Hong Kong turned Gotham City

The other day while having our quarterly meeting at the 30th floor of our office building, I saw this huge plane flying into Victoria Harbour and I said, “Oh look, there’s a big plane coming over us, OMG”. Everybody was shocked and a bit panicky, they thought I was only joking. But when they turned their heads, the plane was gone. In few seconds, it came out again. “Look, it’s true, there’s a big plane flying over the harbour”, said one of the girls. We all got hysterical wondering what was really going on?

We all assumed it was just an aircraft drill or something so we ignored it and continued with the meeting. Few minutes later, the plane appeared once again and this time, all of us ran towards the window, crashed our face into the thick window glass to see what was happening. The aircraft was flying low, too close as if it was coming towards us. We hadn’t got a clue whatsoever until the plane had flown away and disappeared in the aerie. It was weird.

Early yesterday night, I found a letter in my bulky mailbox stating that there’s an aerial filming of “Batman - The Dark Knight” around Hong Kong, to introduce Hong Kong and feature the spectacular view of the city skyline.

According to the letter, it was also advised that all residents needs to turn on all the lights between 7pm to 11pm during the filming five times during the day and dusk”. “The Dark Knight” starring Christian Bale as the Batman, will feature mostly the buildings that illuminates the city’s tall skyscrapers in the harbour. The movie’s producers has warned all residents living along the waterfront that a helicopter and transport plane would be swooping down low during the filming. Sound level is similar to the buses running on road more obviously outside the peak traffic hours and night time.

So it’s true, Batman welcomed on his first journey to Hong Kong. How spectacular. Sources said, that Christian Bale, the actor in the movie, was scripted to jump out of the back of a plane and into the harbour water and then climbing up some bamboo, or something similar, onto a pier. I assumed it was the same plane we saw earlier at the 30th floor during our meeting. And it actually was. But where did Batman go? I didn’t see he was ‘flying’ with the black batsuit on out there? Did he jumped or what?

The shooting on the top of Hong Kong’s tallest building later Friday must be quite a good experience, “Batman” Christian Bale said at a packed press conference with over 100 local and overseas journalists Friday morning. - Source: China View.

Considering Hong Kong is known to many as the City of Lights and not that I live near the waterfront, turning the lights on for a week during the filming for about five hours everyday is not so environmental friendly. I wonder why there were people affected and not happy with the filming of the new movie in the city.

”We welcome the filming of Batman in Hong Kong, but why do we need to keep the lights on to make the backdrop? It seems like film-making is coming before environmental protection,” Gabrielle Ho, a project manager at conservation group Green Sense, told The Associated Press.

Back on the street early Friday morning at Central District in Mid-Levels, hundreds of movie fans and passers-by flocked around the Asia’s longest escalator in Cochraine Street at 10:30am to watch the filming and take pictures of Morgan Freeman and Hong Kong Actor Edison Chen. It created chaos to the city’s lunch-hour period.

But despite of, some people think that the filming of Batman movie will give Hong Kong the impression that this is afterall, a World Class city.

“The Dark Knight” is the latest of a long line of foreign movies that have chosen Hong Kong’s unique cityscape as a location, including “Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer” (2007), “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” (2005), “Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life” (2003), James Bond movie “Die Another Day” ( 2002) and “Rush Hour” (2001).

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