Jaguar Lives - Joe Lewis (1978) - Penha Church, Macau

Our last post for Jaguar Lives for the time being as we see Joe (or at least a stuntman) busting some moves on the square in front of Penha Church.

The last picture gives us a nice view looking towards Taipa and the Ponte Governador Nobre de Carvalho connecting Taipa to the Macau peninsula.

Jaguar Lives - Joe Lewis (1978) - Inner Harbour, Macau

Over to Macau now for a quick visit and some sights around the inner harbour area including the floating casino, the Kwong Hing Tai Firecracker company building (or at least the back of it facing the water) and a few more places worth mentioning.

In the above screencap we can see Joe surveying the shoreline. The low art deco style building in the centre screen is still around. I don't know anything about it but like its style and can see from Streetview that it is currently housing a company called "Tak Wah". Obviously we don't have "Waterview" yet, so I've had to settle for this land-side image from Streetview. It seems to be a working warehouse still. Incidentally, the building directly under Joe's chin is the former Grande Hotel. We looked at this place a few posts ago in Robert Mitchum's Macao.

The next shot is not a great one for scenery courtesy of the fact that ol' Joe is blocking most of it, but look on the right and you can see Penha Church up on the hill.

The next shot shows the back of the Kwong Hing Tai Firecracker building on the water. This is a great art deco style building and was once the feature of a post on my old blog. I shall resurrect it at some point but until then you can see the waterside rear of the building where firecrackers were loaded off onto boats for distribution. We also have a view of the stylish front courtesy of Streetview again.

Finally, here is the famous floating Casino looking less than splendid thanks to the fact that it was covered in bamboo scaffolding when they filmed this. It was called the Casino Macau Palace and has been seen here a couple of times in the past. It's gone now, but not sure when.

Jaguar Lives - Joe Lewis (1978) - Aberdeen Harbour, Aberdeen

Aberdeen featuring extensively in the following scene as Lewis follows a local hood back to his hiding place and discovers how they are transporting drugs (hidden in buckets of fish). We get a thorough tour of the whole area starting with the waterfront right in front of the town, but there are some interesting sights.

Starting at the top of Brick Hill - I believe the film was made in the year that Ocean Park opened but I don't know if the cable car was a feature of the park at the time - we zoom down into the harbour area. In the second picture you can see the uprights of what was to become the Ap Lei Chau road bridge. This started construction in January 1977. The space at the back on Brick Hill is now occupied by the Canadian International School that was hitting the headlines last year with its various troubles. The bottom picture in this series shows the wide angle view with the former Police Station up on the hillside. We've seen this building in many a movie on this blog.

We catch a closer look at the former Police Station in the following screencap as the action moves down onto the water.

But following that we also see some other buildings that are still very much around. The buildings you see below are the ones that now front Wu Nam St. Of course in 1978 they were along the waterfront but that has since been reclaimed and become the main bus terminal as well as having the widened Aberdeen Praya Road running across the front (it's actually a highway for through traffic now).

You can see the same block on this Streetview grab, although from the side because trees along the road prevent me from getting a similar view. It's also useful to see how much has been reclaimed in front. So, to put some context there, the camera would probably have been somewhere around where the left hand carriageway of the highway now stands (bottom left of the picture).

Our next shot shows us looking over towards the Tai Pak. I'm not sure on the position of the Tai Pak in 1978 but I do know that the Jumbo had also been opened a couple of years before. Tai Pak is now part of Jumbo Kingdom and sits right next to the Jumbo over at the Shum Wan end of the harbour, but it's possible it was still at the Aberdeen end when this was filmed.

Speaking of the Jumbo, as we just were, it makes a surprise appearance but not at this part of the film. The following screencap is actually taken during a sequence when the action moves over to Macau and the film makers either intentionally or unwittingly stuck in the Jumbo footage as part of the montage. It's quite possible they mistook it for the Macau floating casino, which we will see in a later post.

Jaguar Lives - Joe Lewis (1978) - Pottinger Street, Central

It wasn't too difficult to place this particular scene due to Pottinger Street's floor slabs, but also courtesy of the building in the background with the vertical fins which sits at 76 Wellington St - on the north corner where it intersects with the higher portion of Pottinger St.

Jaguar Lives - Joe Lewis (1978) - Aberdeen Chinese Permanent Cemetery, Aberdeen

Despite being in the background of most Aberdeen scenes featured on this blog, the Aberdeen Chinese Permanent Cemetery has only been properly used once before on these pages - by Robert Clouse for 1974's Golden Needles.

Anyway, here is where Joe clandestinely meets up with a local contact providing some information. The top (and second) photo show the old Shek Pai Wan Estate which was found to have stability issues and redeveloped in the 1990's.

Jaguar Lives - Joe Lewis (1978) - Peking Road, Kowloon

Time for a new film and back to colour for the time being as we follow Joe Lewis as the 'Jaguar' pursuing a criminal mastermind. Joe was in fact a famous tournament fighter back in the 1960's and is often credited with the development of kickboxing and full-contact karate. Not many people know that he was also a friend of Bruce Lee's during the 60's and was even trained by him for a time before a much publicised falling out. Anyway, first off the bat is a visit to somewhere that should be familiar to regular readers of this blog, it's Peking Road in Tsim Sha Tsui with the famous Club Tasogare sign.

And for a Bruce bonus, here is Joe walking up the side alley on Peking Road which used to be the access path for the Red Lips bar. The bar has gone but the alleyway still exists between the blocks that front Lock Road and Hankow Road. These days it's used by vendors for small stalls selling trinkets and bags etc.