Royal Warriors - Michelle Yeoh (1986) - Lycée Français International French International School, Jardines Lookout

The so-called "Southern District Headquarters", where Michelle is a Police Inspector, is in reality a school, the French International School (Primary section) to be precise. This is located on Price Road up in the hills above Happy Valley and, actually, we've seen it on the blog before (in Cracker: White Ghost). It looks quite new in this film because it had only been open a year or so beforehand (1984).

Royal Warriors - Michelle Yeoh (1986) - Hill Road, Shek Tong Tsui

Credit where credit is due and I am still finding Dandan's Hong Kong on Film blog very useful even ten years after its indefinite hiatus began. This is the location of the baddy's ("Raging Bull" played by Lam Wai) hideout as he finds out about the failure of the plane hijack. It was located at 63 Hill Road but was demolished probably not long after filming and the current building in its place, Fortune Villa, was constructed in 1990. For those who don't read Chinese, the wooden sign hanging on the front simply says "For Rent".

Royal Warriors - Michelle Yeoh (1986) - Kai Tak Airport

Back in the late 80s, when I was studying my A-levels, years before Michelle Yeoh won an oscar and was still going by the name of Kahn, and Bey Logan was still editing "Combat" magazine, I had a like-minded (HK film fan) buddy called Marco who would enter the Combat "win a video" competitions every month by sending off about 10 entries, all with different addresses on (his relatives and neighbours as far as I can remember). Invariably he won a bunch of films* and one of them was the UK video release of Royal Warriors, then released under the name Police Assassins.

So here we are, 35 years later (give or take) and I have just rewatched it - the first time since then - and I have to say that, fashions aside, it holds up really well, probably helped by the fact that Hiroyuki Sanada has been kick-ass for a very long time (and still is!!).

Anyway, for those who haven't seen it, the film follows the tribulations of three police officers (Yeoh, Sanada and Michael Wong) who get snarled up in a plane hijack on the way from Japan to Hong Kong. A gang of criminals have conspired to help free their incarcerated buddy (Chan Wai-man) who is being extradited back to Hong Kong and all hell breaks loose. The rest of the film details how the remaining gang member tries to kill them in revenge for the ruined plan. As you would expect, the Hong Kong part of the story begins as the heroic trio's plane lands back in Hong Kong. Cue Kai Tak footage...

* This came back to bite him on the arse when we both attended a fan meet-and-greet, held in December 1990 in Birmingham (not far from our homes in Coventry) featuring Lau Ka-fai a.k.a Gordon Liu. In that event we got to hear from Mark Houghton, who claimed he had forgotten how to speak English but also did a good job of translating from Cantonese for Gordon, and we got to watch some of his career highlights on a projector. Anyway, we were all invited to put our names on a mailing list by Bey Logan and about 5 minutes later, Logan comes back into the room and says "Which one of you is Marco?". Marco, puts up his hand sheepishly and then gets a very stern telling off about his competition antics that Bey was aware of from an early stage. Fair play to Bey, even though he knew Marco was cheating (sort of) he still allowed him to win the tape if his name was drawn. Suffice to say, Marco stopped after that, but before he did he already had quite the haul.

We're Going to Eat You - Norman Chui (1980) - Tang Chung Ling Ancestral Hall, Lung Yeuk Tau

We saw it just a few posts ago as the location where Wang Jang Lee picks up his kill contracts in another of Seasonal's films, Drunken Master. In We're Going to Eat you the place plays a rather more significant role as the location of, not only, the village meetings (where the food is divided up between the ever-hungry inhabitants), but also the location for the slaughterhouse scenes and the alleyway connecting the front gate entrance (Lo Wai) to the slaughterhouse area.

The area used for the slaughterhouse is actually a walled courtyard on the east side of the hall. You can see the outside of it on GoogleEarth here. Being a Tsui Hark film, we get a plethora of weird angles from low to high, so I've just included the more conventional views in the screen caps below.

The alleyway connecting the entrance to the courtyard is indeed an alleyway connecting this courtyard to the front of the hall. It's formed by the main hall structure and a couple of lower side blocks (one of which can be see in the courtyard grabs above). Remember, in the film the front entrance was actually shot over at Lo Wai (literally a minute's walk away).

