The Pillow Book - Vivian Wu (1996) - Waterfront Promenade, Kowloon

A very typical (i.e. hazy) view across the harbour from the waterfront promenade in Tsim Sha Tsui - before the Avenue of Stars came along to ruin it all. Actually, this section looks to be further to the east along the less busy section in front of East TST area.

In case you didn't know, the section containing the Avenue of Stars has just recently been closed temporarily (well, for 3 years) for improvement works. Unfortunately, I'm not optimistic any improvements will be made to the Avenue of Stars in terms of content and management, but I have an open mind.

The Pillow Book - Vivian Wu (1996) - Nathan Road, Yau Ma Tei

As a part two for the last post, this scene quickly follows. This one was a bit trickier to track down though - the neon sign with the two characters "人人" seemed so familiar to me but I just couldn't place them. In the end I found out they belonged to a removal company called 人人搬運. Low and behold, the first time their website (http://www.yanyanmover.com/) loaded it had a picture of the very same advert - but no address.

Then I found a rather excellent little website: Neon Signs.HK, that has done a great job at collating the existing neon signs in HK. It's well worth a look. Anyway, it turned out that the sign in question is on the corner of Waterloo and Nathan (an area I used to frequently pass on the bus). Mystery solved and a great website discovered.

Here's the best view I could find on Streetview, closer views were obscured by a passing bus.

The Pillow Book - Vivian Wu (1996) - Nathan Road, Tsim Sha Tsui

There are a couple of night shots in the film when Wu tries to follow Ewan McGregor's beat up old car. One of the scenes see us driving down the Tsim Sha Tsui section of Nathan Road. past the "Very Good Seafood Restaurant" more commonly known as the Ting Ho Restaurant. It's a very similar scene to this one from Yellowthread Street all those years back - and you'll see it was the same neon sign overhead as well.

The sign has since been changed - sadly much of the neon signage used along many streets in HK has already disappeared - to a wavy blue one. You can see the Park Lane Shopping Boulevard in both the lower screen grab and the Streetview picture below.

The Pillow Book - Vivian Wu (1996) - Chinese Permanent Cemetery, Tsuen Wan

This appears to be a popular place to film because we've already seen it used in Yellowthread Street, Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story, Contagion and now The Pillow Book. There was a nice sweeping view of the channel between Tsuen Wan and Tsing Yi Island, but Greenaway has ruined the view with his 'artistic' habit of overlaying the screen with multiple boxes, so the following just shows the cemetery.

There's also a scene later on when the publisher sends his men back to exhume the body, but this was quite obviously a studio shot with a back projection so I haven't bothered including it - it didn't really show much anyway.

The Pillow Book - Vivian Wu (1996) - Lock Road, Tsim Sha Tsui

Bookworms will rejoice at this post because it features a well-known and long-established (est: 1918) local book sellers called Swindon Books. The store exterior features extensively throughout the film as the shop owned by Wu's Japanese publisher. Here's a selection of shots from various scenes. 

There's also a quick glimpse at the building next door as the binmen come around to pick up the (rather gross) garbage.

And a quick view from one of the upper floors of Anson House (although the store only occupies the first two floors) down onto Lock Road.

The Pillow Book - Vivian Wu (1996) - Kowloon City Plaza, Kowloon City

We've not finished with Kowloon City yet because there was also some filming done on the rooftop carpark belonging to Kowloon City Plaza - now called KCP - on Carpenter Road.

The Pillow Book - Vivian Wu (1996) - Fuk Lo Tsun Road, Kowloon City

Some more Kowloon City as we see Wu inside her shoebox apartment (believe me when I say it tends to be the norm in HK these days) on what looks to be Fuk Lo Tsun Road in Kowloon City.

The view from her window shows us the Kowloon City branch of Hang Seng Bank and a quick glimpse through the window from inside the room reveals what looks to be the building next door to it.

If you look at the lower picture, through the window, it looks as though the camera captured the front of the building next door to the bank. Here is the Streetview of that section of road. Of course, I'm assuming the bank hasn't moved in 20 years...but the front of the next door building does look like the one on film.

Assuming I have guessed correctly, that would put the actual apartment in the building opposite - possibly the first floor of number 2B. Here is a quick grab of that building - I think the room is the one centre screen - but I'm open to counter offers :-).

The Pillow Book - Vivian Wu (1996) - Lion Rock Road, Kowloon City

Wu's character holes up in Kowloon City when she first arrives in Hong Kong. There are a few brief moments when we catch a glimpse of the northern end of Lion Rock Road where it joins with Carpenter Road.

As with elsewhere in Hong Kong, many of the overhead signs have been removed (a big shame in my opinion) but most of the buildings seem to still be around even if the businesses within have changed. The sole commercial remnant is the cafe with the blue/red sign seen above and in the Streetview grab below (now underneath the square sign with the cartoon face).

The Pillow Book - Vivian Wu (1996) - Hong Kong Park, Central

Sometimes I have to go beyond the call of duty for this blog and view films that are a bit, well...pants! Case in point: The Pillow Book directed by Peter Greenaway. Thankfully it has some interesting bits of Hong Kong - some we've seen before, some we haven't.

Sadly, for this blog at least, Greenaway's habit of sticking insets in the middle of the screen mean some of the locations are obscured, but I think there is enough available for a quick look. Anyway, for starters we get some shots taken from within the bounds of Hong Kong Park.

 We also catch a brief glimpse of Flagstaff House a bit later on. The lights behind it are from the Lippo Centre.