Casse-tête chinois pour le Judoka - Marc Briand (1967) - Kai Tak Airport, Kowloon

As well as the previous landing shot, we do also get some ground level views of the airport from the carpark as well as the runway apron.

Casse-tête chinois pour le Judoka - Marc Briand (1967) - Kat Hing Wai, Kam Tin

The nefarious organisation's base is the Kat Hing Wai walled village in Kam Tin. pretty much the only recognisable thing about this place now is the wall, almost every building within has been redeveloped into modern style village houses.

This is the west wall and entrance of the village

Casse-tête chinois pour le Judoka - Marc Briand (1967) - Kai Tak Approach, Kowloon

Another view of a plane landing from Checkerboard Hill. It's always great seeing these clips on film because it was a truly special thing to experience on board as well as to watch from the ground. In fact, one of the most popular posts on the blog is this one from Golgo 13:Assignment Kowloon which was basically the same sequence but shot ten years later.

Casse-tête chinois pour le Judoka - Marc Briand (1967) - Ap Lei Chau, Aberdeen Harbour

Ap Lei Chau is the small island on the opposite side of the harbour to Aberdeen. Now a combination of Govt housing estates and luxury residential developments it still has some boat yards centred on the eastern waterfront. However, as you can see from the following confrontation, the boat building industry on the island was once significantly larger.

Casse-tête chinois pour le Judoka - Marc Briand (1967) - Wanchai Gap, The Peak

Some more of the car chase as Marc Briand drives his car down Peak Road and into the famous junction where 6 (or perhaps 7?) roads all merge into one. It seems to be a blackspot for movie-related car mayhem as he almost hits the car that pulls out in front.

Casse-tête chinois pour le Judoka - Marc Briand (1967) - Stubbs Road, The Peak

After having his new friend kidnapped from Tiger Balm Gardens, Marc gives chase in his car. The first spot we see is Stubbs Road next to the turn off #51 Stubbs Road. Following that is the approach from the west towards Stubbs Road Lookout. You can see the lookout area on the right of the lower image, showing it's former open, and tree filled incarnation. In true Hong Kong style, the area is now just mainly concrete structures built to cope with the thousands of people that now go up there to see the views.

Casse-tête chinois pour le Judoka - Marc Briand (1967) - Tiger Balm Gardens, Tai Hang

This was a favourite location for filming during the 60's courtesy of the brightly coloured statues. The gardens were demolished in a few stages, beginning with the upper portion where the "Double Tenth"
archway was located. This upper section was demolished crica 1983 to make way for Ronsdale Garden (completed 1986). It was either foresight on bahlf of the Aw descendants, or just lucky happenstance because the upper portion of the garden contained quite a bit of Nationalist/Kuomintang imagery including the aforementioned gate (see below).

The concrete archway was made up of two Chinese characters for the number 10 (十十). For those not aware of this bit of history, the 10th of October (i.e. 10/10) 1911 was the start of the "Wuchang Uprising" that basically kicked off the revolution that eventually overthrew the Qing Dynasty and established China as a republic. It's still celebrated as the National Day in Taiwan, but is only marked in passing by the Communist-run Mainland of China under a different name.

I was lucky enough to see the gardens (or at least the remainder) pre-handover, and although well past its peak, it was a fun day afternoon wandering around the terraces. No post about this place can go without a plethora of other images so here they are.

True Light Middle School in the background (still there, unlike the garden)

Casse-tête chinois pour le Judoka - Marc Briand (1967) - Peking Road, Tsim Sha Tsui

Despite arriving in Central from Mongkok, the next scene was filmed back over on Kowloon side. The overhead signboard is for the Moulin Rouge nightclub which was on Peking Road. The far background building is, of course, a blurry Chungking Mansion. The rather large gap to the left is where the Holiday Inn now stands. On the left of the upper photo and background of the lower one is the Hyatt Hotel (now iSquare) not long after its opening (in 1963). I'm not sure if it was still branded as the President Hotel at the time.

