The Angel Strikes Again - Lily Ho (1968) - Lam Kam Road, Lam Tsuen

We're all over the place for this sequence, because the junction where Deng Lei puts up the road works sign is actually several miles away from Route TWISK. The junction in question was the old service road running behind Hang Ha Po village in Lam Tsuen. Anyone who ever made the trip tio the Wishing Tree will have either gone into here or the next entrance along. Since the film was shot the sloped entrance has been removed and a flatter access point created further along. However, traces of the sloped road still remain as a footpath. The road is called Ngau Kwu Leng Lane or Lam Tsuen Heung Kung Sho Road  depending on which map you read. It terminates on the lower slopes of Pak Tai To Yan.

In the images below, the car is driving south along Lam Kam Road with Cloudy Hill in the background. Deng Lei hops out of the service road entrance and blocks the road with the signs forcing the car to turn up the village road.

The Merry Wife - Li Ching (1971) - Lam Kam Road, Lam Tsuen

Next up on my Shaw's hitlist is a 1971 film, The Merry Wife, about a young girl, Zhenzhen (Li Ching) who marries a school teacher, Lin Min (Ling Yun) but then decides to go back to school to complete her studies. The couple convince the husband's headteacher to accept her at his school and it is agreed to as long as they keep it a secret. What follows are some slightly unbelievable situations where their secret is slowly but surely discovered by her classmates and fellow teachers. It's an okay film, supposedly a romantic comedy, more of a drama though, and makes up for it's rather farfetched plot by showing us some great locations around 1971 Hong Kong.

First up is a place I am very familiar with because I spent a month living here at my friend's house on my very first trip to Hong Kong back in November 1995 - yes, I will celebrate a 30 year anniversary later this year. Doesn't time fly? Hard to believe that thirty years prior to that first trip takes me all the way back to the mid-60s before this film was made...(when you get to my age at 50+ years, it's this kind of stuff you think about a lot). Anyway, this is the Lam Tsuen valley in Tai Po and Zhenzhen is riding along Lam Kam Road to go and meet her (then) fiance at the train station.

Vanessa - Olivia Pascal (1977) - Kadoorie Farm and Botanic Garden, Lam Tsuen

Not only has Vanessa inherited her uncle's chain of brothels and his house, he also owned a plantation has fallen into her ownership, much to the anger of her uncle's illegitimate son who currently runs the place. In reality the plantation is the Kadoorie Farm and Botanic Garden out in the Lam Tsuen valley near Tai Po.

The farm was created in 1956 by the then Kadoorie brothers, Lawrence and Horace (Lawrence was the father of the current Kadoorie family head, Michael, who in turn is the uncle of the current farm boss, Andrew McAulay) as a site to assist and train poor farmers in the area. It's well worth a visit if you get the chance (catch bus 64K from Tai Wo East Rail Station).

We get quite a few views from half way up the farm's higher slopes (in reality, the lower slopes of Tai Mo Shan) as well as a major scene filmed at one of the farm's picturesque pagodas, the Rainbow Pavilion.

The Rainbow Pavilion sits next to a waterfalls and although it's a long time since I visited (+10 years) I seem to recall the name is because of the rainbows that can sometimes be seen in the spray from the water. Anyway, there is a later scene filmed there when Vanessa's uncles son (who runs the plantation) tries to *ahem* convince her to let him keep it.

A Lotus for Miss Quon - Lang Jeffries (1967) - Lam Kam Road, Lam Tsuen

One of the more unfortunate incidents of the film is when Jason has discovered the diamonds and is stopped from leaving the mansion by his servant, who just happens to be an undercover copper charged with keeping an eye on him in case the diamonds turn up.

A scuffle ensues and the poor cop is killed by accident and Jason undertakes an elaborate scheme to make the body look like a victim of a road crash. The body is dumped and later found by his corrupt boss. The actual location of the body dump is too difficult to find (for now) but the general area may have been in Lam Tsuen because the sequence where the cops park their car to investigate (i.e. look for the diamonds) was filmed along the Lam Kam Road in Lam Tsuen.

The hill in the far background is Lung Shan in Fanling which indicates that this scene was shot somewhere along Lam Kam Road close to the intersection with Tai Po Road. The nearest village would be San Uk Pai (新屋排) (behind the camera).

Bamboo in Winter - Crystal Kwok (1991) - Lam Tsuen River, Lam Tsuen

The baptism scenes in Bamboo in Winter were filmed in the Lam Tsuen river in the Lam Tsuen valley - west of Tai Po town but still part of Tai Po District.  

