The Dancer's Reward by Audrey Beardsley was part of a series of illusions for Oscar Wilde's play Salome (1896), an adaptation of the biblical story. As reward for her beautiful dance, Salome asked her father King Herod for the head of John the Baptist.

Hong Kong Supreme Feng Shui Committee@hksupremefengshui.bsky.social · 2mo ago

The names of these paintings may ring a bell in those of you who have completed the game. The game actually makes a big deal about a Salome painting that it refers to by name, but it's not this one in Tin Tong Theatre!

Like its real life counterpart, the Forbidden City in Kowloon's Gate has a Nine-Dragon Wall, but the game's version is pitch black and only has one dragon out of nine. "Nine-Dragon" is the literal meaning of Kowloon 九龍.

Of all the districts in Kowloon's Gate, Tai Chang Road most closely captures the atmosphere of the actual Kowloon Walled City (as opposed to HK/China). The devs flew to HK only after the KWC had been demolished, and could only refer to books like the City of Darkness to recreate the city.

Japanese media including Kowloon's Gate usually pronounce Kowloon as Kuuron クーロン, but the native Cantonese pronunciation is closer to Gau Lung. "Kuuron" can be traced back to 1886, when Meiji Japanese officials of the Shanghai consulate presumably pronounced the English name "Kowloon" this way.

From Kimura's notes: Guattari from the e-mails in Kowloon's Gate was named after French psychoanalyst Felix Guattari, known for his rhizome concept. His characterization was based on Hannibal Lecter, while his sardonic tone was derived from the terminal texts of Bungie's FPS Marathon (1994).

Bamboo scaffolding remains common in Hong Kong, where it can reach great heights, despite disappearing in the rest of China. The iconic practice is currently under threat from being replaced by metal scaffolds especially after the devastating Wang Fuk Court fire last year.

The fortune-vending machine in Kowloon's Gate was voiced by Mou Sen, a prominent figure in Chinese avant-garde theatre. The problem was that Mou Sen spoke no Japanese at all, which made the doll speak in an intonation that was at the same time disconcerting and endearing to the Japanese players.

The Vendome Room on the Isle of Delusions in Kowloon's Gate is inspired by the 1992 film Toys starring Robin Williams.

Kowloon's Gate and its sequel Kowloon's Rhizome feature sparrow fortune-telling, a real life practice where trained sparrows pick cards to be interpreted by a fortune teller. A stall in the Temple Street night market in Hong Kong (the real life Men's Street) still offers this type of divination.

During development, the devs became convinced that Kowloon's Gate needed a battle system. As reference, game designer Asano Koichiro beat every monster in Dragon Quest III to take notes about their stats, but in the end all that effort was deemed unusable for Kowloon's Gate.

The name "Blue Crow" ブルークロウ is a literal translation of Qing Wu 青烏, a legendary figure of the Han dynasty who is said to have authored the Burial Classic of Qing Wu 青烏葬經, a foundational text of feng shui. The game also features a poem from the Burial Classic.

Hutong 胡同 are what Kowloon's Gate calls the in-game dungeons. The term is not used in real life Hong Kong but is instead commonly used to refer to the old alleyways of Beijing, which, incidentally, the game does feature!

The seminars on the Rhizome network in Kowloon's Gate are inspired by the chat logs of an actual Japanese new religion (ahem, cult). Particularly, Kimura Nakaji recounts seeing the cult leader descend into a chatroom and communicate with worshippers as if divinely possessed.

For @aftermath.site, we're in a boom period for fan translations of unique games that we never made it to the west. I focused on four: Kamaitachi no Yoru, Kowloon's Gate, London Spirit Detectives, and Innocent Tears, and spoke to the people behind the projects. aftermath.site/kamaitachi-n...

Fan Translations Still Are Being Done The Hard Way

Kamaitachi no Yoru, London Spirit Detectives, Kowloon’s Gate and Innocent Tears are getting their spotlight in the west thanks to fan-translations done without AI.

aftermath.site

That's literally not a bowler hat, you'd think. The devs apparently thought so too, since in the design docs they call his hat a "silk hat", which usually refers to top hats, despite calling the man Bowler Hat Man 山高帽男. A bowler-hatted man actually shows up in Planet Laika, KG's spiritual successor.

The Aged People Centre from Kowloon's Gate existed in real life. In fact, both the building it was in and the organization running it still exist to this day! It occupied the magistrate's office in Kowloon Walled City, which was deemed the only building worth keeping when the city was demolished.

The overhanging neon lights of Kowloonfront and Tai Chang Road in Kowloon's Gate "might look cyberpunk-esque, but they are simply recreations of the street scenes of Hong Kong," said the devs. These once-iconic scenes of Hong Kong have faded in recent years in the name of public safety.

The Budorion Beer sign in Kowloon's Gate is a parody of Budweiser and Orion Beer, the beer of Okinawa. Why Orion? It's because CG artist Hijiri Taketomi is from Okinawa's Miyakojima. ☯️

Kowloon's Gate spotted on the floor at E3 1997 Source: archive.gamehistory.org/item/667d84e...

In Chinese culture, the zi zaat 紙紮 in Kowloon's Gate are papers that are burned in order to be sent to the the world of Yin (the underworld). Known as joss paper in English, they can take the form of money, clothes, and even modern conveniences like smartphones, sport cars, and mansions.

Volume 3 of the manga Great Teacher Onizuka (1997) contains a direct reference to Kowloon's Gate.

There may not be a Women's Street in Kowloon's Gate, but in the real life Kowloon Peninsula (not the Walled City) there are both a Men's Street and a Women's Street! Men's Street is the nickname for Temple Street, and Women's Street (aka Ladies' Market) for Tung Choi Street - both popular bazaars.

Look at this photograph. The composition of this scene, a serious moment in the plot, is actually a reference to a classic Bon Curry commercial from 1969. Says so in the guidebook!

The circular structure of Wangren Road is reminiscent of the Hakka dwellings known as tulou in the Fujian and Guangdong provinces. Hong Kong does have fortified villages in its rural areas, but not the iconic circular ones as shown in Kowloon's Gate.

Kowloon Gate's character designer Inoue Koki cites his favourite stop-motion animated films such as The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993) and Street of Crocodiles (1986) for the game's gothic character design.

Kowloon's Gate was originally going to have Otomo Katsuhiro (of Akira fame) do character design. As art director Inoue Koki was making preliminary sketches for Otomo, the producer Sudo Akira decided to have Inoue build upon those sketches in-house instead.

The manga Kowloon Generic Romance is very clear about being inspired by Kowloon's Gate. There is the whole plot about the Walled City remanifesting itself in the real world. Also, the characters Xiaohei and Gwen are named after characters in KG (where Gwen is Nguyên, both グエン in Japanese)

The lines by The Champion, the cargo ship in the West City Road dungeon, are inspired by the Tears in Rain monologue from Blade Runner (1982) ☯️

Guilü 鬼律, the enemy monsters of Kowloon's Gate, is named after the Demon Statutes of Nüqing (女青鬼律 Nüqing Guilü), a 4th-century Chinese demon bestiary. The term originally refers to the text itself and not the demons like it does in the game. ☯️

Kowloon's Gate makes "tongji" タンキー as some sort of voodoo. It's actually a form of divination involving a shaman being possessed in a physically-demanding ritual. On the other hand, voodoo is practised in Hong Kong in the form of "villain hitting" 打小人, where dolls are smacked with shoes.