Just like the movies
Hong Kong through the eyes of a movie fan.
Submitted by Russ Houghton

I am sat on a rickety bus, jetlagged and smelly. To the inhabitants of Hong Kong, it is early morning, but to this English traveller, it is approaching bedtime. My girlfriend and I are in the city for a week, and much to her dismay, this nerd has a list of movie locations in mind (many of them from Jackie Chan films), and a wallet full of money to spend on DVDs and paraphernalia.

The wider lanes of traffic narrow, and the shiny city buildings of Central Hong Kong give way to narrow streets, packed with people on their way to work. The neon signs are unlit, but layer upon framed layer of undecipherable Chinese lettering on large signs goes as high and far as the eye can see resemble a virus-addled PC desktop with a serious ‘pop-up’ problem.

Suddenly, a siren sounds. Thousands of people stop dead in their tracks to gawp as a small fleet of Hong Kong Cops on motorbikes interrupt the flow of traffic and carve their way through the mayhem. Then it hits me. This bus has taken me straight into Jackie Chan’s Police Story. This is Hong Kong. I am inside my favourite movies!


Olympic Park Amphitheatre, Kowloon Park

Kowloon Park sits beside the Nathan Road, in the centre of Tsim Sha Tsui. Once home to military barracks, it is now a lovely city park, with indoor and outdoor swimming pools, a jogging track, and an aviary. It’s a sunny day when I visit, and it’s easy to forget that I am surrounded by a busy, polluted city, until you look up to see the buildings towering above the trees. Towards the north end of the park I spy a set of stone pillars, which serve as the entrance to a large greek-style amphitheatre. This was used as a location for Jackie Chan’s City Hunter, and I can’t resist taking a picture in my best ‘City Hunter pose’.

In the movie, Chan arrives to find the place full of skateboarders, but today, small groups of art students sit etching. They seem confused as to why there is a gwailo mincing about like some kind of physically challenged gay pin-up, but I don’t care. I’m stood on the very spot where Jackie once stood, and I’m a bit gay for Jackie anyway. As I leave, an unexpected treat awaits. In the movie, City Hunter is forced to escape the amphitheatre, so he steals a skateboard and speeds down a tunnel. I spot this familiar landmark to my right, and notice that the film takes small liberties with the geography of the site. The tunnel actually leads from a little registry office, and I decide that a City Hunter themed wedding would kick ass.

Chunking Mansions, Tsim Sha Tsui

Made famous by Wong Kar Wai’s Chungking Express and Fallen Angels, the Chunking Mansions on Nathan Road proves a challenge. My girlfriend, who has been baffled by, but patient with some of my choices of tourist sights, is suddenly a little uneasy. As we pass through the main entrance, we are surrounded by burly men. They want our money, and they aren’t taking no for an answer. These aren’t muggers, though – they’re tailors. A strange feature of Tsi Sha Tsui is the number of hawkers persistently trying to sell you ‘copy watch’, or fit you a suit. Why tailor-made suits are offered in hushed tones by such shifty characters (apparently working for genuine skilled tailors) in the manner of someone pushing drugs is a mystery, but to the first-time visitor, it can be very intimidating.

Chunking Mansions is a massive tower block, with the cheapest (but grubbiest) accommodation in town. It’s also the home to several cheap, grubby hotels, an indoor market, numerous curry houses (many illegal and legal immigrants live in the complex), and is known for having a high crime rate, a drugs problem, and rooms that can be rented by the hour, which would explain the ‘provocatively’ dressed young women stood smoking a cigarette and sticking a bruised leg forward from within a leather miniskirt. My girlfriend is looking increasingly uneasy, and wants to leave. I can’t blame her, so we move on.

Kowloon-Canton Clock Tower, Tsim Sha Tsui

At the very southern tip of TST, just beside the Star Ferry, sits the Kowloon-Canton Clock Tower. Originally part of the Kowloon-Canton train station, then clock tower now stands alone besides the Cultural centre. It was the inspiration for the clock tower featured in Project A, and not the actual building as seen in the film, as I had first thought. Nevertheless, it’s a nice piece of architecture, and gazing up at the clock, I can’t help but wonder if Jackie Chan had once stood in a similar spot and thought, ‘I should jump from up there!’

