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SHOOT: THE MAN IN THE HIGH CASTLE Turns New Westminster City Hall into Japanese Authority Building

A week ago, Amazon Prime drama series The Man In the High Castle turned New Westminster City Hall into the Japanese Authority Building, circa 1962. A few veterans complained — not about the Japanese imagery but about the covering up of the War Memorial statue of a soldier that commemorates the city’s fallen in several wars, including World War II.

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Fortunately it was not permanent.

Image credit: New Westminster City Hall.

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Based on Philip K. Dick’s award-winning novel, the 10-episode series The Man in the High Castle  imagines an alternate reality where the Japanese and Germans win World War II and divide the United States into three regions — with the west coast as the Japanese Pacific States, the Rockies as a neutral zone and the east coast as the Greater Nazi Reich.

Image credit: Kate Gray.

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Produced by Ridley Scott and Frank Spotnitz (The X-Files), the series stars Alexa Davalos as Juliana Crain, Rupert Evans as Frank Frink, Luke Kleintank as double agent Joe Blake and  Rufus Sewell as SS Obergruppenführer John Smith. If I’d seen the pilot before late April when Sewell’s Nazi filmed in downtown Vancouver, I’d have hissed at him. The series won’t shy away from the horrors of either regime.

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At suppertime, The Man in the High Castle shot a scene of this man getting out of his car and climbing up the steps to the Japanese Authority Building.

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And later filmed what looked like Juliana Crain (Alexa Davalos) walking up the same steps.

Image credit: Kate Gray.

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Backgrounders.

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The level of production detail is astonishing.

The Man in the High Castle is filming in metro Vancouver until late August.

 

 

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