Mad Mission 3: Our Man from Bond Street - Sam Hui (1984) - Hollywood Road, Central

This one was a bit easy thanks to the very obvious address on the "Kim's Gallery" signboard (it says 5 Hollywood Road in case you can't quite read it). This whole block is now taken up by the Chinachem Hollywood Centre. That's the top of Pottinger Street in the last couple of images.

Mad Mission 3: Our Man from Bond Street - Sam Hui (1984) - Aberdeen Promenade

I've included Graves' dropping off point as a separate place because it is somewhere that appears to have been part of a temporary road that has since been redeveloped into Aberdeen Promenade. As of the last Streetview (2016) the restaurant pontoons were still there (see here), but whether they are still there following the demise of the Jumbo,I don't know. I will perhaps make the effort to go and find out at some point. Anyway,the location is in front of where the ABBA Housing development was built.

As you can see on film, there was a little cul-de-sac style turnaround here, and this is where he finds his enthsiastic rickshaw puller.

Mad Mission 3: Our Man from Bond Street - Sam Hui (1984) - Aberdeen Harbour

Peter Graves (yes, that Peter Graves of the Mission Impossible TV series) plays a CIA agent for no other reason than to add some international gravitas to the film. It worked because Cinema City were able to secure some very lucrative international distribution deals as a result. He was so expensive (by Hong Kong standards) that all they could afford to get him to do was sit in a rickshaw in various parts of town and do a little comedy thing with a self-destructing tape message. We first see him as he is standing on a junk as it is towed through the middle of Aberdeen Harbour.

Mad Mission 3: Our Man from Bond Street - Sam Hui (1984) - Pearl Court, Beacon Hill

And so, onto the next movie. This time I am, once again, looking at a Tsui Hark movie as part of my current side project. Mad Mission 3 (a.k.a Aces Go Places 3) concerns Sam Hui's jewel thief character, King Kong, becoming embroiled in a plot to steal the crown jewels. It's basically a big huge James Bond parody and even includes a shady British agent of the same name (played by Connery-era lookalike, Jean Mersant).

Kong is in Paris for a heist but is waylayed and eventually kidnapped by said agent who asks him to help get the Crown Jewels back from Hong Kong on behalf of the Queen (played by the same French actress, Huguette Funfrock, who played her in Bons Baisers de Hongkong).

In reality he's being duped to do the thievery on behalf of Bond who is, in fact, an international jewel thief and is trying to sell the crown jewels to an Arab Sheik. Cue lots of really naff humour, some quite laugh-out-loud slapstick and lots of truly poor special effects. Apparently, when Tsui saw the finished product he was truly miffed at how crap it looked but it still went on to be the top earning film of 1984 and broke the HK box office record that year.

Anyway, once the story moves back to Hong Kong, the first thing we see is Karl Maka's Police character returning home.The home in question is not far from me in fact. It's Pearl Court, on Rhondda Road in the Beacon Hill area of Kowloon Tong. It's next door to Beverly Heights, which is famous for being the place where Bruce Lee died.

Royal Warriors - Michelle Yeoh (1986) - Choi Wan Road Quarry

So here we are for the final locations post on Royal Warriors. It's taken me a while but I have managed to track down the quarry where the film's finale takes place. These sort of things are always a bit up in the air due to the time that has passed and the speed with which stuff gets developed in Hong Kong, so it's nice to have a definitive location.

The location was used twice if you'll remember. The first time is the finale to the car chase as Yamamoto pursues Raging Bull into the quarry, but gets himself buried under a pile of earth. It was this sequence that contained some background information to help with the identification and I've included it below (top image). It's the pair of highrises in the background. They're block C and D of Tak Bo Garden near the Jordan Valley.

On old maps this place was just listed as "Quarry" at the end of Choi Wan Road. I have no idea what was quarried here but a fair chunk of land was hollowed out over the years. The cuttings in the hillside that are evident in the images below are still very much around and form part of the neighbourhood which has now been built up inside the old quarry area - namely the Choi Ying Estate and a couple of schools: St Joseph's Catholic Primary and Baptist Lui Ming Choi Primary. 

Tak Bo Garden in the background

Royal Warriors - Michelle Yeoh (1986) - Flagstaff House, Hong Kong Park

In reality this was where the Hong Kong Garrison Commander lived, later to be turned into the Museum of Tea Ware. Well worth a visit if you are ever here. In the film it's the Japanese Consulate where Yamamoto has been put under house arrest with his families ashes/bones following the rather OTT shootout at the California bar.

Royal Warriors - Michelle Yeoh (1986) - Energy Plaza, East Tsim Sha Tsui

So, the centrepiece stunt of this film involves Michael sacrificing himself to save Michelle from the remaining baddy, Bandana (played by Pai Ying - a regular actor in many of my favourite King Hu films). Suspended from the top of Energy Plaza by a rope, the baddy attempts to lure Michelle up with the dangling victim. What follows is a slo-mo wire fall by a very awesome stuntman, but I feel it could have been made more realistic if he flailed about more slowly because his moves make the fall seem slower than intended (i.e.makes the wire use more obvious). Anyway, this was all done at the top of Energy Plaza in East Tsim Sha Tsui. Props to Michael Wong for what looks like being actually dangled  upside down from the top of the building.

We get some good high views of the surrounding area, including the plot of empty land where the Science Museum would be built. The phone box that features in the scene was located along this east section of Granville Road.

