Daddy Cool - Mammootty (2009) - Lung Cheung Road, Wong Tai Sin

Okay, so we will finish on this film with a view along Lung Cheung Road in front of Wong Tai Sin Temple. This shot was taken right in front of the large ornate gate that fronts onto the main road. there's been a bit of change here in the intervening years but the fire hydrant he's sitting on is still around in case there are any Indian film fans wishing to recreate the image.

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 The estate it still around but those old buildings have been replaced by taller ones.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) - Lung Cheung Road, Wong Tai Sin

Another car chase ensues as the pair manage to escape being killed by the staff of the company they just visited. This shot below shows both cars driving east along Lung Cheung Road next to the Wong Tai Sin Resettlement Estate. The road marks the split between the upper "low cost housing" estate (on the left) and the lower "resettlement" estate (on the right). Here's the same view today: GoogleEarth.

Bloodfight - Yasuaki Kurata (1989) - Muk Lun Street Playground, Wong Tai Sin

When Masa sobers up, his mate Jack (played by John Ladalski) helps him train in a local park. This was in fact an old playground surrounded by some of the area's old villages - now all gone. The area is now all part of the Muk Lun Street Playground but the tree that Kurata is attached to continues to this day at the west end of the area, right next to Shatin Pass Road. The building with the connecting bridges, behind Ladalski's head in the bottom image, was the former Wong Tai Sin Police Rank and File Quarters. It was knocked down a few years ago and replaced by a new development called "Lion's Rise".

Blade in Hong Kong - Terry Lester (1985) - Wong Tai Sin Temple, Kowloon

Blade's father (played by Keye Luke) has waited decades to be selected to lead a special religious ceremony involving a priceless religious text. In reality, the bad guys want him to be killed or injured so they can get their own man to take his place in the ceremony and steal the book.

The room where the book is held is a very obvious studio set, but the temple setting where much of the action and dialog takes place was Wong Tai Sin Temple in Kowloon.

The subsequent foot chase takes place along the pavement next to Lung Cheung Road and the area between the temple and the road which, as you can see, was much busier back in the 80s. The area was cleared out when much of the temple area was remodelled and the estate was rebuilt in the late 1990s.
The chase ends when the book is bundled into a van at the bottom of Shatin Pass Road.

Shatin Pass Road

The buildings in the background are still standng on Fung Tak Road

China Rose - George C. Scott (1983) - Wong Tai Sin Temple, Kowloon

Scott finally gets to meet his son (played by Michael Biehn) in the old fortune teller alleyway in front of Wong Tai Sin Temple. But before that we are treated to some shots of (no doubt) real worshipers going hammer and tongs with the divining sticks as Scott picks his way through the masses.

Shirley's World (TV Series) - Shirley MacLaine (1972) - Lower Wong Tai Sin Estate, Kowloon

There is also some footage of one of the old Govt Housing Estates. It's often difficult to discern between various estates due to the common use of the "H" block design of the earlier ones. However, this particular sequence is most definitely of Lower Wong Tai Sin Estate.

The sequence starts looking down on Ching Tak Street. The building at the end of the road, along Tung Tau Tsuen Road, is now the CCC Kei Heep Secondary School - whether it had the same name back in 1972 I don't know, but at least it is still there and allows the positive identification of this location. 

Autostitch has done a pretty good job at merging these screen grabs considering the camera was panning in a rather weird angle (up and to the left). The whole estate has since been redeveloped into high rise accommodation. The carpark seen in the lower picture has since been turned into a couple of school campuses and a community centre.

Spider-Man: The Dragon's Challenge - Nicholas Hammond (1979) - Wong Tai Sin Temple, Kowloon

Ching Chun Koon wasn't the only temple featured in this film, we also get a reasonable tour around Wong Tai Sin in Kowloon.

Later on we get a look of the ornamental Pai lau that fronts the temple complex on Lung Cheung Road. This is the version that is currently still in place next to Lung Cheung Plaza (actually, the mall has recently undergone a renovation and is now named 'Temple Plaza'). I don't know when this version was installed because the previous one is visible on Kung Fu Killers filmed around 4 years earlier. You can see it in this post here. So, sometime between 1974 and 1978 the current version was put in.

Kung Fu Killers - Grant Page (1974) - Wong Tai Sin Estate, Kowloon

During the film, Page decides it would be a good idea to do a zip line stunt from the top of Lion Rock. In preparation for his stunt he has bought a locally made rope and takes it up into the Kowloon hills to work out the kinks in the rope (literally) with a practice. On the way, he drives past Wong Tai Sin Estate on his motorcycle.

Page is driving along Lung Cheung Road with the old (now demolished) buildings of Upper Wong Tai Sin Estate in the background and a rather empty looking background behind him. I've included a Streetview grab of roughly the same view today. According to Wiki, it seems most of the blocks were demolished in the late 90's. Not too long ago in the general scheme of things. Also note the original Pai Lau/Pai Fong (the ornate archway) that has since been replaced by a newer version, although the new one stands in roughly the same spot.