The Brain Stealers - Lily Ho Li-li (1968) - Diamond Hill Cemetery, Kowloon

Pretending that their father has been killed, the siblings go through a mock funeral for him to throw the kidnappers off his scent. This scene was filmed at the Diamond Hill Cemetery.

Tsz Wan Shan Estate (Blks 51 & 52) in the background

The Brain Stealers - Lily Ho Li-li (1968) - Kai Tak Airport

Whilst the family pretend to bury their deceased father, instead he is slipping away to Japan to hide via a plane from Kai Tak Airport.

The Brain Stealers - Lily Ho Li-li (1968) - Port Shelter, Sai Kung

Jia-wen is trying to woo Chiu-lan and takes her out on a boat for the day whilst they are being watched by the agents from the UN. This scene was shot at the Tai Mong Tsai-end of the harbour.

The Brain Stealers - Lily Ho Li-li (1968) - Shaws Movietown

I seem to have lost count how many times Shaw House has been used as a nightclub in one of its productions. In this film it is called Queen Bee and is supposed to be located in Tokyo. In the film it is owned by Chiu-lan's fiance, Jia-wen (Peter Chen Ho) and is where her brother is kidnapped from.

This isn't the only appearance of Movietown in the film though and a few more shots were used for a variety of scenes. The following ones are when the UN are showing agent 009 (Lin Chih-yung) footage of the scientist's laboratory.

The famous yellow gates (Shaw fans know)

There are also some other lab vicinity scenes later that were also filmed inside Movietown. IN fact, I believe the buildings you see below are ones that have been left intact at the very front of the plot (including the old Shaw House). The first building below was the old colour lab located at the south tip of Movietown.

The Colour Lab

You can see the Colour Lab in the distance

The Yellow Gates

The Brain Stealers - Lily Ho Li-li (1968) - Shui Hing House/Prestige Tower

Another Inoue Umetsugu film here in the shape of The Brain Stealers, one of the many spy-oriented movies that Shaws produced in the 1960s. This one stars Lily Ho as a judo expert, Li Chiu-lan, daughter of a famous scientist who has just invented a process to boost plant growth and yield to help solve food shortages in the light of the earth's ever increasing population. The problem is there is a nefarious megalomanic called Dr Zero who want the obtain the secrets so he can use it on humans and create superhumans to help hm rule the world. Dr Zero has been kidnapping scientists from around the world and forced them to invent a machine that can swap peoples' minds (hence "Brain Stealers"), and he uses the machine on Chiu-lan's brother to swap his mind with one of his henchmen.

The plot is hilarious but good fun and although supposedly shot in Hong Kong, Japan, Taiwan and Thailand (according to the excellent HKMDB) it is mainly a studio-based film with the odd location thrown in here and there.

The film opens with a panning shot of the harbour from Tsim Sha Tsui as the camera moves towards a judo class taking place on a nearby rooftop. This is where we first see Chiu-lan's prowess at chucking people around. The building they are training on is what is now called Prestige Tower but back in the 1960s was Shui Hing House. It's a nice view though because we also get to see the upper floors of the former Peninsula Court/Marco Polo hotel, the "Rolex" sign on top of Hotel Merlin and the brand spanking new Hankow Centre in the background (completed 1968 - it's the very clean building in the abckground of the third image).

The Peninsula Court Hotel rooftop (behind the titles)

The sign says (r-l) 香港大川柔道學院 (Hong Kong Great River Judo College)

Sai Yeung Choi Street South - Now and Then

Following on from my recent post for The Angel Strikes Again, I thought I would take a quick trip down to the junction of Sai Yeung Choi Street South and Soy Street to try and grab a comparison photo. Bear in mind that this area in Mongkok is one of the busiest places in Kowloon these days, not just for people but also for traffic, and so getting an exact match of the angle seen in the screen capture was a bit of a faff.

The Hollywood Theatre, where much of this scene played out, was off camera to the right. It closed in 1980 and the building was demolished and replaced by the current one, Hollywood Plaza - HK loves to maintain names of older buildings for their newer replacements - was completed in 1984. You can see in the image below though that the new building has a similar square canopy over the pavement area. 

The Angel Strikes Again - Lily Ho (1968) - Anderson Road Quarry

The gang's secret hideout is hidden behind a quarry wall and hidden by a secret door. In this case we can see it is the Anderson Road quarry, although in the 1960s it still consisted of several smaller quarry faces.

