I Spy (TV Series) - Robert Culp (1965) - Stone Bridge, Tai Po

Here's a long lost one that, I think at the time, I wasn't sure of the location and so didn't post it. Anyway, here we are four years later and the rough position of the bridge (if not the exact one) has been narrowed down fairly well courtesy of a bunch of other pictures that show some more of the background. If you're interested you can see them over on Gwulo.

I Spy (TV Series) - Robert Culp (1965) - Pilkem Street, Kowloon

Bill Cosby seems to be making all the headlines at the moment for all the wrong reasons and so I thought I would post this latecomer from The Loser, which sees the boys drive up to a place called the Oriental Ballroom before going up the stairs into its red decor'd interior.

It was a bit of a bummer to find initially, but given all the clues in the screen grab I'm not sure why because it looks as though all the original buildings are still here along Pilkem Street, just off Jordan Road. No surprise really seeing as in this episode the duo also go to the Lung Yu Restaurant just around the corner on Jordan Road. Here's what it looked like on screen.

In the end I managed to half guess and half read the sign on the outside which says 東方舞廳 - dung fong mou teng. Roughly speaking I guess Oriental Ballroom is a good translation. But if you look at the top photo you can also see part of the building name next door which reads "Lucky" something or other. You wouldn't believe how many buildings there are in HK that are called Lucky something. A lot! Anyway, I think I've got the correct one below if you compare the two pictures below. The whole block looks to be the same one from 1965, and a quick look on Centamap confirms that Lucky House was indeed built in 1961, and the one next door (painted blue in the screen grab below) - Shing Hing House - is even older, being built in 1957!

I Spy (TV Series) - Robert Culp (1965) - Siu Lam Kung Restaurant, Hanoi Road

Here's one thrown in as an afterthought, but it is a shot of a rather famous restaurant chain (sadly now defunct since circa 2013) that once had a branch on Hanoi Road.

Unfortunately I don't know what the address was on Hanoi Road, and locating it isn't helped by the complete redevelopment that has gone on in that whole area of TST. But, anyway, I thought I would put this one out there because recently Chaplin Chang told me that this was the very same restaurant where he was first introduced to Bruce Lee just prior to the commencement of filming Way of the Dragon in Rome.

So if anyone can give me an exact address it would be nice to know.

I Spy (TV Series) - Robert Culp (1965) - Prince Edward Road East, Kowloon City

A similar shot (probably reused) from No Exchange on Damaged Merchandise, showing the view from Kai Tak airport looking over Prince Edward Road East towards Kowloon City. This was filmed at a time before the Regal Airport Kowloon Hotel was built and also before the single lane exit/entrance ramps were built.

This one is another one of AP's rather excellent panorama stitches which show a nice wide angle from the end of Nga Tsin Wai Road on the left to the buildings lining Sa Po Road on the right. The car park at the front of the terminal building can be seen in the bottom of the picture.

It seems that the only building that has survived the past 50+ years is the one on the far right (between the orange/red  and blue signs). It's a nameless building that occupies 43 - 49 Sa Po Road. Everything else has been demolished and redeveloped. Here's an approximation of the same angle using Streetview. 

Yep, lots of changes road-side as well. The flyover is the aforementioned single lane exit ramp from the airport carpark which pretty much blocks any kind of useful view. I have no idea if the flyovers will remains once the former airport area is finally redeveloped.

I Spy (TV Series) - Robert Culp (1965) - Hankow Road, Tsim Sha Tsui

Here's an interesting shot from No Exchange on Damaged Merchandise. It shows the boys crossing the road to a newspaper vendor with a cinema in the background.

Look carefully in the background and you can just make out the film being shown at the cinema is John Goldfarb, Please Come Home. I don't know when the film was released in Hong Kong but it certainly was first released in the US in 1965, which tallies with what we know about when this show was made. But which cinema was it?

In this case the blue stripes on the building provide a bit of a clue to its identity. It was a cinema called the Sands Theatre in TST, specifically on the NW corner of the junction between Peking Road and Hankow Road. The boys have just crossed the southern part of Hankow Road and Peking Road is the one going across screen behind them on the upper shot.

