Saturday, March 30, 2019

Aorm Aok Jao Praya - Arunya Narmwong (1972) - Wader Studios, Kwai Chung

The best thing about getting my hands on this film is that it cleared up an old mystery that has been bugging me for a few years. This film provided the answer courtesy of this following location. This is Wader Studios on castle Peak Road just outside of Tsuen Wan. It was an independent company with three large sound stages and various post production facilities that made its money by renting out its facilities to other film companies rather than making its own movies. It's believed that more than 1000 films were made here during its 20 year operation until it closed in 1973 and was redeveloped into the Wah Tat Industrial buildings. There is a very detailed history of the place here, but I should say that the guy who wrote it is a d*&k for downloading my Wader screen grab (from Die Mädchen von Hongkong), cropping off the watermark and not even giving me a link back or reference. I had to add one myself in the comments...

Anyway, we've seen the exterior of the studio before. The building was used in Die Jungen Tiger von Hongkong , Heisser Hafen Hongkong and Die Mädchen von Hongkong. At least these are the ones I have found so far, there may be more (like this one).

However, I had no idea what was on the other side of that building until this film showed me and I suddenly realised that this was the same location that this scene was filmed in Die Jungen Tiger von Hongkong AND that Bruce Lee had been photographed at whilst completing pick-up shots for The Big Boss - you can see a large selection of those photos here, but in particular note this one (and similar) and this one. So another mystery eventually solved, completely by fluke.

On with our Thai film. Our heroine is being escorted around Hong Kong by a chaperone who takes her to see a film being made at Wader Studios. We get a nice shot of the car approaching and turning into the front of the studio along Castle Peak Road.


Once behind the front office, we come to the garden (for want of a better word) that separated the front building from the sound stages which can be seen in the background below. This is the area where Bruce lee was photographed and also where that earlier scene from Die Jungen Tiger von Hongkong was filmed.


We then catch a view looking back up towards the main building and if you clicked on the second Bruce Lee photo link I provided above, you should be able to see that this is the same building that Bruce is standing in front of as he monkeys around for the camera complete with those rather unique red light posts. I'm glad to finally have this mystery solved.

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