Irreversi - Mei Melançon (2010) - Nga Tsin Long Road, Kowloon City

The establishing shot for where Adam goes to buy his taxidermy chemicals is Nga Tsin Long Road in Kowloon City. It looks as though the Cambo Pho restaurant seen in the image below is still around.

Irreversi - Mei Melançon (2010) - IFC Walkway, Central

This is the pedestrian walkway that connects the large IFC development with the Central Ferry Piers elevated walkway and Pier 3. This is where Lynda and her bestie, Kat, have a heart to heart about Lynda's marriage.

Irreversi - Mei Melançon (2010) - 1 Chatham Path, Central Mid-levels

The next location is quite a historical one. In the film's plot it is a unique house designed by renowned Chinese architect "E.L Xiong" but in reality it is the equally renowned and thankfully still around  (for the time being) 1 Chatham Path. The house was built in 1927 by John Caer Clark as a private residence, but between 1952 and 1973 operated as an exclusive private school. The building is currently owned by Sino Land and is still listed as a residential property up for lease if you have the wonga. 

In the film, Adam knows it's Lynda's favourite building in Hong Kong and he sneakily buys it for her as a surprise. A significant amount of filming was done at the property and I have far too many screencaps to include, but here are some better ones.

Irreversi - Mei Melançon (2010) - Victoria Peak Garden, The Peak

Adam (Ian Bohen) wants to surprise Lynda (Mei Melançon) and takes her to a riding stables where he has hidden an engagement ring amongst the folds of one of the horse's manes. The opening shot shows a signboard that says "The Peak Stable". Of course, this doesn't really exist and the location on screen is the Victoria Peak Garden. It looks a bit different these days because the central flower garden section has been redesigned and the centre of the square now contains a small pavilion.

I also realised (after already publishing this post) that the final funeral service scene was also filmed at the same location. If you go to the right hand side of the above location, that side of the garden serve as the cemetery with some rather not-so-convincing gravestones stuck into the ground - the scene reminded me a bit of the one from Infernal Affairs. The peak in the background is the top of High West.

Irreversi - Mei Melançon (2010) - The Cairnhill, Tsuen Wan

It's getting increasingly difficult to get hold of copies of some films but thankfully I have managed to procure a copy of Irreversi. Apparently shot in 2006 (but released in 2010) it was made back-to-back with a Chinese version (called Hui Lu) that is the same story reshot with a full Chinese cast. The story revolves around a woman (Mei Melançon) whose brother has recently been killed in a parachuting 'accident' and is swept off her feet by her brother's business partner (Ian Bohen) who has just sold their company and made a fortune. However, things don't quite appear to be as they seem. I haven't seen the Chinese version but am assuming it uses the same locations as this English one? If you know any different then feel free to let me know.

One of the first proper locations to appear in the film is the couple's pre-wealth condominium apartment which was filmed at a development called "The Cairnhill". It's located at the southern end of Route Twisk and is separated into two main sections. You can see the link road between the two in the lower screencap.

Young People - David Chiang (1972) - Shek Kong Airfield, Kam Tin

The final bonding event for the new found friends is a Go-kart race around the air strip at Shek Kong in the New Territories. It turns out these were indeed a real thing. I suspect that the film crew hijacked a real event and perhaps shot a few crowd scenes with real crowds before filming their own race sequences in closer detail.

Young People - David Chiang (1972) - Silverstrand Beach Road Car Park, Clearwater Bay

I haven't got much to add beyong what has already been covered by Andi on his blog post other than the fact that in the film this carpark is supposed to be just up the hill from the college campus and the houses you can see have all been replaced. Also, the hill area where Ti Lung and his cohorts are training is now taken up by the rather funky curved Silverstrand Shopping Centre.

Young People - David Chiang (1972) - Shaw Villa, Movietown

Inevitably in Shaw Bros movies we see a lot of the buildings that were on the Movietown backlot, but it's not often that we catch a glimpse of Sir Run Run's villa located at the very rear of the lot. However, in Young People the house is used as David Chiang's home and he takes his friends back there to train them up in some kung fu moves. They vault the main gate and then run up the famous sweeping driveway to the front door.

