I'm currently scratching my head at the following property used as Han's house in Hong Kong Godfather. Exhausted all my usual lines of enquiry. Feel free to offer suggestions. It's a rather squat property at the front so, given the surrounding terrain, I suspect it is terraced at the back.
The restaurant scene when the newcomer tries to give Mr Han a present and is rebuffed and an argument ensues.
8 comments:
This house, more likely a townhouse development, looks familiar. I saw Just Heroes on RTHK tele a few months back and there was another house that I wanted to double check. It was not featured on the site, but I think it is where Stephen Chow's double-crossing big bro lived. I could be confusing the film/house with another of the era's heroic bloodshed, mafioso revenge flicks.
I have a couple of questions/observations. There are clearly two illuminated traffic bollards in the screencaps, so the house cannot be too far off a pretty busy road. The Porsche appears to be driving up a slight incline and the front entrance is sunken, with the henchmen sitting at the top of the stairs and standing at the bottom. How steep is the drive?
Secondly, what do you reckon are those lights above the second bollard closer to the house?
Hi Rodney, yes definitely a townhouse, but a very short stubby one at that. I don't remember being able to identify Chen Kuan Tai's house. It was one I was going to go back to. I tend to do that with the ones I know will mean many hours poring over aerial maps and the like. That house had a large front terrace though and was on a flat, these ones are definitely on a pretty steep slope. You can tell just by the way the neighbouring house is a metre or so higher. My observation is that the distant backgfround is fairl;y flat and open, but there appears to be a larger structure in the middle, so I already discounted much of Kowloon and Hong Kong island (but, having said that I may go back fro another looksee). But I'm not so sure where there would be such a development on what is obviously a significant hillside. So far I have pretty much also ruled out Sai Kung, but it's more than possible that this development has already disappeared. So that's worth bearing in mind. Perhaps Tsuen Wan somewhere? It's just that these type of developments are far more likely on HK, Sai Kung and perhaps a few other areas of the NT. Hmmm, bit of a stumper.
I would think Sai Kung is the most likely. Perhaps I am making too much of the bollards and you have ruled out the area, but have you had a look at Pine Villas on Clearwater Bay Road? It is a similar style of development and possibly built in the same era, occupational permit issued January 1972. Of course, there are two bollards on the road in front. I find it peculiar there are no proper garages for most of the houses at Pine Villas, so I wonder if they have been enclosed. Looking at old aerial maps, it does not appear the garages were ever that sizable, if they existed at all.
There should be a pretty good chance these townhouses are still standing unless it had a single owner that only made it available for rent all these years. This Mr. 'Han' was probably some meek, neutered relative because Enter the Dragon Han would never live in a townhouse with pesky neighbors, much less get slaughtered there. By the way, Phil, your timing of the Watford Road screencaps are absolutely horrid! You needed to get the caps either before or after the babes enter the pool.
Yes, I looked at Pine Villas. It's this kind of development that we are looking for but this one is not it. The environment doesn't quite match. For example the access road in the film curves away from the camera and goes to the left whereas this one at Pine Villas immediately intersects with the main road. I feel the one in the movie is also higher up with a better vantage point. But I agree that it was most likely Sai Kung ...or somewhere with similar style developments.
Haha, sadly I try to keep this one as safe for work as possible so deliberately leave out nudity. Otherwise I would have to mark it as adult only for fear of being penalised by google.
On an aside, one of the black actors in the film is a chap called Victor Appiah. I remember him from my days reading Combat in the 1980s, he was interviewed and was quite well known for speaking Cantonese fluently - he even had his own "learn Cantonese" column in Combat at one point.
Yes, I noticed the curvature of the driveway and the lack of steps down to the entrances of Pine Villas before suggesting you take a look because it is the style of the development that I wanted to point out. I am thinking they were not only built in the same era, but possibly by the same developer. Having said that, there were more small developers back then and it is not easy to find who built what, as many went under in the 1980s or voluntary liquidated. I have seen several 1970s, 1980s sales adverts of New Territories villas that were constructed by firms I have never heard of.
The interior of this Han's townhouse reminds me a bit of another I saw on an episode of TVB's 1976 Seven Women, which I believe it was filmed at Junk Bay Villas in Hang Hau. The exterior in that episode was a lowrise in Tseung Kwan O that I cannot seem to find again.
ah understood, apologies. Yes, you're definitely on the right track. The fact that google doesn't have 3d imagery of Sai Kung doesn't help. I have no idea why they have never updated it. Luckily the Govt geomap does, but it takes ages for my PC to load it. Tseung Kwan O as it now is didn't even exist in 1976, so Imagine the building you are looking out for there has long gone unless it was on the Clearwater Bay side of the hills.
No worries, Phil, as I wasn't clear in my previous comment that Pine Villas was not the home in this film. And still the search goes on... as David Hasselhoff sings in his Berlin Wall shattering classic.
I looked all over Sai Kung for a house that appeared briefly in one episode of an old TVB series. The dialogue even mentioned it being in Sai Kung, only for me to stumble upon it in Pokfulam. The only reason I ever found it was because of newspaper reports on the sale of Villa Ellenbud on Sassoon Road and I recognized the slope in front of it.
The restaurant scene where 'Han' Lite confronts the young whipper snapper could have been the Holiday Inn Golden Mile, which is in the credits. While a few restaurants were credited as well, I don't remember any 1980s restaurants looking like that. It might not have been the main ballroom, where a friend had his wedding banquet in the late-2000s. The hotel had a big makeover by then.
good point about the hotel. I've got some good info from the acknowledgements in the credits previously and always take screenshots.
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