On the subject of Project A, the former HK Marines Headquarters is also very near the waterfront. This is the white and blue building that can be seen at the very start of the movie, and again in Drunken Master 2. Sadly, it is closed for extensive refurbishment, and I can only see the very top of the building poking out from behind the building contractor’s fences. What really stands out is the realisation that the building is smack bang in the middle of a busy city area. I have heard before that one of the reasons HK cinema doesn’t use sync-sound is because the city is so noisy, and the point is driven home now more than ever.

Wing On Plaze, Tsim Sha Tsui

The Jackie Chan fixation continues as I insist on visiting the Wing On Plaza, on Salisbury Road, TST. According to Bey Logan’s superb Police Story commentary, this was the location for the movie’s smashing finale.

The front of the building seems familiar, but from my street level vantage point, it looks different from the exterior shot in the film. Walking into the plaza proves Logan to be correct, and I instantly recognise the scene from a film I have seen many, many times before. Ahead of me are the elevators and stairways that became Jackie’s playground. There is less glass than I expected, and the blue/green tint of the movie is replaced with the startling, clean white tiles of reality, but the place is unmistakable.

On the day I visit, the plaza is virtually empty. The shops are pretty unremarkable, and the staff appear bored. A tailor leaps from his shop door and instructs me to let him measure me for a suit, but yet again, I decline. Heading up to the top floor, I decide to take a peak over the barrier from which Jackie Chan leaps for the big finale of Police Story. Looking down at the food court 5 floors below, I can’t believe how far down it is. Jackie must have balls of steel.

Thanks to Lee Robinson for his Police Story montage. His photoshoppery skills are available for hire at bilbobarneybobs <no spam> @ hotmail dot co.uk

The Avenue of Stars

A little further down from the Kowloon-Canton clock tower is the Avenue of Stars, a promenade created by the HK tourist board to celebrate the local movie industry. Visiting during the day, I took time to examine the plaques adorned with the name of various HK stars. Starting from the West side, Shaw Bros stars and distinctly old school names give way to more contemporary stars. I can’t resist the chance to rest my hands in the hand prints of my heroes. The most startling revelation is that Jackie’s hands appear to be larger and chubbier than Sammo’s.

There is quite an emphasis on Jackie, and I suspect that he was heavily involved in the creation of the tourist attraction. The majority of items in the Avenue’s two gift shops are JC branded. The goods on offer are a little underwhelming, though. Most items, including the oversized T-shirts and gaudy neon car badges, bare the JC Stunt Team logo. I hope to find images of Jackie in famous poses from Drunken Master, or Police Story, but the logo prevails. Enquiring after the Shaw Bros posters (36 Chambers of Shaolin Original artwork) proves fruitless, as they have sold out.

Half way down the Avenue is the recently unveiled Bruce Lee statue. At two metres tall, standing proud on a plinth of stone, it does a good job of capturing Lee’s image, even if it does look suspiciously like chocolate (I am assured it’s actually bronze). A steady stream of visitors takes turns to imitate Lee’s pose, and I am happy to be one of the many fans who have failed to replicate the dynamism of Lee’s stance.

As I later discover, the Avenue of Stars is best visited at night. The curious studs on the floor turn out to be ‘stars’, which shimmer along the length of the promenade, and the water shimmers against the familiar sight of the Hong Kong skyline in all it’s neon glory. There is more of a crowd, and cinematic music plays through speakers. There is also a high number of vendors selling pictures of yourself against the beautiful city lights, and they’re very reasonably priced. My camera doesn’t feel like capturing the light properly, so the magic of digital photography allows me to preview my picture before it is printed while I wait.



Shopping

Of course, I’m not going home without bags and bags of DVDs and movie souvenirs, and Hong Kong is full of places to collect lots of lovely swag. There are independent DVD and VCD stores everywhere in Hong Kong. The majority of ones I visit are in Wan Chai (Hong Kong island), and through Tsim Sha Tsui. Even HMV provides a couple of bargains (Tricky Brains for HK$20), but the best places to look for are the smaller vendors, which have wall to wall movies and, unsurprisingly, the selection of HK films is extensive. I find myself visiting a lot of stores tucked away in the roads leading off from Nathan Road, where the staff are pretty pushy. The majority of DVDs in HK have English subtitles as standard, which makes life easy, and I quickly home in on the HK cinema sections. All the new releases are a little cheaper than on the internet, because I’m not paying postage. I walk away from the new releases section with SPL, Dragon Squad and House of Fury.