Judging by recent changes to the redevelopment plans for Movietown, it looks as though the Shaw Villa as well as Shaw House - located at the front of the site - might be preserved and incorporated into the new development. I hope so because it would be a shame to lose everything from this historical part of Hong Kong cinema.

Young People - David Chiang (1972) - Cafe Galano, Earl Street

In the scene where David Chiang is followed by Agnes Chan from a cafe, the venue was a place called Cafe Galano (嘉蘭娜餐廳). This appears to have been a popular "al fresco" cafe located at 284 Prince Edward Road West opened in 1961 and frequented by the Hong Kong glitterati of the time.

The bit we see in the film appears to have been a side exit on Earl Street and it is here where Chiang turns north and walks towards Boundary Street with Agnes in close pursuit. Pretty much all of the buildings around here have been redeveloped and, coincidentally, the last screen cap shows a construction site hoarding for what I believe was the construction of "Earl Gardens" (completed in December of 1972).

The site of the cafe was redeveloped into a residential block called Prince Garden a few years (circa 77/78) after this film was shot.

The Earl Street side entrance for Cafe Galano

Looking towards Prince Edward Road West

Looking towards Boundary Street

Agnes Chan looking towards the construction site of Earl Gardens

Young People - David Chiang (1972) - Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shatin

I was walking around Sham Shui Po the other day and noticed a video vendor had some old Shaw Bros films for sale (the Celestial DVD releases from the early 00's) and decided to have a look at Young People. It's a contemporary (relatively speaking) Chang Cheh film about a bunch of students who overcome their conflicts to become best of friends. It's not his best film but at least there are some nice clear shots of some familiar locations including the main exterior location at CUHK. If there are any alumni from this place (CUHK or the earlier established Chung Chi College) feel free to leave a comment about the buildings seen below.

The film starts with a view of the campus from the vantage point of Tai Po Road, which runs along the hillside above the campus.

The next part of the sequence (it's filmed from a moving vehicle and so is a bit bouncy at times) sees us going under the arch of the Chung Chi College pai lau and then down the hill into the campus grounds.
  

The car drives down the road and we get a brief glimpse of what is now called the CUHK ELizabeth Luce Moore Library and the two halls of residence (background right hand side) which are called "Hua Lien Tang" and "Ming Hua Tang" (according to Centamap). All these buildings are still around.

The library gets a bit more of a closeup as Agnes Chan runs out to tell off Ti Lung for whacking a baseball through a window. She looks across to the Lingnan Sports ground where they are playing baseball.

The final building to show is the Chung Chi Tang building with its triangular structure. There are some scenes supposedly filmed inside, but I think the interior was actually a very convincing studio set constructed at Shaws because the scale and details are slightly off. But anyway, here is the gang as they leave the main entrance.

The is basically the extent of the are used for filming, but obviously there are a lot more angles on the film that are too numerous to include on the post. Anyway, if at some point the universities here get reopened to the public (they were ALL secured following the student demonstrations in 2019) I will go and get some modern comparison shots.

Wader Studios on Castle Peak Road - Now and Then

Here's another comparison that people might appreciate, especially those who were unaware of the whereabouts of Wader Studios (there have been a surprising number of inaccurracies over the years, most recently in the "World Film Locations: Hong Kong" book by Intellect Books which, weirdly, placed the studios in what I believe is Kwai Chung Park!).

Anyway, this is the view along Castle Peak Road just north of Shek Pai Street. The top image is a merge from the Thai film Aorm Aok Jao Praya supplied to me by my UK based friend AP (who has been instrumental in sourcing many of the films I have used on the blog at his own expense), you can see the original screencaps here. The old studios were replaced by the Wah Tat Industrial Buildings, two blocks of which can be seen on the left of my image below. The Now image was taken back in 2019 when a visiting Lee fan wanted to see where Bruce Lee had filmed the HK studio shots for The Big Boss. Sadly, there is nothing tangible left to show.

