Dirty Tiger, Crazy Frog! - Sammo Hung (1978) - Chong Ha Ching Sze, Fanling

Here's another location that I spent a significant amount of time tracking down for my Snake in the Eagle's Shadow posts. Since then it has popped up a couple of times (quite recently with this Dragon's Claws post). Once found these places are fairly easy to subsequently recognise. In this film, this old building is the brothel where Frog and Tiger go to lure the Coffin King's henchman into a trap.

Dirty Tiger, Crazy Frog! - Sammo Hung (1978) - Yap Hiu Pavilion

Credit to Andi for identifying this location over in Tuen Mun, it's Yap Hiu Pavilion (邑曉亭 - Yap1 Hiu2 Ting4). This is the location where Mars goes to get a tea seller to serve Sammo and Lau Kar-wing some poison tea.

Anyone who has made the effort to go to Tsing Shan Monastery (and if you are a Bruce fan and haven't been, then it really is a must see for the "Lao's Time" and "Monk Talk" scenes) then you will pass this pavilion as you walk up Tsing Shan Monastery Path. I took this photo below back in 2007 when I first made the trip up there after moving to Hong Kong the previous year. It was probably recently repainted a the time because later images show the paint work is fading once again,

Dirty Tiger, Crazy Frog! - Sammo Hung (1978) - Ho Sheung Heung

The area where Tiger and Frog are confronted by Panther (Dean Shek), the casino owner, is a familiar one to this site because I was the one who was able to identify for Enter the Dragon. Yes, we're back in Ho Sheung Heung and the "fung shui" hills behind the village. The key giveaway here is the presence of Tai Shek Mo in the background with its recognisable crooked peak (see image 2). Quite a few of the scenes in this movie show a lot of mist/fog/low cloud and this is very typical weather for Hong Kong around Feb/March time.

Dirty Tiger, Crazy Frog! - Sammo Hung (1978) - Fanling Babies Home, Fanling

Next up is Dirty Tiger, Crazy Frog!, one of those late 70s kung fu films that would feel a bit generic if it wasn't for the presence of Sammo in the role of Frog, a gold digging opportunist who married a wealthy old woman in order to get access to her family heirloom - a knitted metal pullover that makes its wearer impervious to blades.

He runs off with it but loses it to some con artists and teams up with the bounty hunter, Tiger (Lau Kar-wing), to get it back. It's directed by Karl Maka (who makes a brief appearance, with hair, as a local policeman) so expect that level of humour. One of the funniest bits for me is when Frog's old wife turns to weep at a portrait of her father and it's quite obviously a drawing of a snarling Richard Ng.

Anyway, the film kicks off with some local thugs attempting to best Tiger by sneaking up on him. This whole sequence was filmed at Lai Yue Hing Tong (賴餘馨堂) aka the Fanling Babies Home. This old mansion was a popular filming location until its demolition in the early 1990s. I think the most recent production to film there featured on the blog is probably Shadow of China (1989).

Dragon's Claws - Lau Kar-yung (1979) - Near Lung Mei, Sai Kung

This sequence below was shot in the area now occupied by a small village development called "Springfield Villas". Bruce Lee fans may recognise the location from his Game of Death New Territories outdoor footage which I believe (IMO - although I should really make another effort to really nail the location) was filmed nearby where Greenwood Villas now stands. In the background you would normally see a small row of houses belonging to Lung Mei but obviously this shot has been framed so they are obscured. You can still see the rice terraces in the background of this sequence - a familiar site in Hong Kong for many years and even now in some locations can still be discerned despite there being no rice cultivation in Hong Kong anymore.

This whole area has been redeveloped (Greenfield Villas, Jade Villa, Springfield Villas etc) and now the Springfield Villa development sits on this site.

Dragon's Claws - Lau Kar-yung (1979) - Chong Ha Ching Sze, Fanling

The "back of the school" scenes where we see the living quarters of the family were filmed at another location I identified a few years ago for Snake in the Eagle's Shadow. It's called Chong Ha Ching Sze and is a Taoist retreat/temple so I am not sure of how easy it is to enter. The exterior garden at least seems to be accessible to the general public. I have yet to go there despite identifying it several years ago.

In this night time scene it was the moon gate and adjacent windows that gave away the location. You can compare it to the screen cap from the link above.

Golden Needles - Joe Don Baker (1974) - Arthur Street, Yau Ma Tei

In remembrance of Joe Don Baker who died just a week or so ago (7th May 2025) here is another one of those pandemic finds that I am gradually getting around to posting. 

The location of "Finzie's Bar" in the film was Arthur Street in Yau Ma Tei. Most of the buildings seen in the movie have since been replaced including the location of the bar entrance which was in one of the buildings directly opposite Hi Lung Lane. However, one recognisable building is still around and that is located at the north end of the street on the right hand side. It's #2 Man Ming Lane and you can see the side of the last image. It was built in 1952 which is very old for a Hong Kong residential building.

