Drunken Master - Jackie Chan (1978) - Lok Wo Sha Lane, Wu Kai Sha

I've covered this location before because it was seen in The Young Master. I also went to the trouble, and expense ($120 - at a time before the Government moved their imagery online) to obtain an aerial image showing the location as it used to be.

It's been more than ten years since I wrote that post and in the intervening time the former open grassy area that, more or less, corresponded with the location (see the images at the bottom of my The Young Master post) has changed drastically. First, there is a brand new residential development called "The Entrance" squeezed into the space, and secondly, the rest of the available space is now taken up by one of Hong Kong's new "transitional" housing developments: essentially temporary blocks of converted shipping containers that provide low-cost housing to the ever-growing queue of people waiting for allocation to a public housing estate. You can see the current (2023)  Streetview images here. It's quite sad that even the limited view I was able to capture in 2013 has also now gone.

Drunken Master - Jackie Chan (1978) - Shap Sze Heung, Sai Kung

Well, we were here just a few posts ago for Knockabout and I think if you look at the images in that post you will see some familiar hills in the background. In Drunken Master this is the location where Beggar So and Fei-hung stay whilst the latter undergoes his rigourous training in preparation for learning "Eight Drunk Immortals Fist". I've already explained what has become of this place in that other post so I won't labour the point here, it's too depressing for me to think about. Actually, my feeling is that this particular location is a bit further south and west given the proximity of Ma On Shan in the background of some images - perhaps nearer to Ma Kwu Lam village? Of course it might just be the product of the focal length of the camera lens making the background look closer.

Drunken Master - Jackie Chan (1978) - Chat Sing Temple, Ma On Shan

I've covered this before for The Young Master, but it seems to crop up quite a lot (follow the link to Andi's blog from my The Young Master post). This is where Fei-hung comes across the "Stick King" again and takes revenge for their previous encounter. The temple has been restored, but unfortunately it's been done with some bright red paint work on the brick that makes the place look like a particpant in the "cake or not" quiz.

One of the funny things I did notice was that there is a slight continuity error in the backround of the fight. The village where the temple is located (Kwun Hang) has a communal sports ground nearby, and even by 1978 standards it looked a lot more modern than the period for which this film is set (mid 1800s?). It looks as though someone suddenly realised they should try and make it look a bit more traditional/old by chucking a bamboo mat on the top.

Someone: "Don't you think those fence posts look a bit modern?"

Someone else: "Sorted!"

Drunken Master - Jackie Chan (1978) - Tang Chung Ling Ancestral Hall, Fanling

Here's one that no one seems to have noticed before, and to be fair, I only just did too. I just posted earlier about this location, but it was only after a bit of further investigation that I realised that the Tang Chung Ling Ancestral Hall was also the location where the hitman (Wang Jang Lee) picks up his secret contracts and where he first encounters Fei-hung (Chan). What we're seeing on screen is the hall when it was still very much in disrepair prior to its full restoration in 1992.

The exact location used in the movie is the second courtyard/end hall at the back of the building. One thing to notice is that the wrought-iron grill (see images 3 & 4 below) above the wooden door is still in-situ. I have to say that now that I know this, it makes the restoration of the hall even more impressive given how it looked before. It's been many years since I went here in person so I can't remember if this rear section is even open to the public. Perhaps someone can let me know in the comments.

Drunken Master - Jackie Chan (1978) - Lung Yeuk Tau, Fanling

In the scene whereby Fei-hung fights with the woman who turns out to be his aunty, the Tang Chung Ling Ancesral Hall and neighbouring Tin Hau Temple can be seen in the background. The area where the filming was done is now a carpark. Out of the two "heritage"walks that the Government likes to advertise (the other being the Ping Shan Heritage Trail), the Lung Yeuk Tau is the one I find more interesting, certainly for kung fu fans given the number of movies shot here. Shek Lo is also part of this trail.

Drunken Master - Jackie Chan (1978) - Jardin Lou Lim Ieoc, Macau

The school of Wong Kei-ying, Fei-hung's father, was filmed at a location in Macau in case you hadn't already discovered this fact. This includes both the interior scenes of the "kwoon" and some exterior scenes where Fei-hung is being put through his gruelling "horse stance" training as punishment for his misbehaviour.