We know we're here because of the views to to background behind the actors. In the top image, as the guy is about to blow up the secret door, we can see the north side of Hong Kong Island behind him. In the second image of 009 and the local police detective, that ridge in the background is Black Hill. You can walk along there on Stage 3 of the Wilson Trail if you ever feel the urge.

Looking at old maps, it looks as though the quarry face where this was filmed was located at what is now immediately east of On Kin Road near On Sing House.

The Angel Strikes Again - Lily Ho (1968) - Port Shelter, Sai Kung

The gang is blackmailing a local airline to the tune of 5M dollars (insert Dr Evil meme) and have instructed them to put the money into the water in Port Shelter. The police follow the money in a local junk to try and capture the extortionists but it turns out they have been duped as the gang collect it from underwater using scuba gear.

Most of this sequence appears to have been filmed in the bit of water between Sharp Island (seen from the east in the first image) and Kau Sai Chau.

The Angel Strikes Again - Lily Ho (1968) - Lam Kam Road, Lam Tsuen

We're all over the place for this sequence, because the junction where Deng Lei puts up the road works sign is actually several miles away from Route TWISK. The junction in question was the old service road running behind Hang Ha Po village in Lam Tsuen. Anyone who ever made the trip tio the Wishing Tree will have either gone into here or the next entrance along. Since the film was shot the sloped entrance has been removed and a flatter access point created further along. However, traces of the sloped road still remain as a footpath. The road is called Ngau Kwu Leng Lane or Lam Tsuen Heung Kung Sho Road  depending on which map you read. It terminates on the lower slopes of Pak Tai To Yan.

In the images below, the car is driving south along Lam Kam Road with Cloudy Hill in the background. Deng Lei hops out of the service road entrance and blocks the road with the signs forcing the car to turn up the village road.

The Angel Strikes Again - Lily Ho (1968) - Route TWISK

Agent 009 and Deng Lei plan to trap the gang leader by creating a road diversion. They observe from the memorial pavilion on Route TWISK (still there) as the car approaches from the direction of Tai Kiu Tsuen. You may recall this is the same location we saw at the end of Inter-Pol (second image down in that link).

Deng Lei then runs off to set his trap. This sequence actually utilises several separate locations as you will see in the next posts.

The Angel Strikes Again - Lily Ho (1968) - Lung Ha Wan, Clearwater Bay

Lung Ha Wan a.k.a Lobster Bay has long been a popular filming location for local (and overseas) movie productions. In this film it is where 009 and Deng Lei (Tang Ching) finally catch up with the female gang boss. This whole area seen below has changed significantly with the constrcution of the riding school as well as the general growth of trees and other vegetation. You can see the same area from the other side at the beginning of Weiße Fracht für Hongkong. This area (top three images below) is now all part of the riding school. In the fourth image we see the path up to what is now the kite flying area.

Sticking with Lobster Bay and the following captures are from later in the film as the gang pick up their ransom money via scuba diver. The diver exits Port Shelter via the first beach at Lobster Bay (where the concrete ramp was later constructed by smugglers before being destroyed by the British Army). The diver gets into the car and it drives back up Lung Ha Wan Road.

The Angel Strikes Again - Lily Ho (1968) - Tai Woh Ping Interchange

Until relatively recently (circa late 90s, which I consider "recent") the Tai Woh Ping Interchange allowed cars to join the Tai Po Road from Lung Cheung Road near to the Chak On Estate. It has since been replaced by a higher capacity (i.e. multi-lane) alternative constructed a hundred or so meters to the east, but for many years this simple interchange was the way to access both directions of the Tai Po Road from Lung Cheung Road. We see it during the sequence where 009 is following the gang leader in her car.

The image below is an old Govt image of the interchange but seen from the other side.

The Angel Strikes Again - Lily Ho (1968) - Cornwall Street, Kowloon Tong

We've seen Cornwall Street a few times in the past few months (e.g Inter-pol, The Young Rebel) but in this film we get to see the Baptist Hospital from a closer angle. Believe it or not the multi-port hydrant is still there, at least for the time being. These "heavy draw off" hydrants were placed strategically underneath the old Kai Tak flight path so that in the event of a plane crash there would be enough water and hoses to deal with any subsequent fire. They're a bit of a dying breed these days and are slowly but surely being removed. Gwulo has an (old) list of the remaining ones here.