The Chinese Stuntman - Ho Chung Tao (1981) - Cox's Road, Kowloon

I forgot to put this post up for The Chinese Stuntman a few weeks back. It's just a quick shot of Ladalski and Ho walking up Cox's Road in front of the old Scout HQ - Morse House. In another interesting connection with the real Bruce Lee, this was where Lee and brother Robert used to go sometimes as it was just around the corner from their house on Nathan Road. The building was knocked down in the mid 1990's and replaced by a development called Carmen's Garden. The address is/was 9 Cox's Road.

The first two shots are looking south down Cox's Road, the buildings in the distance being on Austin Road. On the far left of the top picture you can just see the wall of the Kowloon Cricket Club building. The third image is looking north and the old building on the left was still part of the HQ - you can see it over on Gwulo.com - but just beyond there is the edge/balcony of the Manse House that still sits on the corner of Cox's Road and Jordan Road.

The Chinese Stuntman - Ho Chung Tao (1981) - King's Park Garden, Ho Man Tin

Quite a few of the film's fight scenes were filmed on top of the King's Park covered reservoir garden. I've mentioned this place previously on my other blog because it's the same area that the real Bruce Lee was photographed training in kung fu with his dad and "uncles".

In this film it's the area where Ho's character trains and seems to always get ambushed, you'd think he would learn after the first couple of times. Anyway, the first two images are of the steps and path way that lead up from the back of Cliff Road and Wing Sing Lane.

The steps and path are still there but the steps now have a green canopy covering them. You can access them , as mentioned, from Cliff Road just off Nathan Road. Later on, there is also a snippet of a training scene that was filmed actually in the rest garden atop the covered reservoir.

 The small white building at the back of the first two images above is the pump house that can still be seen today. There is a close up picture of it on the link I provided earlier, but you can see it here as well.

The Chinese Stuntman - Ho Chung Tao (1981) - Alhambra Building, Yau Ma Tei

Ho's character has a friend who is a karate instructor and he goes to his karate school to have a chat. The building where the school was is actually the Alhambra Building at the junction of Nathan Road and Kansu Street. In the first picture we are looking up Nathan Road and the white building in the background is the lower floors of the Kowloon Government Offices. You can also see the Gascoigne Road/West Kowloon Corridor flyover (the road which goes through the nearby Yaumatei carpark).

As you can see the part of the building used in the film is that most northerly bit, right next to the flyover. It looks as though the interior scenes were filmed on location because in the lower picture you can see the square character boards stuck on the outside of the building, as well as the flyover going past the window. It looks as though it might have been turned back into a private flat in the meantime and the front lattice work has all been filled in (actually, it looks like it may have once been a balcony that has since been enclosed - illegally - a common practice in HK to gain extra space).

The Chinese Stuntman - Ho Chung Tao (1981) - HSBC Building, Central

Here's a quick glimpse of the older (and much more stylish, in my opinion) HSBC building as seen from the Des Voeux Road side. The famous lions still adorn the same entrance of the building today even though they are actually copies of the original lions that stood outside HSBC HQ in Shanghai. These fellas are still covered in bullet and shrapnel damage from when the Japanese invaded in December 1941.

The Chinese Stuntman - Ho Chung Tao (1981) - Stubbs Road, Wanchai

Ho's character starts his new job as an insurance salesman at the AIA Building at #1 Stubbs Road in Wanchai. This building was opened in 1969 and is still around, although the last time I went past in the bus (sometime around Feb 2018) it looked as though something major was about to happen with it with lots of sprayed on markings on the outside lattice work.

Update: the building has been demolished circa 2020.

The Chinese Stuntman - Ho Chung Tao (1981) - Y.M.C.A, Salisbury Road

While I wait for my next "international" film to turn up (should've been here last week, but no sign yet), then how about a bit of a filler in the form of a 1981 Ho Chung Tao (aka Bruce Li) film co-starring John Ladalski?

Surprisingly, despite starring Ho, The Chinese Stuntman (aka Counter Attack), isn't a clone movie and was in fact also directed by him in what looks to be an attempt to break away from all those Bruce Lee-related films. He plays a normal guy (with a talent for fighting) who starts works as an insurance agent and takes on the role of the stand in for a local movie star who appears to be the target of some nefarious shenanigans. Ladalski plays a bolshy westerner who befriends Ho after initially challenging him and his kung fu school to a fight.

The opening scene takes place outside the old Y.M.C.A on Salisbury Road where Ho's kung fu club is supposedly based.

This older version of the Y.M.C.A (built in 1925) was demolished sometime around 1990 and replaced in 1992 by the current, much larger, building. You can just see the Peninsula Hotel in the background of the last picture.