MUSEYON GUIDES » Hong Kong

What’s New in Hong Kong? Gastropubs, Towering Views, and Lots of Smog

Gabriel — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 18:37:54 +0000

If you’ve ever thumbed through a copy of our “FILM + TRAVEL: Asia, Oceania, Africa” (and if you haven’t, you really should), you’d know that Hong Kong is one of our favorite towns for ear-splitting, bone-crunching cinematic action. But the backdrop for such explosive, high-kicking flicks as “Infernal Affairs”, “Chungking Express”, and thousands upon thousands of others is not just a stage set for drama. According to a round of recent articles, it’s also a city that is quick to embrace Western trends in dining, arts and leisure pursuits.

Gastropubs, those trendy hubs of drink, tasting-sized examples of forward-leaning gourmet cuisine and aspiring hipsters have hopped from European streets, to New York’s Bowery, and now to the bustling heart of Hong Kong. The New York Times article on the rise of the gastropub in this eastern city only offers a few names, but its clear that this growing community of restaurants is as much for expats and tourists as it is for born-and-bred locals. Indeed, places like Bo Innovation and fashion and curio stores like agnés b and Kapok would seem as at home in Manhattan or Paris’ Left Bank as they do here. Offering another alternate view of the city, Gadling took to the air to see Hong Kong from on high. Again, it’s a portrait of the city completely apart from the grit of Hong Kong’s signature brand of action flicks—a soaring view accessible from either The Peak or, if you have the HKDs to spare, a helicopter. If you are considering a jaunt to Hong Kong, be warned though. High pollution and a recent spate of sandstorms on China’s mainland sometimes make it hard to know if you’re looking down at the city’s famous harbor or San Francisco.

For a full tour of Hong Kong via its many legendary movie locations pick up a copy of “FILM + TRAVEL: Asia, Oceania, Africa”.

Images:
Top (clockwise from upper left): Gastropub, The Pawn, courtesy of the New York Times, Hong Kong from above, courtesy Dennis Wong’s Flickr feed, Bo Innovation, courtesy of Bo Innovation, Kapok, courtesy Kapok.
Bottom: Hong Kong, Kin Cheung/AP.

Checking Out ‘Chungking Express’

Heather C — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 19:58:47 +0000

Lan Kwai Fong, Hong Kong

Another day, another unexpectedly awesome combination of our twin passions — Music and Film. This time it comes to us from the funny folks at The Onion AV Club. In the fifth installment of his Song and Vision series writer Steven Hyden explores the relationship between Wong Kar-wai’s ‘Chungking Express‘ and The Mamas & The Papas song ‘California Dreamin’, a favorite of Faye Wong’s character in the film. Though, as the writer notes, the song takes on a little different meaning in light of Mackenzie Phillips’s recent “consensual incest” revelation, it’s still a great introduction to the film.

A while back, we visited the Chungking Mansion where the first part of the film was shot. Location plays an important part in the film, as the director originally intended to shoot two similar stories, one on Hong Kong Island and one in Kowloon, one at night and one during the day. In the film, the run-down, drug-infested Chungking Mansion plays a symbol of the city itself, a multicultural hub in a multicultural city, located in Kowloon’s Tsim Sha Tsui neighborhood, where the director grew up.

For the film’s second location, Wong chose the fast-food Indian restaurant Midnight Express, located at the corner of the popular nightclub district Lan Kwai Fong in the Central district of Hong Kong island. Formerly, the square was the homebase for the marriage arrangers, but since the ’80s its been the place where foreign yuppies go to get wasted. In the film, Tony Leung stops by California Restaurant (G/F California Tower, 30-32 D’Aguilar Street, Hong Kong; +852 2521 1345), a restaurant that spurred the neighborhood’s renaissance when it opened in 1983.

photo: Roger Price/Flickr

Where in the World?

Heather C — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 14:44:05 +0000

It may not look like much, but this building complex helped introduce the West to a major director. Originally planned as cheap housing, the buildings now features apartments, low-budget hotels, shops, and restaurants, covering 17 stories and an entire block. A gathering place for many of its city’s minority groups, Time Magazine called this it “the best example of globalization” in its 2007 Best of Asia issue. So … where is it?

The star of Wong Kar-wai’s 1994 film ‘Chungking Express,’ the Chungking Mansions are at 36-44 Nathan Road in the Tsimshatsui neighborhood of Hong Kong.

Want to know more about Hong Kong’s film industry? Well stay tuned because very soon we’re going to meet Scarlet Cheng, your guide to Hong Kong: The City in Pictures.

Nocturne: The City in Pictures: Hong Kong, China

Heather C — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 19:51:32 +0000

Hong Kong has changed a lot since the ‘90s, when the city was pumping out more than 200 films a year. But directors are still drawn to the city, with its colonial past and capitalist present. Join Scarlet Cheng for a tour of the city’s landmarks and spend a day with director Zhang Yimou.

About Your Guide: Scarlet Cheng is a life-long film aficionado. She has an M.A. in Film Studies from the University of Maryland, College Park, then REALLY learned how film was made when she lived in Hong Kong in the 1990s. There she met and interviewed directors, costume designers and of course actors and actresses working in China, Hong Kong and Taiwan—sometimes on studio sets and on location. She has written for many publications, including the Los Angeles Times, New York Times, Premiere, Village Voice and Vogue, and currently teaches film history at two colleges in the Los Angeles area.

photo: iStock