Hi Lung Lane looking towards Arthur Street

Both images above looking north towards Man Ming Lane

#2 Man Ming Lane, behind Si Ming's head, is still around

Dragon's Claws - Lau Kar-yung (1979) - Tang Chung Ling Ancestral Hall, Lung Yeuk Tau

The headquarters of the Dragon Boxing Set (the style of kung fu practised by Lung Hsia and his family) is based at the Tang Chung Ling Ancestral Hall in Lung Yeuk Tau. This is where Ling Ko-fung (Wang Jang Lee) goes to claim leadership of the sect by defeating Lung's father, the current master.

We've seen it so many times on this blog in local movies and the great thing is fans like us can still go and visit because it forms part of the Lung Yeuk Tau Heritage Trail in Fanling.

Dragon's Claws - Lau Kar-yung (1979) - Kai Ham, Ho Chung

The scene where we are introduced to the Dragon Sect's members as they undergo training in the hills was filmed close to a small hamlet called Kai Ham near Ho Chung. Although not shot in the hamlet itself, just up the main road was a flat area marked as a dumping ground on maps from the late 1970s that more or less corresponds to the location so I believe this is what we can see in the images below. The view in the distance is towards the north slope of Razor Hill and just nestled on the left are the smaller hillocks that mark the area where Clearwater Bay Road joins with Hiram's Highway.

Suffice to say the Ho Chung area, including Kai Ham, is much more developed these days and this area we can see below looks to have been abandoned and left for nature to reclaim. Still, it's a new location for the blog that I haven't seen before.

Razor Hill on the right behind Lau Hok-nin's head

Dragon's Claws - Lau Kar-yung (1979) - nr Wong Chuk Yeung, Sai Kung

The next film comes courtesy of a Youtube channel called Cinema No. 8 - HK Movie which has a ton of HK movies in HD to watch. I have no idea if it's a legitimate outlet for these movies but these channels appear to have better luck in avoiding the YT copyright algorythms than my own (I've had about 5 movies removed in the last couple of months, some of which have been up for several months). You can watch it here.

Anyway, this is a sort of cash-in on the style of movie made popular by Jackie Chan in the late 1970s, similar down to the use of Wang Jang Lee as the main antagonist. The main role is played by Lau Kar-yung - nephew of Lau Ka-leung - who actually does a fairly decent job in his role as a cocky son of a kung fu master who learns a new style of kung fu (from a beggar - sound familiar?) in order to defeat his family's mortal enemy. The best thing in this film, for me, was seeing a young Yuen Qiu do her stuff. She's really underrated and it's a shame it took until Kung Fu Hustle for wider recognition.

Also similar to those other films is the film's opening scene as Wang Jang Lee takes on an opponent at the familiar location near Wong Chuk Yeung in Sai Kung. It's been featured in so many films already and I am sure many more I will cover in the future. As I explained on other posts, I have been up to investigate this area but it is now completely overgrown and unrecognisable. In this film we see it for the opening and finale fight scenes as well as a mid-film scene where Lung saves a woman from being robbed and attacked by a couple of bandits.

Flight to Hong Kong - Rory Calhoun (1956) - Haven of Hope Jetty, Junk Bay

Here's another one I forgot to post back in the day despite including it in my Gwulo rundown a couple of years back. I scratched my head for quite sometime before being able to recognise some of the background hills and pinpointing the location of this small pier. There's a little bit more information here, but essentially this wooden jetty/pier was constructed to facilitate access to and from the Haven of Hope Hospital on the west side of Junk Bay back in the 1950s. The hospital was built for the purpose of treating those with TB so the remote location was intentional. Even today, HK sometimes suffers from an outbreak of this disease, largely from being imported from nearby territories where it has yet to be eradicated. The lack of roads meant the only access to the hospital was by sea, hence the pier.

In the movie, this is the undisclosed remote island where the diamond thieves/hijackers force the passenger plane to land before making off on a small motorboat with their haul. The only thing we know is that it is not supposed to be in Hong Kong but somewhere between Hawai'i and the Asian mainland.

The hospital is still around, but the amount of reclamation in Junk Bay and subsequent development means that it is now a major urban area to the west of Kowloon (officially it's part of the New Territories, not Kowloon). The pier is long gone, replaced by Ling Hong Road and I could probably get there in about 30 minutes if I still had my motorbike. In 1956, this was a major outing for the film crew so I suspect this pier scene and the subsequent boat raid sequence were shot on the same day/shoot. The fact that Tony (Rory Calhoun) rides around in the same boat used by the diamond hijackers in this scene seems to confirm that.

Just Heroes - David Chiang (1989) - Diamond Hill Columbarium

I've only recently worked out where the funeral for the murdered gang boss takes place. It's been completely changed since this movie was made (you can see how it looks today here) but this is the Diamond Hill Columbarium on Po Kong Village Road. About the only things that remain today are the triangular roofed niche pavilions that can be seen in the background and the looped service road that can be seen in the top two images.

Aegan - Ajith Kumar (2008) - Cyberport Waterfront Park

Shiva catches up with Iqbal at the waterfront near Cyberport. According to images on GoogleEarth, the two benches and gazebos where their interaction takes place are part of the local furniture and not film props as I thought they might be. Anyway, that's the last post for this film, but I expect to cover more Indian  films in the future.