The Magic Stone - Nancy Kwan (1966) - Lung Shuen Wan Tin Hau Temple

Just up the shoreline from Tung A is the Lung Shuen Wan Tin Hau temple. This is where the wife goes to pray for her husband and discovers a lode stone that helps him and the crew to better navigate their way home.

The Magic Stone - Nancy Kwan (1966) - Tung A, High Island

The main village that features in this short film is called Tung A and is located on the east side of the bay. Many of these buildings are still around, although I haven't been out this way for more than 5 years or so. Google wont let me place the marker on anything other than a building (even when I do it snaps back when I publish), but luckily it has defaulted to one of the buildings in the top image. However, several bits of Tung A are used, including the next cluster to the south (bottom image) of this location which is about halfway to the main village site. It won't let me pin a marker there though (see location markers).

The Magic Stone - Nancy Kwan (1966) - Lung Shuen Wan, High Island

Next up is one of the films I have been trying to track down for several years, ever since I first read about it in Peter Moss' excellent autobiography No Babylon: A Hong Kong Scrapbook. In that book he describes visiting the set in a helicopter and ruining it all as the chopper's downdraft blew all the carefully arranged straw all over the place. The book also details how Nancy Kwan came to be involved in this little production despite already being a major international star: T.C Wang, head of Salon Films, was the person responsible for introducing Nancy to the producer of The World of Suzie Wong, therefore helping launch her career. So her role in this short was very much the repayment of a pesonal debt. Chaplin Chang, credited as the AD on this, also filled in some details for me and told me that T.C Wang was a very good friend of Nancy's father, Kwan Wing Hong.

Foreign film fans may or may not be aware that Salon Films - set up by T.C Wang - was the local production house that had an exlcusive license for Panavision in Hong Kong. This meant that if you came to Hong Kong and used Panavision equipment, you would have to pay Salon Films a license fee - regardless of whether or not the equipment was hired from them. After T.C Wang's death, his son Charles took over. You may recall many years ago I had a post featuring Neil MacDonald, who worked with Salon on many of the films featured on the blog. You can see that post here. Salon were involved in many of the foreign movie productions that I have covered over the years. This film is hard to categorise: is it a foreign production or a local one? Strictly speaking it could be either, but I've added it to the list of foreign/overseas productions because it was aimed at an overseas market.

After looking high and low for this film, it has suddenly popped up on the Government Record Services webpage. This makes sense because it was a Government production aimed at stimulating some tourism. Anyway, you can watch it yourself by going to this page and scrolling down to the "Videos" icon. The film is the longest of four shorts to view. No doubt this link will break at some point in the future so catch it while you can.

The premise is simple and is just a retelling of the myth of A-Mah Rock (aka 望夫石 Mong Fu Shek - looking for husband rock). Nancy plays the wife and Ling Yuen plays the fisherman husband. It's basically a silent movie with some narration.

The main filming took place in and around Lung Shuen Wan, the main bay on the south side of High Island. It has changed surprisingly little since 1966, but this is true of many remote places in Hong Kong. I'll get into specific locations in the next couple of posts - sadly this film isn't going to provide much for the blog due to the limited number of identifiable places - so to start off here are some general views of the bay area.

Lust, Caution - Tang Wei (2007) - Ma Tau Wan, High Island

I'm currently looking again at Lust, Caution and have found a few more locations that I missed following my initial, rather cursory, viewing. You can see the original posts here and here with updated screenshots.

One of the locations I had trouble finding initially was the nondescript beach where the would-be agents are practicing their marksmanship with pistols. This one took me an age to locate but I finally found it nestling on the southern coast of High Island in Sai Kung District. The beach doesn't appear to have a specific name but the maps refer to the general area as Ma Tau Wan (lit: horse head area) and actually, if you turn the map around, that part of High Island does actually resemble a horse's head!

If you want to see the exact location then click on the location label at the bottom on the post but for locals who are familiar with the general area then its quite near to the Sha Kiu Tau restaurants. From a filming point of view, the only way to get here is by boat - although if you aren't lugging around a ton of film equipment, you can hike to it from High Island reservoir road.

The Sand Pebbles - Steve McQueen (1966) - Tai Tau Chau, Sai Kung

I haven't really covered much of The Sand Pebbles despite the fact that it is a great film. The reason is that the HK-filmed scenes were, in general, shot in some rather out of the way places in the northern part of Port Shelter that is called Rocky Harbour. We've already found out where the junk barrier was shot and so I thought this post might help to add a bit more context because it was taken around the same area but looking back towards the direction of Sai Kung town with the famous ridge line behind it

The ridge line in the background includes Pyramid hill on the left and Ma On Shan on the right and has been seen quite a few times in this blog already. In the screen grab there is also an island on the left side on the frame and this is Tai Tau Chau. If you ever get the chance to go here you'll find out that Tai Tau Chau these days seems to be largely used for burying the dead because it is now strewn with hillside graves. Anyway, following my recent trip to the reservoir area, I managed to grab the following snap from the top of the west dam wall which gives an overview of the same area albeit from a height at the top of the wall (which didn't exist until 10 or so years after the film was made).

The junk barrier was somewhere around the edge of the lake at the bottom of the screen and the San Pablo boat in the film grab is seen smoking (fake smoke by the way) its way in the body of water in front of that lower cofferdam wall. You can see Tai Tau Chau on the left in my photo too.

The Sand Pebbles - Steve McQueen (1966) - Rocky Harbour, Sai Kung

It's a while since I found out that Robert Wise chose to shoot portions of The Sand Pebbles in HK. The production was notoriously frought with problems but the end result is actually excellent and one of my favourite all time movies.

Long before I had started this blog I had a go at pinning down some of the shots from this classic and managed to identify the approximate location of a key scene involving a barricade of junks strung across what was supposed to be the YangSze River but was, in actuality, a stretch of water near to the West Dam of High Island Reservoir in Sai Kung.

Here are some screen grabs. In the top image you can see the camera come around the tip of Tai tau Chau with the far distant pointy peak of Biu Tsim Kok centre screen. That distant hillock is the one that still sits at the north end of the east dam and at the time of filming was the lowest part of the mainland next to High Island.

Tai Tau Chau in the foreground

The remainder of the shots show us quite clearly where the barrier was constructed relative to the western tip of High Island. Unfortunately for us, this just happens to be the same spot that underwent extensive construction when the west dam was constructed for the reservoir. Luckily, it seems as though the main dam wall was constructed behind this area, but the current watersports lake and lower dam wall do cover this area. In fact it looks likely that the small island at the far end of the barrier in the lower picture might be (or at least coincide with) the small island that sits within the water sports centre and has a small pavilion on top.

I was in the vicinity recently and managed to take a few pictures. Unfortunately, better matches for the angles were not available but if you have a keen eye you should be able to see some familiar ridges on the hills surrounding the area. The first one is the view from the sea with Tai Tau Chau in the foreground. Look carefully and you can see the tiny point of the Biu Tsim Kok headland poking up behind the top of the dam wall.

This next photo shows the Tai She Teng. You can compare it with the screen grab to see that the junks were positioned in front of where the west dam wall was built.

And finally a picture of the watersports lake that sits between the main dam and the lower cofferdam wall. I could be wrong but to build an artificial island in there doesn't make sense to me so I wonder if it was built on the original small islet we can see in the screen grab, or at least remnants of it? It looks like it is in the right place. Either way, judging from the nearby ridges the junk barrier on the film was constructed near to that far edge of the lake.