Saturday, June 11, 2011

Enter The Dragon - Bruce Lee (1973) - Kau Yi Chau, Outlying Islands

Despite the fact that all of the filming of Han's Island actually took place at a private property in Tai Tam called Palm Villa, there was a real island used for the black and white photo shown to Lee during his mission briefing with Braithewaite (played by Geoffrey Weeks).

The picture was an aerial shot taken - according to Paul Heller's film commentary - from a plane flown by Roy Chiao. Chiao, of course, played the head monk in the film who is seen at the beginning of the film. He was a noted Chinese actor of high repute as well as being a top class pilot.

What we see on film though is actually a composite photo containing three elements: a real island (Kau Yi Chau), Palm Villa's stepped tennis courts and King Yin Lei (used in the film to represent Han's mansion).


Unfortunately I don't have the resources to rent a helicopter and try to reproduce this angle for you. However, courtesy of GoogleEarth we can get a rough approximation - minus the superimposed elements of the tennis courts and mansion - looking almost as it did in 1973. No surprise really because I don't think this island is actually inhabited. The first shot is to give you some context so you can see where the island actually lies within HK waters. For those who aren't familiar with the geography you can see HK Island at the right hand side, the c-shaped island on the left is Peng Chau and the development to the north of there is, believe it or not....Disneyland.

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