Les Anges Gardiens - Gerard Depardieu (1995) - Shau Kei Wan, Hong Kong

Here's one I forgot to post before I disappeared to Taipei for three weeks last month. It's from Les Anges Gardiens and was fom the mid-film boat chase. The scene where the bad guys disembark their boat was shot in Shaukeiwan typhoon shelter, in almost the exact same position that I was looking at a few months before for Supermen Against the Orient.

Casse-tête chinois pour le Judoka - Marc Briand (1967) - Central Ferry Piers, Hong Kong

After catching the ferry over at Mongkok Ferry Pier, the pair arrive at the ferry pier in Central. Not to be confused with the Star ferry pier but rather this was the set of piers around the vehicular ferry pier that were used by the Hong Kong and Yau Ma Tei Ferry Company (including the one from Mongkok).

Casse-tête chinois pour le Judoka - Marc Briand (1967) - Mongkok Ferry Pier, Mongkok

Two years before this was filmed, Jean-Paul Belmondo was in the same location for
Les Tribulations d'un Chinois en Chine. Located at the west end of Shantung Street and now an intersection with the aptly named Ferry Street. In the Belmondo film they catch the ferry to the made-up-name place of "Sey Chang" despite the Chinese characters on the front clearly saying "to/from Hong Kong". In this film they use it for its real purpose and take the ferry to HK Island.

Casse-tête chinois pour le Judoka - Marc Briand (1967) - Hilton Hotel, Central

The Hilton Hotel has featured a few times before on this blog, but I think this is the first time we've seen it from this angle. The hotel was owned by Hutchison Whampoa (later Li Ka-shing's Cheung Kong Group) but managed by Hilton. It looks as though this scene was filmed in the top floor bar of one tip of the L-shape, looking over to the other tip - hence why you can see the hotel name outside the window. I believe it was called "The Eagle's Nest", but I'm not sure if this was the name of it in 1967? (feel free to comment below if you know). Sadly my very first visit to HK was in November 1995 and I missed the hotel by about 6 months. It had closed in May 1995 and was completely gone by the time of my visit. In fact, the piling work for the current Cheung Kong Centre had already commenced.

Casse-tête chinois pour le Judoka - Marc Briand (1967) - Yau Ma Tei Typhoon Shelter, Yau Ma Tei

From one typhoon shelter to another, this time across the harbour and over to Yau Ma Tei. This is where the medallion turns up in the hands of a Chinese girl. She's there to meet a contact but is instead ambushed by the gang.

Despite the passage of time and massive reclamation/redevelopment, a couple of the buildings visible in the background are still around today. The third picture down shows the Yuen Fat Building centre left and the Kwong Yu Building far right. Whilst the fourth picture down shows the full extent of the Kwong Yu and Kwong Fung Buildings - the Kwong Fung building is the right hand section with the red neon sign wrapped around the corner.

Casse-tête chinois pour le Judoka - Marc Briand (1967) - Causeway Bay Typhoon Shelter, Wanchai

I was about to do my Taiwan posts for The Chairman, only to find out that my copy has developed a mould problem and is no longer playable :( so it looks like those will have to wait until I can find a new copy. In the meantime I guess I can start on the elusive Casse-tête chinois pour le Judoka (aka Die 7 Masken des Judoka). I was first told of this film several years ago by Flip Jansen who runs the Movies in Concert website. However, trying to track down a DVD copy was proving difficult until one popped up on Amazon.de a while back. Unfortunately the guy would only deliver within Germany, so I was scuppered until my good friend, Stefan, offered to get it for me and send it on. So many thanks to Flip for the original tip and to Stefan for his extremely generous contribution.

The film is about a nefarious criminal group who have kidnapped two airforce pilots (one played by Heinz Drache who we last saw here in Ein Sarg aus Hongkong) along with their nuclear strike plane equipped with nuclear warheads. A medallion given to one of the pilots turns up in Hong Kong and their friend (played by Marc Briand) heads out to investigate.

The action starts off in Japan before moving to Hong Kong and the first HK establishing shot is the one below, of Causeway Bay Typhoon Shelter.