(R-L) 黃麒英武舘 - Wong Kei-ying Mo Gwoon ("Wong Kei-ying's Martial School")

The location is, of course, Lou Lim Ieoc Garden and is one of Macau's most popular tourist sites. It's also a very regular star of this blog with several movies I have covered being filmed there at some point. The building in the centre of the garden is called the Chun Chou Tong pavilion and this is the interior we can see below.

Then we go out into the garden to watch Fei-hung being tortured by Kai Shin (Dean Shek) until his buddy turns up with a stool.

Drunken Master - Jackie Chan (1978) - nr Wong Chuk Yeung, Sai Kung

Drunken Master (醉拳 - tseoi kuen in Canto lit. 'drunken fist') is probably one of the earliest Jackie Chan films I saw circa 1988. Hong Kong films were so hard to get hold of in the UK at the time and much of my fascination with these films was kept alive through the pages of Combat magazine which I bought religiously every month between 1986 and 1991. Anyway, thanks to like-minded friends I met during my A-levels I was finally able to watch an English dub of this movie via a dodgy bootleg and watched it over and over.

The story revolves around Wong Fei-hung (Jackie Chan) who misbehaves to the point where his dad brings in a strict "uncle" (everyone's an uncle in Hong Kong) called So Hat-yi (蘇乞兒 - aka Beggar So played by Yuen Siu-tin) to discpline him as well as teach him the "Eight Drunken Immortals Fist". Wang Jang Lee plays the hired hitman that has been contracted to kill Wong's father and we are introduced to him in the open sequence as he retrieves his next hit from a secret altar and then goes to kill him.

Much like Knockabout, many of the rural locations seen on this film are hard to track down because Hong Kong has developed so much in the interim. One of my later posts will show how a location that had already become unrecognisable when I posted about it years ago, has changed again. That said there are some recognisalble places that we can talk about including this first one. It was a piece of flat open ground up in the Sai Kung hills that has been used by film makers on multiple occasions. I have been up here looking for the exact spot but can confirm it was completely overgrown when I was there, but this was a few years ago so perhaps it is worth a revisit soon. It's not far from the fire lookout.

Police Story 2 - Jackie Chan (1988) - Po Hang Lane, Tsz Wan Shan

Many thanks to an anonymous commentator who has identified a rather difficult location for Police Story 2 that I figured would take months to track down (I do a lot of these locations on the fly rather than have a big back log of places to post, so if I don't get them within a few days they tend to get forgotten about until I have time to go back and try again).

The scene is the start of the police's surveillance of John Cheung's bad guy. He leaves a building on a large set up steps between a couple of buildings as the covert cop van pulls up and starts to take pictures of him. The immediate next scene is this one (the same one where anon commented) where Cheung walks down some steps in TST.

Anyway, if you follow the link to that post you'll see the initial scene below is located on Po Hang Lane (蒲蘅里) in Tsz Wan Shan. I've actually walk ed past this location on multiple occasions because I used to take my kids to the cycle track in Po Kong Village Park on the opposite side of Po Kong Village Road. Looking at Streetview, the place hasn't changed at all other than the buildings getting a new lick of paint.

Anyway, a big thanks to anon for saving me several weeks of tedious trawling through the map.

Police Story 2 - Jackie Chan (1988) - Kar Wo Lei, So Kwun Wat

The gang's ramshackle factory building where they are holding May was most likely constructed just for the movie. I say this for three reasons: the first is that it gets completely destroyed at the end of the film, secondly, it looks temporary anyway (I expect most of the interiors were filmed elsewhere), and finally, aerial imagery of the area it was located in 1988, and just prior to, shows an empty space where you would expect to see a factory. However, if you know differently please feel free to comment.

Anyway, I managed to pin down the factory to an area near Tuen Mun called Kar Wo Lei. These days there is a small village development called Nim Wan Tsuen there, but back in the 1980s it was a sandy open bit of ground. The chimneys in the background belonged to the Lok On Pai Desalination Plant, which is still used to this day (minus the chimneys) as a large studio space (for example, I believe that Jet Li's scenes in Expendables 2 was filmed inside as well as Dead or Alive: Final and many more films I haven't covered).

Look carefully in the last images and you can see the flat reclaimed area that was shortly to become the Gold Coast Hotel and Resort area in the lower left.

