Mr Vampire - Lam Ching-ying (1985) - Lung Yeuk Tau, Fanling

We are back to the open space next to the Tang Chung Ling Ancestral Hall and Tin Hau temple in Fanling. As mentioned previously, it was a very popular filming location throughout the 70s and 80s and it appears once again. In Mr Vampire we see it during the scene where a recently discovered victim of the hopping "Jiangshi" is immediately cremated. The cremation pyre was constructed in the area that is now a public carpark.

Mr Vampire - Lam Ching-ying (1985) - Nr Wong Chuk Yeung, Sai Kung

Once again I have Jonathan Ross to thank for my introduction to Mr Vampire as it was one of the movies screened on Channel 4 in 1990 for the short run of "Chinese Ghost Stories". This wasn't long after Ross's "Incredibly Strange Film Show" that featured the likes of Tsui Hark and Jackie Chan, so it was a boon to UK-based HK film fans at the time.

The film really stands the test of time and it's such a shame that Lam Ching-ying died so young (age 43) in 1996. Lam stars as Uncle Ko, a Taoist priest, who runs a funerary and spiritual services business in a small Chinese town. He's employed by a wealthy businessman to exhume his father's body for reburial but on exhumation discovers that the corpse has not decomposed and is most likely a vampire/zombie. The vampire (played by a heavily prosthetically disguised Yuen Wah) subsequently breaks loose and wreaks havoc on the town before Ko and his two novices are able to defeat it. There's also a small subplot that involves one of Ko's novices (played by Chin Siu-ho) getting seduced by a ghost (Pauline Wong).

According to wikipedia, most of the sets were constructed in Taipei including the houses and the temple where the film's characters live, as well as the red brick street that features in a few of the scenes. Watching the film it's quite obvious that the street set was based on the red brick buildings that can still be found on Di Hua Street today (you may remember a post I did on The Sand Pebbles). However, there are at least two locations in Hong Kong that I can identify and so worthy of posting about here. The first will be very familiar because I have covered it a few times in recent weeks - it's the flat area of ground near to the fire lookout at Wong Chuk Yeung. This is the scene when the coffin containing the vampire is first exhumed. The grave was obviously a prop. The last but one image shows the view looking north towards Tolo Harbour, showing a similar view to the one seen in The Blood Brothers (in that link see the second image down of David Chiang).

This is the view looking towards Tolo Harbour in the north

Drunken Master - Jackie Chan (1978) - Lok Wo Sha Lane, Wu Kai Sha

I've covered this location before because it was seen in The Young Master. I also went to the trouble, and expense ($120 - at a time before the Government moved their imagery online) to obtain an aerial image showing the location as it used to be.

It's been more than ten years since I wrote that post and in the intervening time the former open grassy area that, more or less, corresponded with the location (see the images at the bottom of my The Young Master post) has changed drastically. First, there is a brand new residential development called "The Entrance" squeezed into the space, and secondly, the rest of the available space is now taken up by one of Hong Kong's new "transitional" housing developments: essentially temporary blocks of converted shipping containers that provide low-cost housing to the ever-growing queue of people waiting for allocation to a public housing estate. You can see the current (2023)  Streetview images here. It's quite sad that even the limited view I was able to capture in 2013 has also now gone.

Drunken Master - Jackie Chan (1978) - Shap Sze Heung, Sai Kung

Well, we were here just a few posts ago for Knockabout and I think if you look at the images in that post you will see some familiar hills in the background. In Drunken Master this is the location where Beggar So and Fei-hung stay whilst the latter undergoes his rigourous training in preparation for learning "Eight Drunk Immortals Fist". I've already explained what has become of this place in that other post so I won't labour the point here, it's too depressing for me to think about. Actually, my feeling is that this particular location is a bit further south and west given the proximity of Ma On Shan in the background of some images - perhaps nearer to Ma Kwu Lam village? Of course it might just be the product of the focal length of the camera lens making the background look closer.

Drunken Master - Jackie Chan (1978) - Chat Sing Temple, Ma On Shan

I've covered this before for The Young Master, but it seems to crop up quite a lot (follow the link to Andi's blog from my The Young Master post). This is where Fei-hung comes across the "Stick King" again and takes revenge for their previous encounter. The temple has been restored, but unfortunately it's been done with some bright red paint work on the brick that makes the place look like a particpant in the "cake or not" quiz.

One of the funny things I did notice was that there is a slight continuity error in the backround of the fight. The village where the temple is located (Kwun Hang) has a communal sports ground nearby, and even by 1978 standards it looked a lot more modern than the period for which this film is set (mid 1800s?). It looks as though someone suddenly realised they should try and make it look a bit more traditional/old by chucking a bamboo mat on the top.