I once spent a month living at a friends house in Lam Tsuen and that was about 4 years after this film was made. A recent visit confirmed to me how much redevelopment has gone on here. The clear view you can see in the film is rare given the number of village houses that have sprung up through the numerous villages that sit inside the valley. However, look carefully and you see Kwun Yam Shan in the background of the second screen grab.

Neil worked as the location manager on this film so I'm sure he might be able to recall the exact spot where the filming occurred, but in the meantime I'm going to make a stab at the location as somewhere around the back of Kau Liu Ha (very near to the Lam Kam Road Interchange) near Ngau Kwu Leng Lane.

Here's a reasonable match on the area courtesy of Streetview taken from the Ngau Kwu Leng Lane bridge.

The Young Master - Jackie Chan (1980) - Abandoned House Revisted, Lam Tsuen

Following on from my previous post where I had quite accidentally stumbled upon the old abandoned house courtesy of a local hiking website (see here for a reminder), I decided to go and get some of my own snaps today, and I think it was perhaps a very good job I did.

This post really epitomises what I love about finding these filming locations. I probably first saw this film sometime in the late 80's/early 90's and many scenes are ingrained into my memory. It's a great feeling to be standing in the same spot you saw all those years ago on film.

Anyway, the house is located next to Ling Wan Monastery (淩雲寺) at the far end of Lam Kam Road in Lam Tsuen (actually, the monastery even has its own bus stop on the 64K route from Tai Po to Yuen Long). You simply alight at the aforementioned bus stop and walk down to take the first left next to the cement plant. Keep following the road and eventually you'll see the following archway marking the entrance to the monastery.

Through the archway and just to the right is the entrance to where the house is, but this is why I think it was a good job I went sooner rather than later: the whole area has been taped off in preparation for demolishing the house. :-(

It seems to be just my luck, as soon as I find a place it gets removed or demolished. Such is life, but I guess at least I got to wander around before it was demolished. I was a bit naughty and snuck through the tape and various warning signs and took a bunch of pictures. I've uploaded many of them here for posterity's sake, because who knows when this place will disappear. I've thrown in the odd reminder from The Young Master as well so you can see how much hasn't changed in 35 years.

As you can see the whole front area in front of the house has been cleared. I think this is preparation for its demolition. Even the tree stumps have been burnt to remove them properly. Access at the moment is via a rather dilapidated stairway on the right hand side of the house. And it brings you up to the area where the actors (Yuen Biao, Shek Kin and JC) sit down when they first arrive.

It even still has the same chunk missing from the side of the back archway. The bit where Yuen Biao is sitting is right at the front and he is just afew inches from a 3 metre drop to the ground. I don't know what was through the doorway behind JC back in 1980, but these days there is a (recently) shot-creted slope, you can just see the concrete on my pictures. Next we move into the room at the back where, in the film, there is a rope attached that JC hauls himself up.

There is a vine dangling down now, but the roof - not in the greatest condition on film - has almost completely collapsed with just a couple of remaining crossbeams. It certainly wouldn't support someones weight now. The window at the top is still bricked in. I wish I knew more about the history of the place because I can imagine it being a fairly stylish home before it fell into disrepair.

The above view is from the other side of the building (the side closer to the monastery) and as such I don't think you can get too far back (such as where Shek Kin and Fung Fung are talking) because it goes into monastery property (although the monastery seems to have illegally taken over Govt land).

Finally, I'll leave you with a few more shots taken of various angles of the place.

Looking in from the front 

The stairs up to the house are on the right of the picture

I wonder what the lower windows were for because although there is an airspace behind them, there is no basement as such. I did speak to one of the nuns in the monastery and she told me the house was a Japanese house, so I wonder if it was built during the occupation and has been abandoned ever since? It's certainly a strange enough design that I haven't seen before. Anyway, enjoy these pictures now because I am sure this place will just be a memory fairly soon.

The Young Master - Jackie Chan (1980) - Ling Wan Monastery, Lam Tsuen

A late entry due to the age it has taken to locate this particular building. It's the ruined building that JC is taken to by Yuen Biao and Shek Kin when he tries to escape by climbing up to the upper floor on a rope whilst shackled. Here's a reminder.

 Thanks to the rather excellent Chinese Hiking in Hong Kong website (a source I use a lot for tracking down the more obscure stuff) and their great photos we can see that this ruined building - located next to Ling Wan Monastery at the end of Lam Kam Road - is still around and still...a ruin. Unfortunately, it's not possible to link directly to the hike under question, but you can scroll down to the following entry to see the other pictures: 八鄉賞花穿村遊 28/2/2015. Meanwhile here is their photo that I have had to embed rather than link to.

I will try and make an effort to get there soon, but in the meantime we'll just have to make do with the picture from the front.