According to Cinema Treasures, the Sands first opened in 1963, so it was a fairly new venue at this time, and closed in 1980. The theatre was demolished and a new building put up on the site which during my first few years in HK contained an HMV. The HMV has since moved on (twice!!) and the shop now has a large Adidas store there. See below. The angle on Streetview is a fairly good match to the original.

AP provided a nicely put together stitch of the two shots to give us a wide angle view of the same scene.

There's also a nice picture of it on FLICKR but looking down the road from Peking Road here.

I Spy (TV Series) - Robert Culp (1965) - Kowloon Star Ferry Pier

Another no-brainer (from a location hunting point of view) but interesting nonetheless as we get to see a shot inside the pier as well. It should be familiar to pretty much anyone who has traveled on it at any point over the last 50 years. The current structure has been there since 1957. I still love the place and get on it as much as I can despite the fact that the Govt seems so intent on destroying it bit by bit.

Anyway, here is the outside as seen on the episode: No Exchange on Damaged Merchandise.

 Followed by a nice shot of the guys walking down those famous gangplanks - looking down, as we all do, to avoid tripping on those pesky horizontal wooden slats. And then of course, boarding the boat. It looks to me as though the chaps opted for the more expensive upper class/top deck ride. Now that really is pushing the boat out, don't you think (geddit?)

Finally, we shall round it off with some shots inside the ferry. I don't know which boat this is (the screen grab is too grainy to make out the name) but some of the current fleet were built in the 1950's and 60's, so there is a good chance that this one is still running to and fro on a daily basis. Actually, the more eagle-eyed of you may have already noticed from the first sequence of shots of the pier and boat, that the last shot is of a different boat (look carefully and you can see the name is different and it has gained a couple of life rings by the gate). The shot occurs slightly later in the sequence so it seems that the last image was from different take.

I Spy (TV Series) - Robert Culp (1965) - Canton Road, Yau Ma Tei

To be more precise the part where Canton Road intersects with Public Square Street. The giveaway in this scene is the road sign that can be seen on the second screen grab couple with the angle with which the road leads away in the background...oh yeah, and the familiar looking brick work where the road sign is fixed.

There's only one place where the road continues at an angle and it just so happens to be the same place where the Yau Ma Tei Police Station is - that is the building on which the sign is mounted.

Sadly the old curved building in the background is no more. It was part of the so-called 'six street slum' that was on the site before it was all torn down in the 1980s (I think?) and replaced by Prosperous Garden. In the process of the redevelopment a couple of streets disappeared, one of them - Lei Tat Street - the location of one of Yip Man's Wing Chun schools.

In the meantime I can confirm that the Police Station (which has been used many, many times in both local and foreign movie productions) still has the road sign - albeit a modern version - displayed on the same part of its facade. Below is the best angle we can get from Streetview.

I Spy (TV Series) - Robert Culp (1965) - Central, Hong Kong

A nice view looking over Central from the mid-levels, from The Loser episode. A view which was still possible without the need for a high rise to see over all the other buildings. These days it would probably be difficult to find a spot with a clear view. The interesting thing to note here is that Central was still very much low-rise in 1965,and indeed it would be several years before HK's first skyscraper - the Connaught Centre(now Jardine House) would be built.

I Spy (TV Series) - Robert Culp (1965) - Queen's Road Central, Sheung Wan

Some nice glimpses - from the The Loser episode - of Queens Road Central as the duo are followed up by some dudes in a car. This particular stretch contained the popular Central Theatre (中央戲院) which we can see on the left hand side in the top screen grab and then the guys turn up the alleyway at the side.

Here is a modern comparison courtesy of Streetview. In case you are wondering the address of this place is 270 - 276 Queen's Road Central.

The cinema has since been demolished and replaced by a building called Central Mansion. Many former buildings endure in name if not physically in HK - it might be a willful act of remembrance on the developer's part, but I suspect it is more of an act of convenience and expediency. Anyway, the upshot is a bunch of new buildings in HK with names that remember what use to be on the site. I digress...

