The Generation Gap - David Chiang (1973) - Tate's Cairn, Kowloon

Ling Xi takes Cindy out for a spin in his car. The first image shows the car at the junction of Fei Ngo Shan Road with the Tate's Cairn radar control station on the hill in the background. This place is still around but I'm not sure of its current use - I imagine given the easterly approach to Chek Lap Kok is over here, then perhaps it is still part of the airport control system? Please feel free to let me know. The next image shows the pair as they walk up a slope, and this time the spherical globe of the Tate's Cairn Meteorlogical Station can be seen on the prominent hillock behind. This place is on the next peak over from the aforementioned radar station, but they are quite close together. The pair sit down for a chat overlooking a very empty looking (and therefore far more appealing to my eyes) Kowloon below.

Operation Lipstick - Cheng Pei-pei (1967) - 6 Fei Ngo Shan Road, Kowloon Peak

The baddies hideout is represented by the exterior of a property that used to stand at 6 Fei Ngo Shan Road. I thought this may have been a model until I came across it recently in Karate from Shaolin Temple. This film shows it from more or less the same angle as that film, but in much better picture quality. Sadly, this version of the property underwent some renovations in the 1990s/00s and then was completely demolished and replaced quite recently, so sadly is no more.

Anyway, this is where the gang and their boss are based and serves as the location for the rooftop finale as the girls fight off the gangsters from a studio-built replica of the roof.

Karate from Shaolin Temple - Kazuma Kenji (1976) - Fei Ngo Shan Road, Kowloon

After leaving the Yuen Yuen Institute, Musashi is undergoing a personal crisis as he grapples with whether or not he should be helping Wu. The following sequence was shot at the junction between Fei Ha Road and Fei Ngo Shan Road. Musashi is stopped by one of Wu's friends, Chang (Gwan Jing-leung) who asks him to try and find out some information for them about the bosses movements. However, the pair are spotted by a couple of the boss's henchmen.

The first image below shows the view down Fei Ha Road as Chang races to catch up with Musashi. The following images shows the junction as the car turns around on the curve. The final image shows what was the art-deco style property at #6 Fei Ngo Shan Road in the background. Remember that property because it will pop up in another film I have lined up after this one.

Looking down Fei Ha Road from the junction

The junction between Fei Ngo Shan Rd and Fei Ha Road

The art-deco spire of 6 Fei Ngo Shan Road in the background

Red Dragon - Stewart Granger (1965) - #10 Fei Ngo Shan Road

Another pandemic find that I neglected to post due to the fog in my brain at the time is this old property up on Fei Ngo Shan Road. It was previously located at #10 Fei Ngo Shan Road and can be seen as Michael Scott (Stewart Granger) narrowly avoids being assassinated by a man pretending to be blind whose white stick is actually a disguised gun. The failed assassin is then killed himself and the perpetrators flee in a car down Fei Ngo Shan Road.

The old house used in the film was demolished and redeveloped sometime in the mid-90s but the neighbouring house (#8), which makes a brief appearance as part of the backdrop, is still around (or at least was at the time of my initial discovery) and doesn't appear to have changed very much over the years - an impressive feat given the sometimes dizzying speed of redevelopment in Hong Kong.

Come Drink With Me - Cheng Pei-pei (1966) - Fei Ngo Shan Road, Kowloon Peak

This image shows the cutting I have referred to previously, where the road crosses the ridge from one side to the other. The district boundary runs along the road here so the group are moving from Sai Kung District into Wong Tai Sin District. It wouldn't surprise me if King Hu just turned his camera around at this spot to film this earlier view. Once again, Google maps is messing with my marker locations so the one below is not where I placed the pin (click on the location at the bottom of the post). It's close enough but this is a recurring issue I have with Googlemap pins, especially so in more remote locales.

Come Drink With Me - Cheng Pei-pei (1966) - Fei Ngo Shan Road, Kowloon Peak

Continuing on Kowloon Peak, the next shot clearly shows the view along the Kowloon ridgeline towards Beacon Hill in the distance. The two-pronged peak just before Beacon Hill is, of course, Lion Rock. You can see a very similar view here, in Heisser Hafen Hongkong. The group of actors would have been standing near the cutting where the road crosses from one side of the ridge to the other.

Bloodfight - Yasuaki Kurata (1989) - View from Kowloon Peak

Another part of Masa's training involves him running up the slope of the Kowloon Peak. The camera was located in the popular spot where Fei Ngo Shan Road switches from the south (Kowloon) side of the ridgeline to the north side, near the Kowloon Peak viewing point.

The Seventh Sin - Eleanor Parker (1957) - Fei Ngo Shan Road, Kowloon

The Seventh Sin is a 1957 remake of The Painted Veil written by W. Somerset Maugham. It was directed by Ronald Neame, who incidentally also directed two other films I have covered in the blog: Gambit and Meteor.

It stars Eleanor Parker as Carol, the unhappy wife of a doctor in post-war Hong Kong who is caught in her infidelity by her husband and given an ultimatum to accompany him into Mainland China to help him in his medical work in a remote village.

Initially I thought this would be another library-footage-film with some typical stock footage of Hong Kong, but it looks as though there was an actual second unit here in HK filming location shots, albeit without the real actors. I could be wrong and haven't delved enough yet but the Hong Kong footage here almost certainly was specially shot for this film. For scenes involving the characters, it's very much in the same method that Neame used for his Kowloon shots in Gambit, i.e. a stand-in who is always too far away, or facing away from the camera, to be properly identified.