Someone: "Don't you think those fence posts look a bit modern?"

Someone else: "Sorted!"

Drunken Master - Jackie Chan (1978) - Tang Chung Ling Ancestral Hall, Fanling

Here's one that no one seems to have noticed before, and to be fair, I only just did too. I just posted earlier about this location, but it was only after a bit of further investigation that I realised that the Tang Chung Ling Ancestral Hall was also the location where the hitman (Wang Jang Lee) picks up his secret contracts and where he first encounters Fei-hung (Chan). What we're seeing on screen is the hall when it was still very much in disrepair prior to its full restoration in 1992.

The exact location used in the movie is the second courtyard/end hall at the back of the building. One thing to notice is that the wrought-iron grill (see images 3 & 4 below) above the wooden door is still in-situ. I have to say that now that I know this, it makes the restoration of the hall even more impressive given how it looked before. It's been many years since I went here in person so I can't remember if this rear section is even open to the public. Perhaps someone can let me know in the comments.

Drunken Master - Jackie Chan (1978) - Lung Yeuk Tau, Fanling

In the scene whereby Fei-hung fights with the woman who turns out to be his aunty, the Tang Chung Ling Ancesral Hall and neighbouring Tin Hau Temple can be seen in the background. The area where the filming was done is now a carpark. Out of the two "heritage"walks that the Government likes to advertise (the other being the Ping Shan Heritage Trail), the Lung Yeuk Tau is the one I find more interesting, certainly for kung fu fans given the number of movies shot here. Shek Lo is also part of this trail.

Drunken Master - Jackie Chan (1978) - Jardin Lou Lim Ieoc, Macau

The school of Wong Kei-ying, Fei-hung's father, was filmed at a location in Macau in case you hadn't already discovered this fact. This includes both the interior scenes of the "kwoon" and some exterior scenes where Fei-hung is being put through his gruelling "horse stance" training as punishment for his misbehaviour.

(R-L) 黃麒英武舘 - Wong Kei-ying Mo Gwoon ("Wong Kei-ying's Martial School")

The location is, of course, Lou Lim Ieoc Garden and is one of Macau's most popular tourist sites. It's also a very regular star of this blog with several movies I have covered being filmed there at some point. The building in the centre of the garden is called the Chun Chou Tong pavilion and this is the interior we can see below.

Then we go out into the garden to watch Fei-hung being tortured by Kai Shin (Dean Shek) until his buddy turns up with a stool.

Drunken Master - Jackie Chan (1978) - nr Wong Chuk Yeung, Sai Kung

Drunken Master (醉拳 - tseoi kuen in Canto lit. 'drunken fist') is probably one of the earliest Jackie Chan films I saw circa 1988. Hong Kong films were so hard to get hold of in the UK at the time and much of my fascination with these films was kept alive through the pages of Combat magazine which I bought religiously every month between 1986 and 1991. Anyway, thanks to like-minded friends I met during my A-levels I was finally able to watch an English dub of this movie via a dodgy bootleg and watched it over and over.

The story revolves around Wong Fei-hung (Jackie Chan) who misbehaves to the point where his dad brings in a strict "uncle" (everyone's an uncle in Hong Kong) called So Hat-yi (蘇乞兒 - aka Beggar So played by Yuen Siu-tin) to discpline him as well as teach him the "Eight Drunken Immortals Fist". Wang Jang Lee plays the hired hitman that has been contracted to kill Wong's father and we are introduced to him in the open sequence as he retrieves his next hit from a secret altar and then goes to kill him.

Much like Knockabout, many of the rural locations seen on this film are hard to track down because Hong Kong has developed so much in the interim. One of my later posts will show how a location that had already become unrecognisable when I posted about it years ago, has changed again. That said there are some recognisalble places that we can talk about including this first one. It was a piece of flat open ground up in the Sai Kung hills that has been used by film makers on multiple occasions. I have been up here looking for the exact spot but can confirm it was completely overgrown when I was there, but this was a few years ago so perhaps it is worth a revisit soon. It's not far from the fire lookout.

Knockabout - Yuen Biao (1979) - Shap Sze Heung, Sai Kung

After redoing my Golden Studios post recently and learning that the "Chinese street" set (seen in such films as The Magnificent Butcher and The Young Master) was only constructed in 1979, I thought I would watch Knockabout to see if the set was being used. It turns out, no. Pretty much all of the scenes in this film look to be shot out and about in old buildings and villages in the New Territories - making it really difficult to track down the locales.

