What I do know is that a picture of it was posted up on Gwulo.com and couple of years ago and the poster was asking if anyone knew anything about it. It was only recently when reviewing these locations for Kill a Dragon that the penny dropped and I realised it was the same location used in this film as the bad guy's (played by Fernando Lamas) HQ. It was a rather attractive building, I feel, built in the "Chinese Renaissance" style.
As you can see it was a nice looking place (although perhaps the fake rocks hanging from the roof are a bit nasty), and sadly demolished. If you read the Gwulo entry on it (link provided above) the poster mentions it was destroyed in 1986 as part of some film production and then redeveloped into what is now a residential development called Bayview Terrace. I'm sure that it's no coincidence that the Chinese name of the new development (碧翠花園) uses the same Bik character that can be found in the villa's original name: 碧
I was wondering if the chase scenes set around the building were also filmed at the same location and it seems, judging from the following screencap, that it was. Look carefully in the picture and you can see Pearl Island with its causeway in the background.
Anyway, still a bit of a mystery as to the origin of the old villa so if anyone has any further information it would be great to fill in the gaps. It seems as though this part of Castle Peak Road was well known for its opulent villas. There were several, most of which have since been redeveloped.
2 comments:
I just added a comment here: https://gwulo.com/node/56077
thanks C, interesting background and nice to know it did indeed have an English name as well. I've already updated the page title on gwulo to reflect it. Phil
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