Five times Hollywood destroyed Hong Kong landmarks … or the entire city
The Rock’s Skyscraper is just the latest film to have used the city’s forest of skyscrapers the perfect backdrop for all kinds of CGI-generated mayhem. Here are some other times Hollywood has trashed city buildings, or Hong Kong itself
Hollywood action film writers have an obsession with Hong Kong. Directors have found in the cramped, surreal skyline of the city the perfect backdrop for all kinds of CGI-generated natural disasters, explosions and battles between otherworldly creatures.
Skyscraper, starring Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson, is the latest film in which the Hong Kong skyline plays a central role. The movie is set in fictional tower The Pearl, supposedly the safest building on Earth … until it gets attacked by terrorists.
How Hong Kong-born Skyscraper star Byron Mann helped The Rock bring the city to life
As film-goers get ready to see how ‘The Rock’ saves the day, we take a look at five other times movie directors have wreaked havoc with Hong Kong landmarks … or erased the city altogether.
1. Bank of China Tower – Battleship (2012)
Debris from an alien spaceship falls across the city, grazing Lantau Island’s Tian Tan Buddha and destroying the Bank of China building in Battleship. After glimpsing the hopeless office workers trying to flee the explosion, we can see the top part of the building collapsing onto Central.