Knockabout was apparently Yuen Biao's first starring role as a young 21/22 year old and tells the story of how he and his brother (played by Leung Kar-yan) are a couple of scam artists that eventually try to scam the wrong person (Lau Kar-wing). Impressed by their target's kung fu skills they force him to take them as his students and get embroiled in his rather not-so righteous life.

The film's finale (and a few of the middle scenes where Yuen Biao is training with Sammo) is about the only place where I can confidently say I know where it was shot: Shap Sze Heung. This is the large area east of Ma On Shan that incorporates locations such as Nai Chung, Three Fathoms Cove and Tai Tung Wo Liu, and was popular up until fairly recently because of its flat open views with Ma On Shan on one side and the sea on the other. That said, can you guess what has recently happened to the place? If you said "a massive high rise development" then you would be correct. Every bit of flat land between the few villages that were here is now being filled up by residential skyscrapers. Check out the latest Google Streetmap images. So another former (relatively) unspoilt location bites the dust as Hong Kong's money-grabbing property developers squeeze every last drip out of the place.

Actually, this is a good example of why finding some of the more obscure rural locations on this, or any other, film is really hard. You never know how long stuff was/is around for. Sometimes, with the lack of any distinguishable background features, you just have to rely on blind luck.

Anyway, rant over. Here are some shots from the film at this location. I think given the background cues, this was shot around where the golf driving range was (it's just been removed as part of this huge redevelopment) between Tseng Tau Tsuen and Che Ha Tsuen. Nothing lasts for long in Hong Kong it seems.

An old article for Time Out

Seeing as I am going down memory lane with some of these posts (it's because I am hunting around for a decent film to delve into) then here is an old article I penned for the then print version of Hong Kong Time Out. It's unfortunate that my blog appears to have lasted longer than the print version of Time Out (it still publishes online though) but since I've been in Hong Kong many magazines and papers have gone the same way for various reasons.

Actually, this article was a product of the very first version of this blog over on livespaces. One of the magazine's editors saw some of my posts and asked me to convert them for print. This one was written not longer after I managed to track down the elusive filming location for the Bruce and Sammo fight at the beginning of Enter the Dragon circa 2009. I did a post on that epic search as well, so maybe I will resurrect that one as well. 

A Guide to Palm Villa and Enter the Dragon

One of the more popular posts from my old (deleted) history-related blog concerned the location used for filming the tournament scenes in Enter the Dragon. It seems that for a lot of people this topic never gets old, and the location still attracts a lot of attention, and misunderstandings, even though it has been completely transformed since the film was made.

So for future posterity, and hopefully to clear up some of the misunderstandings and myths surrounding the place, I have excavated the post from the depths of the internet graveyard and resurrected it here.

For those who are new to the Bruce Lee world, or at least not so familiar with the various Hong Kong locations utilised in the film (here's a collection of posts I have built up over the years), the tournament scenes were filmed on the, long since demolished, terraced tennis courts of a former grand mansion called Palm Villa, located in Tai Tam on the south side of Hong Kong Island.

A 1982 image showing Palm Villa and its tennis courts on the right

Golden Studios - Then and Now

As a long-time HK film fan, Golden Studios holds particular interest for me because it was the filming/production location of many classic kung fu and action films during the 70's and 80's. Golden Studios was, of course, the name of the studios owned and operated by Golden Harvest. Sadly the studios are no longer around, but below is an aerial photo of the area in Diamond Hill where the studio was located so that at least we can see where it was in relation to the area now.

The Water Margin - David Chiang (1972) - Shaws Movietown

It wouldn't be a Shaw movie without at least a small mention of the Movietown sets. Anyway, there now follows a hiatus in posts as I look for new films to feature and perhaps resurrect some of the old film related history posts from the old blog. If anyone has a film they would like me to cover and can point me in the direction of a copy, then feel free to comment.

The Water Margin - David Chiang (1972) - Ho Sheung Heung, North District

Back to Ho Sheung Heung and the location where Bruce Lee fought Sammo Hung in the opening scenes of Enter the Dragon. Despite taking me several months to locate, it turns out this place was a popular filming spot through the 70s. These days it's still fairly over grown and impenetrable but I still wait patiently for the day when some idiot accidentally starts a hillfire and reveals some lost film artifacts.

In this scene, Yan Ching (David Chiang) has just saved Jade Unicorn from being assassinated by his corrupt guards, and hangs around waiting to rob someone so he can get enough money to go to Liangshan and team up with the bandits. It turns out that the two people he decides to rob are Liangshan bandits.

Tai Shek Mo (Crest Hill) in the background