The Taxi Driver - David Chiang (1975) - Canton Road, Yau Ma Tei

In other events, Chen is eating noodles when he witnesses a robbery (Tino Wong doing his robber thing again). The building with the columns in the background is the Yaumatei Police Station, back then in its brown colour. The station has recently been decommissioned and I believe has recently held some sort of local film industry exhibition courtesy of the fact that it has been featured in so many movies over the years. To my shame I haven't been yet. The second image shows the view from Kansu Street.

The Lady Professional - Lily Ho Li-li (1971) - Yau Ma Tei Police Station

The end of the film sees Tian-li turn herself in at the local police station. In this case it's the oft-used Yau Ma Tei Police Station on the corner of Canton Road and Public Square Street.

Inter-Pol - Tang Ching (1967) - Yau Ma Tei Police Station

Once arrested, 009 is taken to Yau Ma Tei Police Station where all is explained and he is set free and begins to liase with the local police. This place made the news recently for being a major attraction for Mainland Tourists. I suspect it because it has featured in so many films over the year. Good news for film tourism, and I hope the Govt sees the benefits.

Hacker - Callan McAuliffe (2016) - Yau Ma Tei Police Station

Another popular filming location is this colonial-era police station on Canton Road in Yau Ma Tei. It's been included in a variety of posts on this blog over the years (see here), and in this film it is where Alex and Sye get put in a cell following their arrest after the fight at the nightclub. More recently the building has been decommissioned and I'm not sure what it is currently being used for.

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde - Adam Baldwin (2000) - Yau Ma Tei Police Station

No longer a Police Station because it was decommissioned a couple of years ago. I did make a trip here last year with David Bellis from Gwulo and, after seeing a gathering in the rear carpark area, we popped in to have a look around only to be instantly told to get the hell away. Such is life in the new National Security-conscious Hong Kong.

In the movie this is the exterior used for the Police station in the film where one of the gangsters is set free after he refuses to talk. So Mr. Hyde follows him back to his opium den (yes, quite a few of these Hong Kong cliches pop up) to extract the information he needs.

One of the things I can gather from this sequence is that this was before the local police stations were all given a new grey/dark blue coat of paint. Back in 2000 it was still the white/light blue colour scheme (seeing little things like this please my nerdy brain).

Election - Simon Yam (2005) - Yau Ma Tei Police Station, Yau Ma Tei

Another Police station that has since closed but will be preserved for adaptive reuse is the Yau Ma Tei Police Station. This one has only more recently been shut down and has arguably been featured in many more productions, both local and foreign, although not always from the front. The best examples of former posts on this blog are from the I Spy series (1965) and, more recently, Rush Hour 2 (2001).

Anyway, in Election this is the station where the psychopathic Big D and other society members are being held after their arrest in Wanchai.

The Peking Medallion - Robert Stack (1967) - Ferry Street, Yau Ma Tei

After dropping Elke back off at the floating casino, Stack grabs a rickshaw and heads back to his hotel. One of the roads he goes donw on this journey is Ferry Street right next to the old waterfront of the Yau Ma Tei typhoon shelter. The last picture is of course looking up Public Square Street with the Yaumatei Police Station visible on the right hand side.

Coincidentally, another film shot the very same year also used this location. Here's a reminder.

Shirley's World (TV Series) - Shirley MacLaine (1972) - Public Square Street Playground, Yau Ma Tei

The playground scene when Shirley is snapping pictures of the band's singer playing on the slide and roundabout with the local kids was filmed at a playground right next to the famous Yau Ma Tei Police Station. You can see the back wall of the station in the first screencap. The playground is still there but the childrens' rides have long gone and now it is more of your typical Hong Kong-style rest garden (i.e some planters and seats and not much else other than a view obscured by the flyover)

Also quite prominent in the background is the Ferry Point Estate which can be seen in almost its full glory in the lower picture. That waterfront ceased to exist about 20 years ago. It has since been reclaimed and redeveloped.

The Million Eyes of Sumuru - George Nader (1967) - Yau Ma Tei Typhoon Shelter, Kowloon

When the police are about to launch their attack on Sumuru'a fortress island, they first assemble at a pier in the Yau Ma Tei Typhoon Shelter. Once again the nearby Yau Ma Tei Police Station gives us a rough indication of where the pier stood. You can see the station in the top picture, it's the white building in the background. 

The position of the pier/waterfront where the actors are seems to tally with the north side of Man Cheong Street. A large portion of the Ferry Point Estate was already completed by 1966/1967, so I think I am probably correct in saying this most likely filmed on the north side of man Cheong Road in front of the Man Wai Building (completed in 1966). The low rise buildings along the road at the back (it's still Ferry Street by the way) have since been replaced by one of China Light & Power's substations and the Saigon Street Playground.

