Detonator II: Night Watch - Pierce Brosnan (1995) - Lockhart Road, Wanchai

The first of several night time neon shots that can be seen on the film. This one was taken along Lockhart Road just west of the junction with Marsh Road.

Some of this neon is still visible on Streetview (though I can't guarantee it is still there now without heading down there myself). The closest sign with red writing and green surround looks to be for a company called the Kong Hing Ma Chuk (KHMC) Company located on the ground floor of the Henfa Commercial Building at 348 - 350 Lockhart Road. The pink and purple neon on the right is advertising the Sunny Paradise Sauna at 341 Lockhart Road. Actually, the curved neon sign overhanging the road is also part of the sauna's advertising. Anyway, here is the current Streetview.

Detonator II: Night Watch - Pierce Brosnan (1995) - Connaught Road Central, Hong Kong

No, it's not really the CIA Headquarters in Hong Kong - I'm fairly certain all those dudes are probably all based at the US Consulate - but in this film the old Swire House can be seen occupying the space now taken up by the rather architecturally bland Chater House.

Noble House (Mini series) - Pierce Brosnan (1988) - Old Peak Road, Central

I guess this is a fairly insignificant location in the general scheme of things, but it provides a good example of how much HK has changed for those people who haven't been here for a while. The scene is when Four Finger Wu and his son are driving around when they come across a landslip preventing them from proceeding. The small road is Old Peak Road and at the time you can see how open the view was.

Here's what the same view looks like today. 

Detonator II: Night Watch - Pierce Brosnan (1995) - Tung Sing Road, Aberdeen

When Mike Graham (Brosnan) follows the bald North Korean (Lim Kay-siu) he arrives at Tung Sing Street in Aberdeen and watches a murder take place in a nearby building after climbing some scaffolding. The exact location is the junction of Tung Sing Rd and Sai On Street. How do we know? It's because we can see the now defunct Golden Harbour Theatre in the background.

Looking south down Tung Sing Street

Looking north at the junction 

Golden Harbour Theatre on the left hand side

The cinema closed down (in 1996) not long after this was filmed and has since been turned into a restaurant, but the building is still around and hasn't changed much. Neither has the building opposite where the murder takes place. The lower picture (above) shows the view through the first floor window. The white writing has since gone but the signboard/surround it is on can still be seen on Streetview.

View up Tung Sing Rd, old cinema on the left

Signboard (green surround) on first floor

Noble House (Mini series) - Pierce Brosnan (1988) - Starling Inlet, Sha Tau Kok

This location had me stumped several years ago when I first did the Noble House series, however, these days I am a bit more familiar with the out of the way places and have discovered it to be the bridge crossing right next to the stores at the entrance to Luk Keng village. The angle is difficult to reproduce because of the tree coverage along the edge of the road, but if you look at this picture you can see the crossing from the vantage point of the nearby temple.

Given the location, I would expect these scenes to have been filmed at the same time as this one.

Detonator II: Night Watch - Pierce Brosnan (1995) - Casino Lisboa, Macau

A brief scene set inside the Casino Lisboa/Hotel Lisboa in Macau starts with a view of its rather colourful neon lit entrance. I must admit that despite the tackiness of it all, I actually quite like the quirky design of the place and it's infinitely more stylish than the new Grand Lisboa that sits across the road and was built in the shape of a giant golden lily flower.

The Streetview grab below shows us that the lights outside have since been changed but the place is still going strong - not surprising given the amount of dodgy activities that happen inside, and I'm not talking about the gambling.

Detonator II: Night Watch - Pierce Brosnan (1995) - The Regent Hotel, Tsim Sha Tsui

Back to the former Regent Hotel for Brosnan just a few years after filming here for the Noble House series. The hotel had yet to be taken over by Intercontinental so we can still see the old name on the outside wall. There was quite a bit of filming done here including some shots of the interior when the two agents first arrive, posing as a married couple, to later in the film when an abduction takes place.

Detonator II: Night Watch - Pierce Brosnan (1995) - Causeway Bay, Hong Kong

Seeing as we are all in a Pierce Brosnan kind of mood at the moment, here is a made-for-TV movie that he was contractually bound to back in the mid-90's. A follow up to Detonator (aka Death Train), Brosnan's original co-star, Patrick Stewart, had managed to wangle his way out of his re-appearance for this sequel and so Brosnan tried to do the same to no effect. It didn't help that he was about to become the new James Bond at the time. In some sort of silent protest he decided to grow his hair long and sport a - sort of - porno-style moustache.

Anyway, the first part of the film is set in the Netherlands with some Amsterdam scenes thrown in before the action moves over to Hong Kong and Macau. The opening scene in Hong Kong is a nice view over the Causeway Bay part of Wanchai District.

Actually, the second picture appears a little later on in the film but shows a larger section of the same area including the typhoon shelter - currently being partially reclaimed for the Wanchai bypass work. It's interesting to note that despite being filmed mid-90's there doesn't seem to be any sign of the Exhibition and Convention Centre that now takes a fairly central place in modern harbour views.

Noble House (Mini series) - Pierce Brosnan (1988) - Casino Macau Palace, Macau

The floating casino in Macau's inner harbour has appeared a couple of times before on this blog, but usually as the older version that was in service during the 1970's called the Casino De Macau. The version we see in Noble House is the later version that resembles the style used for the Jumbo in Hong Kong (although the latter is not a casino).

The version used in the show was still in use (and might still be as far as I know) although it had been moved from its former place in the inner harbour near Ponte 14 up to the water next to Ilha Verde (aka Green Island).

