taxi driver who is just an honest guy wanting to make some money so he can marry his girlfriend, Lai-ching (Lin Chen-chi). The film has a variety of small stories about the shenanigans that drivers and their passengers get up to, but the main story is how some criminals have decided to rob a bank and intend to kidnap Chen Guang and make him drive his taxi as their getaway vehicle.

The film starts with some scenic establishing shots of various points around the territory. This initial image is a view looking east across northern Kowloon's shanty villages. The "higher" rise on the far left is the old Shatin Pass Estate. The estate it still around but those old buildings have been replaced by taller ones. The other high rise on the right is the Manning Theatre building on Yuk Wah Street. Back then it was the tallest building, these days it's just a baby compared to how the area now looks. The squatter huts between them and the camera correspond to what is now largely the Chuk Yuen Estate and Ma Chai Hang.

Inter-Pol - Tang Ching (1967) - Shatin Pass Road, Tze Wan Shan

Following the car chase where the pair outwitted their pursuers, 009 drops his buddy off next to the old Wong Tai Sin Infirmary on Shatin Pass Road. It's now run by Tung Wah Group of Hospitals but still has the same wall with the circular/honeycomb upper section.

The Man from Hong Kong - Wang Yu (1975) - Diamond Hill, Kowloon

I previously mentioned a rather epic hand glider flight carried out by Grant Page for the opening of this film. It was a flight done in multiple sections and this particular one - filmed around the Kowloon Hills near Diamond Hill - caused a bit of a hassle with the nearby flights from Kai Tak Airport. In this shot we see the hand glider from the vantage point of Shatin Pass Road up in the hills looking down upon what was the actual hill that gave Diamond Hill its name. These days the hill is largely gone, excavated for Po Kong Village Road Park, but there are still some remnants located in and around the Po Kong Village Road.

Those of with sharp eyes and a good memory will remember a similar view from when I was posting about Shatter, and if you page to the bottom of this post, you'll see the same raised lip of earth around the corner of the Shatin Pass Road that can be seen in the first shot below. 

The large housing estate that can be seen in the top picture is the old Tsz Wan Shan housing estate that was demolished over a period of time throughout the 1980's and 90's and replaced by smaller clusters of separately named estates. The flat area in front of the shaved hillside is roughly where today's Po Kong Village Road Park Football pitch now stands - the rest of the hillside has been pretty much completely removed.

In fact, on the other side of the hill is where the Tate's Cairn Tunnel now pops out right next to Chi Lin Nunnery and Nan Lian Garden. As far as I can tell, about the only buildings that can be identified that are still standing are three blocks that line the Po Kong Village Road in the bottom left of the top picture. The leftmost is a CLP substation and the other two are actually schools which may go some way to explain why they are still around.

Shatter - Stuart Whitman (1974) - Shatin Pass Road: Finale

As previously mentioned, the end of this scene takes place at the iconic Lion Pavilion at the crossroads of Shatin Pass Road where the trails lead up to Lion Rock. Aside from the obvious mass of tree growth that is now evident, and a new lick of paint on the pavilion, not much has changed.

Even the dai pai dong seen in the background of the second screen capture is still there serving up a delightful selection of doll noodles and soda to weary hikers.

No expansive views anymore thanks to abundant tree growth, but here are a couple of snaps from a recent hike I did up there.

A sad reflection on my photographic skills is that Streetview has a better shot of this place - though perhaps the google car was able to ascend on a less busy day because it captured a nice car-free view of the area. The lower one is the view up the side road where the aforementioned dai pai dong still stands. Whether it's owned by the same people is unclear, perhaps the next time I am there I will ask.

Shatter - Stuart Whitman (1974) - Shatin Pass Road: Part 2

We get some cool scenes of Kowloon as the cars head up the hill. Starting with the first picture which shows the proper start of the hill climb just past Fat Chong Temple.

A little further up we also catch a glimpse of the old version of the Shatin Pass Estate at the background. The current buildings are quite new and significantly higher than the original, but we can see what the originals looked like courtesy of the HK Memory website:

https://www.hkmemory.hk/collections/public_housing/All_Items/images/201307/t20130702_61462.html

Actually, the above picture is a great example of why we can't get the same views today as we used to, not that it is necessarily a bad thing, but the amount of greenery that now covers the hillsides (all over HK) mean former views are now blocked. Personally I prefer the additional, and the views are only blocked because I am limited to using Streetview at the moment. You get a good idea of the barren nature of the area from the next few shots.

The white building on the lower left is the Tze Wan Shan Police Station. It's still there although now painted in the more usual blue/grey colour scheme now on all local police stations.

Now, although this car chase scenes terminates at the Lion Pavilion - a very well known landmark along the Wilson Trail where the trail breaks off from the road to head north - the film makers have tried to cheat us a bit and also shot some further footage further east along the road. These are the shots below which show this more easterly section of the road near the intersection with Kwun Ping Road. Lion Rock can be seen in the distance on the top picture below.

Shatter - Stuart Whitman (1974) - Shatin Pass Road, Tze Wan Shan

One of my more vivid memories of this film is from watching it on UK television with my grandad back in the (most likely) early 80's. I particularly remember this scene when Shatter is followed up Shatin Pass road to the Lion Pavilion. I'll cover the Lion pavilion in the next post to keep the picture count manageable, but here is a quick shot of the junction of Shatin Pass Road and Tze Wan Shan Roads - just down the road from where the Fat Chong Temple stands.

Tze Wan Shan on the left, Shatin Pass Road coming up the hill

Looking up Shatin Pass Road

All those years ago watching this film  I never quite thought that one day I would be hiking up this road - it's one of the easier ways of getting up into the Kowloon mountains. Anyway, here are the corresponding Streetview captures. As you can see, HK is much greener than it used to be (thankfully) and the mesh fence on the left hand side of the bottom screen capture (above) has now become the aforementioned Fat Chong Temple.