This version of ‘Great Walls of China’ has The Pearl Report intro, bumpers and standups by me and presenter Diana Lin deleted, as they were terrible.
Had to hang out with some of these guys for weeks before they trusted me enough to go on camera. Apparently they’d been screwed around by a journalist (someone I knew) before so were a bit wary. Anyway, it turned out OK.
Some of the shots were in an abandoned school that a couple of the artists and I visited one Saturday morning. Years later, a teacher friend of mine invited me to his school to tell students what it was like being a journalist. It was the same building but a completely new school.
The King of Kowloon interview was done by a guy who used to own a restaurant - Yellow Frog I think it was called. Tsang was in a care home by then and I wasn’t allowed in but his mate took the camera and got the interview. He died a few months later, so I’m pretty sure it was the last ever interview with him.
Partners in Crime, the follow-up piece, wasn’t great partly due to me almost breaking my knee and being unable to walk without a cane while making it. I’ve chopped out some of the padding. The night out tagging in Great Walls was filmed after the K-Spray gig in this. I was a bit drunk so my friend Steev (Three) filmed, as Flying Fortress, Pez, London Police and local and French artists bombed Central and SoHo.
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