Noble House (Mini series) - Pierce Brosnan (1988) - Harbourfront Promenade, Tsim Sha Tsui

The Avenue of Stars is currently shut undergoing some sort of half-hearted renovation, but here is a quick picture of what it used to looks like before the nonsense ensued. Not much difference other than there is a clear lack of Mainland tourists and the view isn't obscured by some naff plastic photo-op construction.

Anyway, here we see the place as it was - just a normal waterfront promenade. This is where Bartlett and Ramos go for a little walk. Thankfully they picked a day when the opposite wasn't obscured by the more usual blanket of thick smog that has descended on the place over the past few years. Look carefully and you will be able to make out the area around Central: the Tamar building, the old Furama Hotel, City Hall, Hutchison House, Mandarin Oriental, HSBC etc.

Noble House (Mini series) - Pierce Brosnan (1988) - Man Mo Temple, Hollywood Road

This is another one of those places that has been used several times before. But here we see it at night time as Philip Chen (played by Burt Kwouk...RIP) goes about his not-so-legit business i.e. trying to deliver the ransom money to his son's kidnappers.

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Noble House (Mini series) - Pierce Brosnan (1988) - Repulse Bay, Hong Kong

We return to Repulse Bay (we visited it in this earlier post) again at a time when Quillan Gornt is trying desperately to win over KC. The rock we can see behind is a small nameless pinnacle that sits between the mainland and a larger islet known as Tau Chau (latter would be off-screen to the right). Strictly speaking I suppose this is really South Bay rather than Repulse Bay, but I guess it is near enough to include with the latter.

The second picture shows the view looking back in the opposite direction towards Middle Island (behind their heads) and beyond. The high rises on the right hand side are a couple of blocks known as Somerset and Pinecrest, both still going strong on the headland above Repulse Bay Road.

Noble House (Mini series) - Pierce Brosnan (1988) - Western District Community Centre, Sai Ying Pun

What is supposedly Aberdeen Police Station in the series, is in fact nowhere near Aberdeen but in the middle of Western Hong Kong Island in Sai Ying Pun. Locating this place was made easy by the street sign in the second picture, but this place is quite well-known so it wouldn't have taken too long given the absence of other clues.

The Western District Community Centre started life as a hospital, the old Tsan Yuk Hospital to be precise, built in 1922 and still going strong. You can read more about it on the wiki entry here. It has been given a Grade 3 status which, as you should all know by now, means totally nothing in terms of its ongoing survival.

Real building, fake sign

Coincidentally, the building also contains the Conservancy Association's Centre for Heritage. Streetview below.

Noble House (Mini series) - Pierce Brosnan (1988) - Edinburgh Place, Central

Edinburgh Place has featured quite a few times on this blog now, and here we see it once again with its recognisable (and still standing...for the time being) car park. You can see Jardine House and the main post office at the back and on the far right of the second picture is the roof extension/cover for the Star Ferry entrance, now all gone along with the pier itself.

I'm sure at some point this car park will be considered a design classic - it has certainly outlasted a lot more of its slightly more architecturally-aesthetic neighbours (Queen's Pier, Star Ferry, Hong Kong club etc). From certain angle it's almost as if the place hasn't changed at all - see the Streetview below.

Noble House (Mini series) - Pierce Brosnan (1988) - The Regent Hotel, Tsim Sha Tsui

What we now know as the rather plush Intercontinental Hotel, used to be called The Regent Hotel and was owned and operated by New World Development (Cheng Yu-tung's company - he also owns the Chow Tai Fook jewellery chain) before being sold off to the Intercontinental Group circa 2001. It was rebranded and has operated as the flagship Intercontinental since then.

Funnily enough, Intercontinental have also just recently sold off the hotel to another owner. But all is not lost for your IC fans because the brand will continue thanks to a deal they struck to retain management of the hotel for at least the next 40 or so years...

In the above picture we are looking back the other way towards Salisbury Road and it's quite interesting to see (if you can just make it out) the old signal tower on Blackhead Point (top right). The grey building beyond the van is the Mariner Club along Middle Road. Suffice to say the open sky at the back is now filled with high-rises.

The two shots above are snipped from Episode 2, but we also return to the hotel during Episode 3 when Dunross goes to meet Brian Kwok, only to find out he is 'indisposed'. So in Epsiode 3 we also get a brief look inside the hotel lobby. From what I can remember of the place it hasn't changed much.

Noble House (Mini series) - Pierce Brosnan (1988) - Central Police Station, Hong Kong

In this post we see the Central Police Station which was recently undergoing a major refurbishment and was supposed to be open full time last year (2015). However, just yesterday (29 May 2016) it seems that a major part of the building has collapsed. Time will tell the cause but I wouldn't rule out human stupidity at this point, HK seems to be infected with it of late.

Anyway, in case you wanted to remember how it all looked 30 years ago, here are the grabs from Noble House.

Southern building facade

Apparently, this is the real Interior

Driveway to central courtyard

The Protector - Jackie Chan (1985) - Victoria Harbour

No film in HK is complete without at least one shot of its famous harbour, so here it is, albeit at night (arguably the best time because the smog gets hidden). The harbour is probably at least 100 metres narrower now than it was back in 1985. The brightly lit building centre-screen is Jardine House.

The Protector - Jackie Chan (1985) - Kai Tak Airport, Kowloon

It's been a while since I did a The Protector post because I thought I had finished it, however, looking back at the original post from 2010 over at my now defunct Wordpress blog, I realised I had included a couple of extra easy ones for the sake of completeness. So here they are so I can finish this one good a proper. It's a quick nighttime shot of a plane (supposedly the one carrying JC and Danny Aiello) landing at Kai Tak airport. Worthy of inclusion here simply for the fact that we all love Kai Tak.

I Spy (TV Series) - Robert Culp (1965) - Prince Edward Road East, Kowloon City

A similar shot (probably reused) from No Exchange on Damaged Merchandise, showing the view from Kai Tak airport looking over Prince Edward Road East towards Kowloon City. This was filmed at a time before the Regal Airport Kowloon Hotel was built and also before the single lane exit/entrance ramps were built.

This one is another one of AP's rather excellent panorama stitches which show a nice wide angle from the end of Nga Tsin Wai Road on the left to the buildings lining Sa Po Road on the right. The car park at the front of the terminal building can be seen in the bottom of the picture.

It seems that the only building that has survived the past 50+ years is the one on the far right (between the orange/red  and blue signs). It's a nameless building that occupies 43 - 49 Sa Po Road. Everything else has been demolished and redeveloped. Here's an approximation of the same angle using Streetview. 

Yep, lots of changes road-side as well. The flyover is the aforementioned single lane exit ramp from the airport carpark which pretty much blocks any kind of useful view. I have no idea if the flyovers will remains once the former airport area is finally redeveloped.