Police Story 2 - Jackie Chan (1988) - Cheung Shun Street, Lai Chi Kok

This is the street where Ka Kui follows the bombers and then has to jump on top of a truck and a bus in order to gain access to the building where they are holding his girlfriend. If the area looks familiar it's because just down the road is the Police Station from Righting Wrongs.

The Elite Industrial Building that Ka Kui leaps into (through the Lee Kum Kee sign) as well as the Great Wall Factory Building from where he starts his assault, are still around.

Cheung Sha Wan Plaza under construction in the background

Police Story 2 - Jackie Chan (1988) - Kai Tak Tunnel, Ma Tau Kok

Ka Kui tricks the baddies so that he can enter the tunnel and cut off the radio communication that would otherwise allow the bombers to set off his vest bomb. The tunnel in question is the Kai Tak Tunnel, still going strong after all these years even though the airport it once ducked under has long since gone. So, Ka Kui drives in through the west entrance (image 1), stops the car mid-tunnel to deal with the vest (image 2), and then runs out of the east entrance (image 3) before the bad guys can cotton on to what is unfolding.

Police Story 2 - Jackie Chan (1988) - East Kowloon Corridor, To Kwa Wan

As the cars make their way north along the Kowloon City Road section of the East Kowloon Corridor, we can see the circular apertures of the To Kwa Wan Market building on the right side of the screen. This means the cars are just passing over Lok Shan Road.

Police Story 2 - Jackie Chan (1988) - Chatham Road North, Hung Hom

After tricking the gang into driving on ahead of him so he can deal with the bomb strapped to his chest, Ka Kui drives up Chatham Road North. In the image below is the Fat Kwong Flyover bridge that is still around. In fact, I covered the same location (albeit on theother side of the bridge) a few months ago for Asia-Pol Secret Service, which shows just how long this bridge has been around. Speaking of which, a thought just popped into my head in that there is only 22 years difference between those two films (1966 - 1988), and yet it's already 34 years since Police Story 2 was made! I'm just getting old and wondering where all the years have gone...

Police Story 2 - Jackie Chan (1988) - Bowen Road, Mid-levels

The small tree lined road where the bombers meet up with Ka Kui's after he has grabbed the suitcase of money is Bowen Road. The first image shows the car driving under the elevated section of Borrett Road that leads to Borrett Mansions above. The second image is at the junction with Borrett Road not that far along.

Earlier in this sequence, we get a view past Ka Kui's car looking towards the - under construction - Bank of China Tower. This was captured a little further along either Borrett Road or Bowen Road (hard to tell which one) near to the bend below the old military hospital building. The view is now obscured by #6 Borrett Road development.

Police Story 2 - Jackie Chan (1988) - Ping Ting Road, Hammer Hill

After also kidnapping Ka Kui, the bombers make another extortion demand, this time from a payphone on Ping Ting Road - it's actually just a stone's throw from the old Golden Harvest studio complex, in fact just the next road down the hill.

In the top image, the East Kowloon Psychiatric Centre can be seen in the background right of the frame. This is still around. In the second image, the twin blocks of what was once the Hong Kong School for the Deaf can be seen on the other side of Hammer Hill Road. This is no longer there and has been replaced by Chun Tok School.

Police Story 2 - Jackie Chan (1988) - Chi Lok Villa, Tuen Mun

This is the home of Chor Yuen's invalided bad guy, Chu Tou, from the first movie. Ka Kui heads there as soon as May is abducted because he believes the old man is responsible, when in reality it's the bombing gang.

Built in 1955, this was actually quite a beautiful house and was featured in many home grown local Cantonese movies throughout the 60s. This may just be the last glmipse of it looking half decent because not long afterwards it was bought by the Chinachem group (run by Nina and Teddy Wang) and left to rot in a typical HK way of destroying stuff so there can be no arguments about its demolition.

In a weird, further Jackie Chan link, Teddy Wang went missing not long afterwards and it was rumoured his body was buried here. Wang's disappearance was the inspiration behind Chan's Crime Story movie a few years later.

Following several years of dereliction and use by local kids for BB gun battles, the house was demolished in the mid 00's and replaced by a new development called "South Crest". You can google the old place (use 志樂別墅) and find lots of old images of it, including the golden dragon water feature in the front garden that can be seen in the film grabs below.

Castle Peak Road

Pine Villas (still around) can be seen at the left

Golden dragon water feature