Rich and Famous - Chow Yun Fat (1987) - 97 Nam Cheong Street, Sham Shui Po

Next up is a mid-80s Triad film that was brought to my attention by Rodney (thanks Rodney) during a discussion about Tsing Bik Villa. I'll come to that later but in the meantime I'm starting this movie with a bit of a shot in the dark. I don't normally post locations until I am pretty certain (>95%) I have the correct place, but I have got it wrong before a few times and sometimes being wrong can encourage people to comment to help correct mistakes.

This film is set in the late 1960s and is about the wayward path taken by a pair of adopted brothers, Kwok and Yung (Andy Lau and Alex Man, respectively), in their efforts to make a success of their lives. They get mixed up in all kinds of trouble, largely due to the idoicy and arrogance of Yung, until one day they go a bit too far and run up a debt with local gang boss, Ah Chai (Chow Yun Fat). From there on they work for him and loyalties are tested as Yung increasingly makes his adopted brother pick sides between him and his loyalty to Chai. The film has a sequel, Tragic Hero, filmed around the same time but set in 1980. But for some weird reason that I can't fathom, Tragic Hero was released first. Go figure.

The opening scene shows how Yung's dad (Peter Yang) makes it across the border from China with Yung and his sister, Wai Chu (Pauline Wong), in tow, and had planned to meet with his friend - only to find he has died and left his son, Kwok, orphaned. Kwok is taken in by them as one family.

The first bit of action starts as Yung is caught cheating in an illegal gambling house and the two brothers try to fight their way out of it. Sadly, I have been unable to confirm 100% that I have the correct location given the dearth of information and images of the particular area I am talking about. So this identification has come about, more or less, by eliminating allother possibilities, followed by a educated guess according to building shapes in early 80s aerial imagery. In other words I found enough evidence to be fairly confident but am lacking the definitive 'smoking gun'.

The gambling den location was shot inside (and outside) of one of Hong Kong's old curved corner shophouses (there is now only two left in the whole of Hong Kong as far as I am aware, and both are not that far away from this place). It was located on the north corner of Nam Cheong Street and Ki Lung Street in Sham Shui Po, where Yau Nam Mansion now stands. The latter was completed in 1993 which means this old shophouse probably still had a few years left in it following the shoot (the film was released in 1987 but actually shot through 1986).

If anyone has any images of that area from the time it would be nice to find a picture of the old building that can confirm (or deny) my deduction.