The bargain bins are where it’s at for the older titles, though. Many stores are putting out the lesser Shaw Bros titles on DVD for about HK$50, and I manage to get my hands on Web Of Death, Return to the 36th Chamber of Shaolin, and The Venus Tear Diamond (which my girlfriend was delighted to find) all for HK$46 each! The bigger titles are pretty much at around the standard HK$80-90 price range, but any visitors would save a little money on postage.

There seem to be some excellent budget titles available if you’re willing to get your hands dirty and route around the messy shelves. It can be annoying trying to search for the more obscure titles when the shop owner is trying to force pirate DVDs into your hands. For the record (and I won’t even preach about the illegality of bootlegs), I’ve seen the quality typical of these DVDs, and the latest Harry Potter movie is rubbish in Cantonese, with English subs that make no sense at all. Quite a few of these shops have a stash of pirate DVDs in a crate somewhere, and the staff will be extremely friendly with you if they think you want to buy something. Just don’t be surprised if they suddenly walk away if you look slightly doubtful.

One store, upstairs from a shop full of American movies, is staffed by a young man with a massive Manga haircut who insists on saying ‘yo’ every couple of seconds, often in the completely, yo, wrong part of a sentence, man. He offers me the usual Jackie Chan, Bruce Lee and Jet Li films, until he spots the copy of Spiritual Trinity (HK$18) in my hands. He eyes me up and says ‘You collect, yo, martial arts movie?’. I nod, and he starts pulling pure bargain-basement gold from the shelves. I walk away with Paper Marriage (HK$28), Kung Fu Vs Acrobatic (HK$30), Once Upon A Time A Hero In China (HK$18).

Hoping for movie themed bargains, I hit the markets of TST. At various times of day Temple Street market, the ‘ladies market’, and Stanley Bay Market (a bus trip away from Central) all contain some nice pieces of tat. The trick at HK markets is to haggle (but not in stores!), and buying more than one item will often result in a bargain. Smiling is the key, and amongst the genuine plastic crap that crops up at every other stall (Copy watches and sunglasses feature heavily) are some pleasing finds, even if kung fu movies feature less than one would expect at a market that likes to take lovely money from tourists.

At the many T-shirt stalls, I spot Bruce Lee sandwiched between Osama Bin Laden and Tupac Shakur, usually at quite inexpensive prices. I enquire at several stalls about T-shirts with other kung fu stars – especially Jackie – but to no avail. Jackie Chan merchandise is really quite hard to find, possibly because of his involvement with the anti-pirate goods campaign, but I still uncover a couple of nice pieces. Jackie Chan’s face on a fuel lighter comes in at HK$40, a delightful 2” Drunken Master figurine is only HK$30, and five Bruce Lee ties for HK$120, which takes care of gifts for the lads back home. I also spot a small jade Buddha, but leave it behind, because if HK movies have taught me anything, it’s that the bad guys always chase you if you take the Jade Buddha. It’s probably the source of immense power, or something.



Time to go home

Thanks to an ‘administrative error’, I didn’t attend the Chinese New Year Parade. Instead, I went to see Jet Li’s Fearless in a Golden Harvest cinema (and I still have the drinks cup with the logo on to prove it). As I had been warned, HK cinemas are cold, and the locals don’t mind having a conversation during the film. The discomfort and chat didn’t put me off a great experience, though, and I can recommend that fans of HK cinema will enjoy the HK experience thoroughly. Everywhere I turned I would see sights that reminded me of the movies.

The convention center reminded me of the climactic battle in New Police Story, the VCD stores and small malls brought Bio-Zombie to mind, the cramped housing had me hoping there we no Dr. Lam characters lurking amongst the millions and millions of tightly-packed abodes. I even spotted an old man with a canary held aloft in a small cage, something which I always thought was purely a quirk of old-school kung fu flicks.

It’s funny to experience the deja-vu like feeling that you have been somewhere before, having seen it so many times in movies. However, as a movie fan with no previous links to Hong Kong or its culture, my views on the place were always slightly warped. To me, Hong Kong has always been a place where cops fight robbers, or where heroes avenge the death of their master. To actually visit the place, and get a feel for the city and culture that has spawned my favourite movie genre was fantastic, and I would recommend a holiday in Hong Kong to any fans of the country’s movies.

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