Tai Hang Tung Road - Now and Then

I took this one last year before my extended trip to the UK and simply forgot I had it. The Then image is taken from 1964's Narazumono, starring Ken Takakura. You can see my original post from 2 years ago here. The scene is a bit disjointed because the two characters in the shot, on rickshaws, have just descended from Victoria Peak on the tram and then the next moment they are all the way up in Sham Shui Po District (as it is now) and on Tai Hang Tung Road next to the old resettlement estate.

The old estate was similar in design to the nearby Shek Kip Mei Estate, so it's common to get confused between the two if you are not familiar with the area. They were built around teh same time following the 1953 Shek Kip Mei fire. The old estate was knocked down in the early 80s and rebuilt into the slightly larger buildings you can see today.

Funnily enough, until just a few years ago, the red-checked building of the Concordia Lutheran School (see in the background of the movie still) was still around and has only recently been replaced with a brand new modern building.

In an update to this post, I also noticed that A Cause to Kill - a Shaw movie from 1969 - also filmed along this street albeit a little further to the south (behind the camera). So here is a similar view from that film and my poor attempt to recreate it below.

Hing Wah Street - Now and Then

For those interested in Then/Now comparisons (I've done afew before) I popped down to Cheung Sha Wan (it's a 20 minute walk for me) to take some pictures of the area along Hing Wah Street where some scenes were filmed for Das Mädchen von Hongkong back in 1973.

First up is the view along Shun Ning Road from Hing Wah Street. Sadly the street market has long since disappeared and the intersection/junction is now quite busy and dangerous. There are some things I won't risk for my art, so I had to snap this from a bit further away on the far side of Hing Wah Street. The ornate slope in the distance is the rear entrance to Caritas Medical Centre (known locally as Ming Oi Hospital). I don't think there is a single building in the film image that still exists today. It's all been redeveloped.

Next up is the view up Hing Wah Street looking towards the old version of the So Uk Estate in the background. For reference, the junction where the first image along Shun Ning Road was taken is the one behind the actor. The market that ran down the middle of the road (right of image) has long since gone and the large central reservation area of the road has been turned into beautified rectangular traffic islands that stretch between each junction. The So Uk Estate still exists but has been completely rebuilt and reconfigured into a high-rise version just in the last few years.

Next up is a shot of the truck that the two main characters try to flee from the bad guys in. The camera captured the vehicle as it drove down Hing Wah Street and was about to turn across at the junction with Un Chau Street (this road is actually called Yuen Chau Street but the missing initial "Y" is taken from an older form of anglicisation/romanisation).

Although the main block at the back has been redeveloped, at the far right you can see the Castle Peak Road facing section of the Wo Hing Building. This place is (currently) still around, albeit covered in scaffolding (see my comparison pic). This could mean imminent destruction, but I think it might just be because they are renovating the exterior. Time will tell. This photo shows you what has happened to the central reservation.

As the truck rattles past the camera location we get to see a bit more of the area. To take both of these last two images I had to stand on the SE corner of the junction with Un Chau Street and I think it is a fairly good match to where the film camera must have been sited at the time. As you can see, as in the previous image the old buildings here have all gone. Both sides of this junction have been replaced by a pair of matching developments called Heya Aqua and Heya Crystal (don't ask me what it means, HK residential development names are some of the most pretentious, nonsensical things I've ever come across).

The thing to note is how much space the older buildings took above the pavement. Pretty much all building stock of a certain era in Hong Kong (pre-70s?) was able to build over the pavement area. This maximised the liveable/usable area of a building from the first floor up, but also meant pedestrians could shelter from the stifling heat/sun or torrential rain. Modern buildings, due to their height/weight, no longer have these cantilvered levels and as such the space along each side of a road is more open - as you can see from the above newer images - but to the detriment of pedestrian comfort/safety and certainly to the detriment of a building's character. But that's just my old fashioned opinion, apparently.

Anyway, that's your lot for now but expect more of the same over the coming months.