Looking down onto Granville Road, East Ocean Centre on the right

Looking from Granville Road back to Energy Plaza

The most emotion Michael Wong has ever shown on film

Fun fact: Eddie Maher (who played an arms dealer in this movie) owned a gym at the top of Energy Plaza (Energy Gym? please feel free to correct). It seems it was a bit like the Hong Kong version of Golds Gym. Instead of famous bodybuilders though, all the 80s action stars went there to workout including the likes of Sammo, Yeoh and Donnie Yen etc. It was the place to be and be seen. Maher passed away in March 2019.

Royal Warriors - Michelle Yeoh (1986) - Cape D'Aguilar

The remote dilapidated hut where Bandana (Pai Ying) tortures Michael as he hangs from the ceiling is supposedly located on the Cape D'Aguilar peninsula, on the southeasternmost tip of Hong Kong Island. At least that's where the establishing shot was done, I can't be so sure about the interior. The hut has gone and been replaced by the Swire Institute of  Marine Science (that whole bit of coastline is a protected marine sanctuary).

Royal Warriors - Michelle Yeoh (1986) - Tsoi Tak Street, Happy Valley

After cheesing off Michelle once again with his annoying personality, Michael goes to the nearby florists to order her more flowers. This was a real business, "City Flowers", located in the building at 38B Blue Pool Road (although the entrance is on Tsoi Tak Street). The building is still there but the business is no more (Streeview shows it's now a laundry).

Royal Warriors - Michelle Yeoh (1986) - California, Lan Kwai Fong

Another of the signature venues that defined Lan Kwai Fong area in the 80s was "California". I believe it was Allan Zeman's main venture and the one that gave him the foothold there to transform the area into HK's premiere nightlife district. Sadly, the bar, and the California Tower it was based in, were demolished circa 2010. Before the bar was made famous by Chungking Express, it was featured in this film as the place where everybody gets shot to pieces by the bad guy. You may recall that the Jazz Club, located in the neighbouring California Entertainment Building, was also victim of the redevelopment here (both buildings were demolished and replaced by a single larger one called 'New California Tower").

The scene starts with Michelle and Michael arriving by car at the top of Lan Kwai Fong before turning the corner and getting out in front of California Tower.

Royal Warriors - Michelle Yeoh (1986) - Queen's Pier, Central

The finale of the car chase takes places in the same location as the film's proper finale, so I'll post about that at the end. In the meantime, determined to get revenge for his wife and daughter's deaths, Yamamoto secretly makes a deal with some local arms dealers, headed by HK movie stalwart, Eddie Maher. Yamamoto is picked up by the landing steps of Queen's Pier in Central and taken to a cargo ship moored in the harbour. Sadly, like the rest of the old Central waterfront, Queen's Pier is a distant memory (it was demolished in 2008), though not so long ago the idea of it being re-erected at the same site, as a monument, was being discussed. I have no idea whether this has/will happen.

Royal Warriors - Michelle Yeoh (1986) - Market Side Alley, Stanley

The film is a bit cheeky because after the scene at Ka Wing Street, the next shot shows that we are back on Stanley Village Road as the two sides take shots at each other from their cars. Raging Bull swerves his truck down the alley way next to the old Stanley Police Station and crashes it into some stalls and Yamamoto is flung from the back. The truck then continues on down the alley way as Yamamoto dives after it (a great stunt by Sanada, I assume).

The foot chase then begins around Stanley Market. The bottom image is looking along one of the alleyways with Yu Moon House at the end. Apologies, but the google marker is doing that thing again where it won't stay on the road where I've placed it and is jumping to nearby buildings.

Back to Stanley Village Road

This is the side alley next to the old Police Station - compare to the next image

This is the same view in June 2024 - note the old Chinese buildings have gone

Running towards Stanley New Street at the end of the alleyway

Royal Warriors - Michelle Yeoh (1986) - Ka Wing Street, Yau Tong

Yamamoto ditches his car and jumps onto the truck along Ka Wing Street in Yau Tong. Over on Dandan's blog he acknowledged me for doing the spotting, but I have absolutely no recollection of doing this (it was 13 years ago). I'm getting old and my brain is starting to malfunction. However, if you are a City on Fire fan, then the jewellery heist was (or at least some of it was) filmed just around the corner. The Lei Yue Mun Estate now blocks the view to the mountain at the back.

Royal Warriors - Michelle Yeoh (1986) - Stanley Village Road, Stanley

In case the geographical leap from Clearwater Bay to Kowloon Tsai to Shatin to Fo Tan wasn't enough, the next section of the car chase takes us all the way over to Stanley on Hong Kong Island. In the top images, Raging Bull's truck is driving along Tung Tau Wan Road  and takes the sharp corner into Wong Ma Kok Road. Yamamoto's BMW comes from the other direction (Stanley Village Road) but makes the same turn on to Wong Ma Kok Road. The building in the background is St Anne's Church and on the opposite corner is the former grand gateway onto what was once a large property called Banoo Villa (since demolished and turned into low-rise apartments with the same name).

The lower images show the view in the opposite direction along Stanley Village Road. The building with the large apertures at ground level (to the left of the crowd) is the former Colonial-era Police Station. Coincidentally, I was in Stanley the other day and decided to try and recreate the angles (from memory, though not too bad a job). Once again the Google marker is refusing to stay where I'vepinned it and is jumping to the nearby post office rather than remaining at the junction of the 3 roads.

Same place June 2024

June 2024 -Police Station in scaffolding