Just Heroes - David Chiang (1989) - Caltex Garage, Clearwater Bay Road

It seems to be a month for including petrol stations on the blog. This one, where the gang boss is executed along with his bodyguards, is located right outside the old Shaw Movietown complex in Clearwater Bay. It's still a Caltex outlet.

Just Heroes - David Chiang (1989) - Shatin Town Hall

The venue where the gang is watching Cantonese opera with the big boss is Shatin Town Hall. It's still a popular venue for opera performances even today. At the end of this scene, the boss and his entourage walk down the steps in front of the building before he gets into his ill-fated limousine.

Just Heroes - David Chiang (1989) - Sai Kung Waterfront

Just Heroes is a 1989 gun-fu triad story directed by John Woo and Wu Ma (and an uncredited David Chiang). It was a charitable production done for the HK Screen Directors Guild in support of Chang Cheh, who wanted money to make a new film. 

As you would expect, a large number of his former proteges, such as David Chiang, Ti Lung, Chen Kuen Tai and the like, provided their services and the cast is really a who's who of 1970s era actors and crew filling multiple cameo roles. It even has a serious role played by Stephen Chow as the crazy, but loyal to the end, Jacky.

The story revolves around the assassination of a beloved triad boss (because triad bosses are nice? Yeah right) and the election of his successor. But first the culprit(s) must be found and brought to justice. But who could be responsible?

The film opens on the Sai Kung waterfront as the gang turn up to destroy the smuggling operation of some rivals. The location was a piece of newly reclaimed land on which now stands the Marine Police East Division base.

A Lotus for Miss Quon - Lang Jeffries (1967) - Tung Lok Theatre, Yuen Long

Although I covered this surprisingly good film several years ago (six to be precise), like many movies I cover I didn't get all the locations I was looking for. Sometimes it takes me years to get back around to them and then have another attempt at tracking them down, case in point. In hindsight, I should have started my search in Yuen Long earlier given the fact that the film was shot mostly in the general area. It turns out this was the Tung Lok Theatre (同樂戲院) on Castle Peak Road - Yuen Long. 

Anyway, this is the cinema that Mark Jason (Lang Jeffries) ducks into to avoid the police. He stands in the lobby for a short while - spot the posters advertising the local Cantonese films 神劍魔簫 (Powerful Sword, Magical Flute - not sure if it's part 1 or 2 though), and 濟公大鬧公堂 (Trouble in Court). Both films were released in 1965 and so were most likely on the latter of multiple runs. Either that or the cinema just couldn't be bothered to take the posters down.

As Jeffries moves over to the ticket office we see the same two posters plus an extra one on the left which is for 火龍神珠 (The Dragon Flag and the Sacred Pearl) released in October 1966.

Here's some images of what was on the theatre marquee.

The top image shows artwork for 鐵扇公主 (Princess Iron Fan) although the artist has used a weird Trad/simplified hybrid character for 鐵. Anyway, it was a Shaw movie release in Aug 1966 and the actor playing Sun Wu Kong was Yueh Hua (previously seen on the blog for Come Drink with Me). In the lower image, the right hand side is for a film called 冷月離魂 (Bitter Fear), released in November 1966, and on the left is 姑娘十八一朵花 (Girls are Flowers) released at the same time. Hidden on the far left is a partial poster for 莫忘今宵 (Forget Not Tonight) released Oct '66.

Anyway, this is apropos of nothing much other than for me to be able the narrow the possible filming date of this movie as sometime around November/December of 1966.

The cinema lasted until the late 80s before being demolished and replaced by the current Yuen Long Landmark building. The building in the background of the image of Jeffries smoking is Kwok Wah Mansion.It's the only building still around from this little sequence and is located at 142 CastlePeak Road - Yuen Long.

The Ghost - Julie Lee Wah-yuet (2001) - Kai Tak Airport

When the main, supposedly Hong Kong-based, characters eventually leave for Los Angeles, the movie gives us some footage of a Dragon Air plane taking off from Kai Tak airport. Another big clue that we are watching library footage because the old airport had closed down two years prior to this movie being made. What happened to Dragon Air? Well, it was taken over by Cathay Pacific and rebranded to Cathay Dragon, and then the Covid pandemic saw a complete end to its operations in October 2020 when Cathay restructed their services following what was essentially the closing down of Hong Kong that year.

