Bruce Lee: True Story - Ho Chung Tao (1976) - Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Kowloon

Along with the trip to Beverly Heights apartment building, we also follow the ambulance as it arrives at Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Kowloon.

Bruce Lee: True Story - Ho Chung Tao (1976) - Beverly Heights, Kowloon Tong

The movie opens and closes with the events surrounding Bruce's death and we see a bit of footage of an ambulance arriving at the real-life location, Beverly Heights, where Bruce died on 20th July 1973.

Bruce Lee: True Story - Ho Chung Tao (1976) - Palm Villa, Tai Tam

Our old friend Bill Lake pops up in the Enter the Dragon scene. He plays Bob Wall's character for a brief moment as the pair walk across the tennis court. In terms of the location, yes, it's the same place where Enter the Dragon was filmed and although this tennis court wasn't the main one used in that film, it was seen in that movie. It's the upper tennis court that is being used (for reference, please see my old post here) and in a couple of the shots below you can see the steps that lead up to the single remaining doorway that led into the old garden area (now an American Club games court). For your information, it was on the other side of that doorway that the club had erected its metal plaque. You can also see the same tennis court in the top left of this screen grab.

Anyway, as you can see, even just 3 short years after Enter the Dragon the place had become quite overgrown.

Bill Lake as O'hara

The steps on the right lead up to the still-standing garden area

The wooden gazebo can be seen in the screen capture I linked to above

Bruce Lee: True Story - Ho Chung Tao (1976) - 6 Stanley Beach Road, Stanley

Here's another one of those large houses that are a pain in the butt to pinpoint because most have since been sold off and redeveloped into several smaller (but equally expensive) properties. I'm left with small clues in the surroundings and a headache from squinting at old aerial images. This particular mansion took several days to track down and it wasn't until I saw an old image from a previous film (Les Tribulations d'un Chinois en Chine) that I finally knew I had found the right place.

In the movie it is the location of the fight between Bruce and a challenger in the shape of the very awesome Chiu Chi-ling. It's based on the supposed real-life challenge match that took place between Bruce Lee and Lau Dai-chuen at the luxury mansion of corrupt Police Inspector, Tang Sang. Did it happen or didn't it? There are a surprising number of sources that say that it did but because it was done in secret no one has any proof other than hearsay.

Well, in the film, instead of Tang Sang's unknown mansion (somewhere in the NT, near Fanling, was the last I heard) we are taken to another rather impressive mansion with some rather nicely landscaped gardens. After searching so many places where I thought it might be it turns out it was a large property located at #6 Stanely Beach Road.

I have no knowledge of who owned the place (and can't be bothered to spend the HK$25 to find out to be honest) but it had a certain art-deco/Bauhaus style that was popular in HK during the post war years (pillars and curves) and it's a great shame that the plot now consists of some underwhelming three-storey cookie-cutter houses. Whenever I get a location like this - nice and gone - I like to include as many pics as possible. So here they are.

The background building is still around, it's called "Beach Mansions"

The hill in the background is the Stanley Peninsula

You can see the Hong Kong Sea School left of frame

Bruce Lee: True Story - Ho Chung Tao (1976) - Rutland Quadrant, Kowloon Tong

In one scene, Bruce comes to the defence of some roadworkers who are being bullied by some local jogging "expats". I use this term in the derogatory sense that is implied in the film - basically a bunch of forerigners come down the road and expect the roadworkers to move out of the way for them - a surprisingly prevalent attitude of many people in HK, although no longer the preserve of just the foreign contingent in Hong Kong.

Anyway, fans of the genre will easily recognise Mars - Jackie Chan's right hand man for many years - as the main worker. Bruce can be seen running towards them along Cumberland Road whereas the runners come from the direction of Waterloo Road along Rutland Quandrant.

Bruce Lee: True Story - Ho Chung Tao (1976) - Kai Tak Airport, Kowloon

Bruce arrives in Hong Kong via the airport and is greeted in arrivals by his friend, Unicorn Chan, played by...Unicorn Chan. Not the first time Chan has used his friendship with Bruce to his advantage, but I'm sure he wasn't the only one. Anyway, we see afew shots of the old terminal interior.

Bruce Lee: True Story - Ho Chung Tao (1976) - View over Central, Hong Kong

When the story moves back to Hong Kong, there's a brief establishing shot of Central and the harbour from somewhere up high. Although the resolution isn't great, you can see that Jardine House (then called the Connaught Centre) was still the highest building still at the time with the Bank of America building (Gammon House - later involved in a massive financial fraud leading to its sale and renaming) under construction. It's hard to believe that these two are now just hidden in amongst the more modern taller skyscrapers now.

Bruce Lee: True Story - Ho Chung Tao (1976) - Mongkok Road, Mongkok

A bit of nostalgia for me because this was part of my old VHS collection when I was still at school (we're talking circa 86/87) so I spent a good many hours rewatching. I hadn't seen it for a good 30 years when my good friend, AP, sent me a copy and I was quite surprised by how many of the scenes I recalled immediately. For those who don't know, this film (also known as Bruce Lee: The Man, The Myth) was Ng See Yuen's attempt at a "biopic" of Bruce Lee. To be fair, it's not a bad portrayal and no more far-fetched than Rob Cohen's Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story.

A fair bit was filmed around Bruce's old haunts in the US (Seattle, San Francisco etc) before the action moves to Hong Kong but there is a scene early in the film as Bruce (Ho Chung Tao) goes to visit his sifu, Yip Man, for one last bit of practice before moving to the US. In the film, Yip Man was portrayed by Yip Man's real son, Yip Chun, and the venue for this farewell scene was (apparently) Sifu Chiu Wan's school, located at 28 Mongkok Road.

I have no idea if the school is still around but the plaque at the back reads (r-l) 詠春正統 or "Orthodox Wing Chun", and was supposedly given to Sifu Chiu Wan by Yip Man himself.

If you are a Wing Chun expert and can add (or correct) anything about the school and its Sifu then please feel free to comment below.

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.