The bottom two shots show us that inside the lobby of the theatre was the "Central Soda Fountain" or 中央冰室 (Jung Ying Bing Sat). A "bing sat" is really a type of HK style (retro) cafe that was popular before corporate America invaded :-) They've become a bit iconic, to the point where even aforementioned corporate America is getting in on the act.

Anyway, here is a picture to show what that part of the world looks like now. Behold, Central Mansion and the pace that was formerly occupied by Central Theatre and Soda Fountain (the alley is still there :-) )

I Spy (TV Series) - Robert Culp (1965) - Various Harbour views

As I start to wind down the I Spy posts I thought I should stick up these various harbour shots from the Chrysanthemum episode. Nothing to say here really other than they show us a time when HK was less high-rise and far more picturesque (in my opinion).

I Spy (TV Series) - Robert Culp (1965) - Tsim Sha Tsui Public Pier, Kowloon

An easy one to spot from Chrysanthemum but revealing by the fact that we can see the place hasn't really changed at all that much in the last 50 years. Most of the change along this part of the coastline was further to the east where the New World Centre used to stand.

I Spy (TV Series) - Robert Culp (1965) - Castle Peak Bay, Tuen Mun

The I Spy team really did manage to make it to almost all corners of our humble abode, so it's of no surprise to find out that they also made it all the way out to what is now Tuen Mun new town, but in 1965 was still the unreclaimed Castle Peak Bay. This one had me scratching my head for a while because I just couldn't place it. However, despite the blurry glimpse of the mountain (see picture 4 below) there was enough detail for me to think it may be Castle Peak (Chinese name: 青山 Tsing Shan).

Actually, it looks as though this scene was used in two separate episodes: No Exchange on Damaged Merchandise and Carry Me Back to Old Tsing Tao (the latter, if you remember also used nearby Dragon Garden as a location).

I've been informed by a helpful person on Facebook called Vincent that this road is the stretch of Castle Peak Road that currently sits next to Chi Lok Garden. Of course, it is completely changed and unrecognisable now (you can't even see the lower hills in the distance due to development) to the point that it's exact location is impossible to pinpoint and putting a Streetview picture up for comparison will show you nothing but buildings.

However, I do believe that the bit of land we see sticking into the water behind the car in the first picture is the (now landlocked) hill that contains the Sam Shing Temple.

I Spy (TV Series) - Robert Culp (1965) - The Seven Little Fortunes

One of the I Spy episodes seems to have gained a cult following due to it featuring early on-screen appearances by some of those who went on to become the HK film industry heavyweights (an apt description for at least one of them as we shall soon see).

The episode is No Exchange on Damaged Merchandise and features scenes from a festival that as far as I can tell was one of the Annual Tin Hau festival performances put on in Pat Heung (i.e. 8 villages) area near to Yuen Long. There on display is a small troupe of children performing some acrobatics for the camera. here are the grabs.

Now the hard job of identifying them all. They were known as the 7 Little Fortunes (七小福 - Chat Siu Fuk) and all had stage names of course with the surname Yuen (元) Yuen Long was Sammo Hung, Yuen Lou was Jackie Chan, Yuen Biao was...er...Yuen Biao, Yuen Kwai was Corey Yuen. Yuen Wah also, like Yuen Biao, kept his original stage name. There was also Yuen Tak and Yuen Mo and several more as the group expanded, I suspect. I don't really know enough to identify the latter two but here is my attempt at identifying them in the above pictures. Taking the last picture above we can see Sammo Hung on the left, followed by Jackie Chan. I think it is Yuen Wah with the panda-striped face (in the other pictures). Of course the small one with the yellow costume on is Yuen Biao. I can't work out if Corey Yuen is the one being thrown by Sammo or the one standing next to JC?

Corrections welcome, of course.

By the way, just to remind people how long ago this was filmed, Jackie Chan was probably about 11 years old when this was filmed. He turned 63 in 2017!