And lastly we can see the main courtyard inside the hall where all the meetings take a place and is also the same location where the finale was shot as the remaining survivors set off fireworks as they rollerskate around avoiding the horde. This area is the one that is usually open to visit as part of the heritage trail.

We're Going to Eat You - Norman Chui (1980) - Tin Hau Temple and Courtyard, Lung Yeuk Tau

It was just a few weeks ago that I did a post for Mr Vampire that used the (now) carpark in front of the Tin Hau Temple in Lung Yeuk Tau. Well, here is another film that used the same space. In We're Going to Eat You it is the area in front of the temple/police station where Agent 999 first tries to speak with the chief of police before being attacked by hungry villagers. This is the same area later where 999's fellow traveller (Hon Kwok-choi) is captured following a comedy fight setpiece. In this film though we do get a peek inside the temple when it was still in a pre-renovation state of dilapidation.

We're Going to Eat You - Norman Chui (1980) - Lo Wai, Lung Yeuk Tau

The location of the village slaughterhouse, where all the victims are taken to be chopped up, is one of the walled villages along the Lung Yeuk Tau Heritage Trail. Lo Wai has some rather identifiable steps up to its main gate and although Tsui has framed the footage to prevent the gatehouse from being seen, it's obvious where we are. The front gate is the only thing we ever see though and I wonder if the reason is because even back in 1980, the villagers didn't want strangers to'ing and fro'ing through their habitat. The whole area was given some renovation a while back so its interesting to see what the area looked like before the heritage trail was inaugurated.

We're Going to Eat You - Norman Chui (1980) - Rocky Harbour, Sai Kung

Despite the opening shot being of Shing Mun Reservoir, when the next shots show the two unfortunate initial victims of the villagers after they have arrived by boat, they are looking at their departing boat as it makes its way across Rocky Harbour - the northern section of Port Shelter in Sai Kung, just off the north tip of Kau Sai Chau.

We're Going to Eat You - Norman Chui (1980) - Shing Mun Reservoir

I'm currently working on a bit of a Tsui Hark side project for a friend and as a result was watching Hark's second directorial feature, We're Going to Eat You, as part of my research. I honestly can't watch Hong Kong films these days without making the locations my main focus, so I usually have to watch them twice, once for the locations and then again for everything else.

The story concerns a village where the inhabitants are cannibals and trap unwary travellers, murdering them and then chopping them up for distribution amongst the villagers. It's a bit gruesome in parts but is most definitely a satricial comedy (a criticism of China's "Great leap Forward"). Melvin Wong stars as the reformed bandit, Rolex, who is sought after by Norman Chui's "Agent 999". Eddie Ko plays a rather evil village boss.

The film opens with a shot of the submerged trees at Shing Mun Reservoir and it's supposed to be the coastline of the plaace where the cannibalistic village is. However, I'm not sure how much subsequent filming was done here. Most of the forested scenes in this film make it impossible to know where they were.

Cosa Nostra Asia - Chris Mitchum (1974) - Cross Harbour Tunnel

As a final post for this film (yep, that's all I got for this one), there is also some brief in-car footage of the Hong Kong Island-end of the Cross Harbour Tunnel.

Cosa Nostra Asia - Chris Mitchum (1974) - Hung Hom Interchange, Hung Hom

Perhaps the producer, Bobby Suarez, had some obsession with this view of Hong Kong because it was repeated in They Call Her Cleopatra Wong a few years later. The images in that old post though are much better quality (taken from a DVD print).

Cosa Nostra Asia - Chris Mitchum (1974) - Kai Tak Airport

On no fewer than three occasions we are shown footage of a plane landing at Kai Tak in order to shift the story back to Hong Kong. Thankfully, each of the clips is different so I have included them below. I know I have a few aviation geeks who read this stuff, so please feel free to enlighten me as to the planes and airlines. This first sequence was shot from the harbour-side of the runway as the plane lands from the west.

My local, more knowledgable friend has suggested the following, feel free to correct if necessary: "First sequence looks like a KLM DC-8-63 in 'white top' livery. The second one is either a DC-8 or 707...The third is an Alitalia DC-8, just based on the fact that Alitalia didn't fly 707s until later".

The second sequence looks very likely it was shot from the top of Checkerboard Hill because it looks like the swimming pools in Kowloon Tsai Park at the bottom of the frame.

The final sequence was filmed from the north side of the runway with Hong Kong Island in the background.