A Cause to Kill - Ivy Ling Po (1969) - Glenthorne, Customs Pass

Hsin Li lives with her husband in a rather nice art-deco style mansion up in Customs Pass. This area appears to have been a popular filming location for Shaws productions in the 60s and 70s because we were here a few weeks ago for The Generation Gap.

In this film we carry on up the hill a bit further to a house called "Glenthorne" which, rather surprisingly for Hong Kong, still exists. I take my hat off to the owners for not selling up to a developer because the house is very stylish (and I have no doubt jinxed it by featuring it here). The interwebs tells me this house was built in 1958 and is one of only a couple originals.

On the way up we are treated to some views of Fei Ngo Shan Road as the car drives passed the previously linked to "Cairnmount". We also get brief glimpses of some of the neighbouring properties, but they are, sadly, only fleeting.

"Cairnmount" on the left

Glenthorne

A view of the neighbouring property "Devonia" (since demolished)

The Generation Gap - David Chiang (1973) - Cairnmount, Customs Pass

Next up is The Generation Gap. A Chang Cheh modern drama about a young man, Ling Xi (David Chiang), from an obviously wealthy family, who has decided to drop out of his studies and hang out with his underage girlfriend, Cindy (Agnes Chan).

Things get out of hand and Ling Xi digs himself into a big hole when the two move in together against everyone's wishes and the whole affair leads him to turn to a life of crime.

Ling Xi is a fairly obnoxious character to be honest and I'm sure there is some cultural nuance I'm missing with regards to the fact that he is portrayed as some sort of rebel against the older generation when really he's just a kid with violent tendencies who has a thing for an underage girl. On the plus side, there are some great locations starting with the Ling family home.

Customs Pass used to contain a great many fantastic old 50's era mansions that, by and large, have disappeared. Afew are still around but most have since had their large plots redeveloped into small gated estates. One of these was a circular house called "Cairnmount" located at #2 Fei Wan Road - although the official address seems to be "1979 off Fei Ngo Shan Road".

In the film, this is where Ling Xi (Chiang) lives with his family and spends all day tinkering with his car in the garage.

I'm not sure when the property was demolished but the development standing on the site today, a small luxury townhouse estate called Ming Wah Yuen (明華園), was completed in 1990. It looks like it's possible the property was still there up until the work started for the new development (as opposed to being demolished and having the site left empty for years) and so perhaps demolished circa 1988/89?

This 1963 aerial image below doesn't include the swimming pool that can be seen in the screen shots. It was built later in the lower right hand side of the garden area.