In the lower picture you can see the old tenements that used to line Ferry Street that have since been replaced by Prosperous Gardens, but the building at the back between Maria Rohm and Paul Chang's head (he played the Police Inspector) is the still-standing Wah Tak Building along Waterloo Road.

The Million Eyes of Sumuru - George Nader (1967) - Ferry Street, Yau Ma Tei

Maria Rohm's escape through the streets of Kowloon terminates at a ferry pier along, fittingly, Ferry Street in Yau Ma Tei. In fact there are two locations used in this shot, the first is this one Ferry Street, and the second one appears to be the Star Ferry Pier in Tsim Sha Tsui. A quick editing job makes it look like they are the same place. The older buildings along ferry Street seen below have long since gone, they were once part of the "six street slum" that was replaced by Prosperous Garden, but the Yau Ma Tei Police Station is still around for the time being and you can see it in the lower pictures where it sits along Public Square Street.

We had a glimpse of this area when we were looking at Ferry to Hong Kong a couple of years ago, and in fact this jetty is the same one used for the berth of the ferry in that film. I keep banging on about how much this area has changed, especially with the creation of the west Kowloon reclamation (which basically filled in the old typhoon shelter). But pictures speak a thousand words, so here's the Streetview.

Rush Hour 2 - Jackie Chan (2001) - Public Square Street, Yau Ma Tei

Some of the action takes place in the famous Yau Ma Tei police station on Public Square Street. It's long been a popular location for filming and has recently been decommissioned (May 2016) and it's future doesn't look very clear at the moment which is a big shame for everyone. Let's hope sense shines through and the building can be retained.

Anyway, there's also a lot of the scenes involving the explosion at the station where we are out and about on Public Square Street following Carter as he wanders off in general ignorance of the events unfolding around him. The top picture shows us looking east up Public Square Street, the building on the right is the Henry G. Leong YMT Community centre.  

In the third picture we can see a residential building behind Carter with a Wellcome shop at the bottom. This is Block 5 of Prosperous Garden and according to Streetview the Wellcome is still around. I've stuck a Streetview image below to try and match the angle in the lowest picture.

Ferry to Hong Kong - Curt Jurgens (1959) - Yau Ma Tei Typhoon Shelter, Kowloon

The ferry pier seen in the film was actually one of the public piers in Yau Ma Tei Typhoon Shelter and we get a good look around the area. There are some buildings that can be seen which have helped pinpoint the exact location of the filming and they can be seen in the following screencap.

The buildings to the left of the ferry are the blocks of what was formerly known as the "Six Street Slum" - a block of land that was once known as Marine Lot 39 but was recently (relatively speaking) demolished to make way for what is now a Govt housing estate called Prosperous Garden. These tenements and several of the streets (including Lee Tat Street) that made up the older neighbourhood were completely eradicated.  The white building on the right, believe it or not, is the rear wall of the Yau Ma Tei Police Station. It is the sole survivor and is still going strong.

That means the ferry is actually hiding the public pier and the end of Public Square Street that terminated at the water. The Govt archive has a direct comparison (albeit the following picture is from 1976 - 17 years later - but you can still see the white building on the right). If you look below you can see the same three blocks and the white Police Station building at the top right of the coastline.

Trying to compare the locale with modern day Streetview pictures is an exercise in the futile because it has changed so much. The typhoon shelter is all but gone now - filled in to create the West Kowloon Reclamation. Ferry Street is about the closest we can get to the old coastline (I suppose you can guess where it got its name from) and you can see another brief glimpse of this same area in The World of Suzie Wong (filmed a year later). However, here are some screencaps that show you what it used to be like with some modern comparison to look at.

The space we see behind Noel Purcell (top picture - he played the ship's engineer) was filled up by the Ferry Point Estate (building commenced in the early 60's).

As you can see the old public pier used in the film to stand in for the HK & Macau ferry pier, has gone the way of the rest of the typhoon shelter. Believe it or not, the coastline here - already moved west by reclamation by 1959 - is no longer within sight (it's actually about 800 metres further out). The view looking back the other way has also changed a fair amount too. The old blocks replaced by the previously mentioned Prosperous Garden estate. The YMT Police Station being pretty much the only surviving relic from the period.

The old spot occupied by the ferry on film now sits under the West Kowloon Corridor (that's the flyover you can see above). I know this is all about progress but it's comparisons like these that make me wish Hong Kong had a little less concrete and a little more open space.

I'll leave you with the best illustration of how development has affected this area. Pictures say a thousand words after all.