Noble House (Mini series) - Pierce Brosnan (1988) - View from The Tregunter, Central

As we have already established, Rose Court in the series is actually The Tregunter in Central mid-levels. The only thing I wasn't completely certain of initially is whether it was Tower 1, 2 that was being used, however, after reviewing the following panorama, I think I am wrong about both of those. Here's why. 

The screen grab is an edited view from Orlanda's balcony in Rose Court. The building on the right is Garden Terrace (built 1983) and moving left the smaller one with the blueish decor is Hollywood Heights (1977). The Albany is missing because it wasn't completed until 1989, which means construction probably hadn't begun yet (remember, the missing Standard Chartered means filming took place probably in 1986 or early 1987). The small low rise buildings at the very bottom of the picture are the roofs of Pine Court and Kam Yuen Mansion, and of course this view would now be completely blocked by the wall-like edifices that are Queen's Garden and Dynasty Court. But what is also missing is Tower 3 of The Tregunter itself.

Tower 3 is a bit of a mystery, but it seems that an initial Tower 3 was built at the same time as Towers 1 and 2 but was significantly smaller in size. It wasn't extended to its current height until 1993. I say extended, but actually, it looks like the original tower was demolished and rebuilt from scratch. Anyway, it seems that Tower 3 was the one that stood in for Rose Court throughout the series and a quick comparison of the entrance on Old Peak Road seems to confirm as such (see this updated post).

If anyone knows the actual reasons behind the redevelopment it would interesting to hear about because at the moment I can only suppose that either there was an initial height restriction due to plot ratio/height restrictions (this seems to be the main reason in HK but also appears to be ignored anyway while the Govt Depts responsible for oversight wring their hands nervously).

Noble House (Mini series) - Pierce Brosnan (1988) - So Kwun Wat, Tuen Mun

I can remember Thomas identifying this next location several years ago, but for some reason when I moved my blog, this one was forgotten about. The location is the one where John Chen's body is dumped after the bungled kidnapping. The big clue here was the building at the back that belonged to the Koon Lam Vegetable Marketing Co-operative Society. It looks as though the Vegetable Marketing Co-operative society was/is part of a larger organisation, the Vegetable Marketing Organisation, that was set up post-war to encourage local farming as a way to help recovery from the occupation.

The Koon Lam branch ( the name on the building reads from right to left : 管欖區蔬菜產銷有限責任合作社 ) was situated in So Kwun Wat, now part of Tuen Mun District, and you can see an old picture of it on the VMO website. But here it is back in the 80's when it was the site for a fictitious murder/body dump.

Unfortunately for me, So Kwun Wat has undergone a significant amount of development since the filming and the whole area has seen not just small house development, but also large residential developments and even a couple of large schools. All this means that finding the exact location of this little building is a bit difficult, but judging from a few visible landmarks I think it is safe to say that it stood on the side of So Kwun Wat Road. If you compare the mountains at the back of the second from last picture, you can see they match with the ones in the Streetview below.

And the hillock behind Gordon Jackson in the bottom picture looks very much as though it is the small hillock that is now hidden behind the Mrs Cheng Yam On Millenium School at the far end of So Kwun Wat Road.

Anyway, perhaps someone out there can be more exact, but for the moment I have marked the location along So Kwun Wat Road behind the Avignon development.

Noble House (Mini series) - Pierce Brosnan (1988) - Hillier Street, Sheung Wan

In one of the Aberdeen bank scenes when the copper tries to catch the gangster who is robbing the bank patrons, a chase ensues and both end up running along Hillier Street towards the junction with Jervois Street. 

The first two shots show Hillier Street, first looking north (towards the Jervois St junction), the second looking back towards the south towards the junction with Burd St.

Here are the current Streetview's. Some change, but also quite a few buildings are still recognisable.

And then later when the policeman loses his gangster and turns to look up and down Jervois St. Top picture facing east, second one facing west.

Followed by the current Streetview. Note that looking westward (second picture) you can just make out the green building that was featured in this blog post.

Noble House (Mini series) - Pierce Brosnan (1988) - King's Road, North Point

Another brief snippet of Hong Kong normality is this quick look at a tram traveling along the road. This was filmed all the way over in North Point where there is a pedestrian flyover where King's Road meets Tong Shui Road.

It looks as though the tram will be terminating at Sai Ying Pun but I'm not sure. Anyway, this view is looking east, much of the signage has been removed but the flyover is still around as are some of the building in the background.

Noble House (Mini series) - Pierce Brosnan (1988) - Des Voeux Road Central, Hong Kong

For the sake of completeness, here is a brief snippet of the junction in Central that marks the beginning of both Des Voeux Road and Queen's Road. I might be wrong, but the angle suggests this may have been snapped from somewhere around the former Hongkong Hilton (replaced in the mid-90's by the Cheung Kong Centre).

Noble House (Mini series) - Pierce Brosnan (1988) - Queen's Pier, Central

This place is still in the news despite it being removed several years ago. Apparently, the Govt took the step of dismantling it rather than destroying (unlike its neighbour, the Star Ferry Pier) and have it in storage awaiting reconstruction somewhere appropriate. There are basically two camps - the restore it in its original location (now reclaimed) or build it at the new waterfront area. I'm not sure which camp I fall into at the moment. Restoring it to its original location (if the Govt can actually remember where it was exactly) adds historical context but renders it useless as a pier (although I guess it would make a welcome shade from the intense HK summer sun) whereas reusing it as an actual pier means the public will once again get to use it properly but removed from its original context. Hmmm...

Anyway, this is the point where Dunross and Tcholok catch the former's boat to take the trip to Macau.