The Ghost - Julie Lee Wah-yuet (2001) - Wanchai Waterfront

In what I suspect is a direct continuation of the earlier waterfront footage - although this sequence is shown later in the film - we see some more aerial views of the Wanchai waterfront. This time Wanchai "proper" as we pass Central Plaza and the Grand Hyatt Hotel.

The Ghost - Julie Lee Wah-yuet (2001) - Causeway Bay Waterfront

Some more library footage, this time it's a nice aerial shot of the Wanchai waterfront around Causeway Bay. The white building in the centre of the top image is the now demolished Excelsior Hotel.

The Ghost - Julie Lee Wah-yuet (2001) - Prat Avenue, Tsim Sha Tsui

Some generic neon signs are always useful when you want to pretend your film is taking place in Hong Kong, so here is a brief view we get in the film before the camera suddenly edits to a street in Los Angeles (or wherever it was filmed). The large red sign at the top says (reading r-l) "奧運桌球會" which is basically a sign for a table tennis club that used to be located on Prat Avenue. This is a view of Hong Kong that no longer exists because the Govt had a blitz starting about ten or so years ago and removed all the old, and very cool looking, signboards all over the territory.  

The Ghost - Julie Lee Wah-yuet (2001) - Victoria Harbour

Welcome to the wonderful world of dodgy B-movies, not that I have ever really strayed too far from there. This one is utterly bizarre because despite its obvious low budget, it has a plethora of well-known actors who were already quite well known at the time including Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa, Michael Madsen, Brad Dourif, James Hong, George Chung, and Michael Paul Chan (I was a big The Closer fan). I suspect someone was calling in some favours somewhere. Oh, and of course no US movie with Asian gangsters is complete without the amazing and ubiquitous, Al Leong!

The premise is that a gang war is taking place in Hong Kong and a female Triad assassin, Jing (played by Hong Kong Cat III star, Julie Lee Wah-yuet), is tasked with putting a rival gang boss, who also happens to be Chief of Police, Chang (Tagawa), in his place. Chang wreaks his revenge and Jing has to flee to the US to escape his wrath.

What follows is a pretty awful movie to be honest, although the choreographed fight scenes and stunts actually show some potential. What is fairly hilarious though is that Hong Kong is shown via stock footage, but the film makers also threw in what looks like some stock footage of Shanghai showing trolley buses and the distinctive green uniform outfit of the mainland Chinese national police force, which they then have to stick on their US-based actors for continuity purposes. Oh boy.

The Chinese title for this movie (I guess it was released here because of the main star being local) is 霹靂女殺手 (aka Thunderbolt Female Killer). Oh, and I forgot to mention the double leg amputee kung fu master (no, not joking) played by someone called Henry Smalls. That bit reminded me a little of The Crippled Masters. 

You can watch the whole film here: https://youtu.be/yYcQ2VV8Rtg?si=dsuPDH-NjlCGt7Wp

Anyway, despite not being actually filmed in Hong Kong, I figured it was worth including the few shots of stock footage for completeness. The opening shot is this panning shot of the harbour.

Red Dragon - Stewart Granger (1965) - #10 Fei Ngo Shan Road

Another pandemic find that I neglected to post due to the fog in my brain at the time is this old property up on Fei Ngo Shan Road. It was previously located at #10 Fei Ngo Shan Road and can be seen as Michael Scott (Stewart Granger) narrowly avoids being assassinated by a man pretending to be blind whose white stick is actually a disguised gun. The failed assassin is then killed himself and the perpetrators flee in a car down Fei Ngo Shan Road.

The old house used in the film was demolished and redeveloped sometime in the mid-90s but the neighbouring house (#8), which makes a brief appearance as part of the backdrop, is still around (or at least was at the time of my initial discovery) and doesn't appear to have changed very much over the years - an impressive feat given the sometimes dizzying speed of redevelopment in Hong Kong.