The film opens with an expansive view across Kowloon towards the western harbour and although the opening credits obscure the view somewhat, it does crop up again later in a scene as the husband (played by Bill Travers) returns home in his car with the camera at the exact same location.

The switchback in the road, coupled with the general view and presence of Lion Rock on the right hand side of the screen, means that this was shot where Jat's Incline joins with Fei Ngo Shan Road on Kowloon Peak.

Election - Simon Yam (2005) - Fei Ngo Shan, Kowloon

Fei Ngo Shan (Flying Goose Hill) is the Chinese name for Kowloon Peak and this is the place where Big D (Tony Leung) takes the two people he feels are responsible for his election loss, seals them into wooden packing crates, and then repeatedly pushes them down the hill. Okay, not strictly at the peak, but along the ridgeline a little to the west from the actual peak, not far from the pavilion where Fei Ngo Shan Road switches through a cutting from the north, New Territories-side of the ridge to the south Kowloon-side.

The exact location is a little way back west from the viewing point and only a short walk from Fei Ngo Shan Road. I've tried my best to mark it in the location link at the bottom of the post, but I've just noticed it keeps snapping to the road a bit further north. So you'll just have to take it as an approximate location for now.

Challenge of the Tiger - Bruce Le (1982) - Fei Ngo Shan Road, Kowloon

The final part of the finale (the finale the finale?) was shot up on Fei Ngo Shan Road. 

Challenge of the Tiger - Bruce Le (1982) - Baddies Hideout Part 2 - Tate's Cairn Police Post, Fei Ngo Shan Road

Location 2 of the baddies hideout is the police post up on Tate's Cairn (Chinese name is 大老山 Dai Lo Saan). I always confuse this place with the nearby meteorological radar station, but it turns out this is a totally different property. In 1980 it was quite small and low key, but if you go there now it is just a mass of satellite disks and, I suppose, is a reflection of the way technology has evolved.

The next edit to location 3 is even less convincing than the one we've just seen.

Red Dragon - Stewart Granger (1965) - Fei Ngo Shan Road, Kowloon Peak

Another car chase that ends up at the top of Kowloon Peak. I won't go sdo far as to say this film is a bit of a copycat of other German productions, but we have already had a car crashing into Lung Ha Wan courtesy of Weiße Fracht für Hongkong and that film also features a car chase up along Fei Ngo Shan Road. Then there was Heisser Hafen Hongkong which didn't feature any crashing into Lung Ha Wan but did also have a car chase up Fei Ngo Shan Road culminating in one of the cars crashing down the side of the mountain. So here is a similar scene in Red Dragon: a car chase up Fei Ngo Shan that culminates in a very similar car crash.

Edit: I found out that all of the German productions I've been looking at recently (Heißer Hafen Hongkong, Weiße Fracht für Hongkong, Ein Sarg aus Hongkong and Das Geheimnis der drei Dschunken (i.e. Red Dragon) all had the same producer -Wolf C Hartwig - so this probably explains why some of the locations and scenes appear to have some similarity.

Heisser Hafen Hongkong - Horst Frank (1962) - Fei Ngo Shan, Kowloon

Immediately following the car around Peak Road it suddenly appears on Clearwater Bay Road about to turn up Fei Ngo Shan Road up to Fei Ngo Shan (aka Kowloon Peak). I can't say for sure if the scenes between the turning into the road and arriving at the top are all filmed on Fei Ngo Shan Road, but it wouldn't surprise me. Once at the top there are some great views to be had.

Clearwater Bay Road into Fei Ngo Shan Road

At the top the car gets stuck in the passageway where Fei Ngo shan Road crests the ridge. We've seen this section of the road multiple times on this blog.

Next we have a rather spectacular car crash down the side of the hill. I doubt this sort of stunt would be allowed so easily now, but you never know.

Lion Rock can be seen on the left with Beacon Hill beyond. 

There's that cutting again in the background

Those hillocks in the centre now have an electricity pylon on them

Finally, there's a really spectacular view over to the actual peak of Kowloon Peak/Fei Ngo Shan. That ridge is fairly overgrown now but still has a trail along it.

Weiße Fracht für Hongkong - Dietmar Schönherr (1963) - Fei Ngo Shan Road, Kowloon

Fei Ngo Shan is the Chinese name for Kowloon Peak. If you ever get the chance to get up here then it is well worth the effort because of the views from the ridge over Kowloon to the south and the New Territories to the north.

The top picture shows the view to the north, taking in a large area of Sai Kung including the Ho Chung valley (the flat bit right of middle), Hebe Haven (the bit of enclosed water just beyond Ho Chung) and Port Shelter and beyond that even further the High Island area before it became a reservoir..

View towards Sai Kung area

The road forms a hairpin bend at this section as it moves from the north side of the ridge to the south, and from here we get the views over to Kowloon. In the top picture you can see pretty much all of the Kowloon peninsula including the Kai Tak runway sticking out into the bay and Stonecutter Island on the other side  (top right). The double-pointed hill between the actors in the second picture is actually Lion Rock with Beacon Hill beyond and to its left. Actually, you can get fairly similar views even today because most of the change has occurred away from the slopes of the hills.