Dragon's Claws - Lau Kar-yung (1979) - Near Lung Mei, Sai Kung

This sequence below was shot in the area now occupied by a small village development called "Springfield Villas". Bruce Lee fans may recognise the location from his Game of Death New Territories outdoor footage which I believe (IMO - although I should really make another effort to really nail the location) was filmed nearby where Greenwood Villas now stands. In the background you would normally see a small row of houses belonging to Lung Mei but obviously this shot has been framed so they are obscured. You can still see the rice terraces in the background of this sequence - a familiar site in Hong Kong for many years and even now in some locations can still be discerned despite there being no rice cultivation in Hong Kong anymore.

This whole area has been redeveloped (Greenfield Villas, Jade Villa, Springfield Villas etc) and now the Springfield Villa development sits on this site.

Dragon's Claws - Lau Kar-yung (1979) - Chong Ha Ching Sze, Fanling

The "back of the school" scenes where we see the living quarters of the family were filmed at another location I identified a few years ago for Snake in the Eagle's Shadow. It's called Chong Ha Ching Sze and is a Taoist retreat/temple so I am not sure of how easy it is to enter. The exterior garden at least seems to be accessible to the general public. I have yet to go there despite identifying it several years ago.

In this night time scene it was the moon gate and adjacent windows that gave away the location. You can compare it to the screen cap from the link above.

Dragon's Claws - Lau Kar-yung (1979) - Tang Chung Ling Ancestral Hall, Lung Yeuk Tau

The headquarters of the Dragon Boxing Set (the style of kung fu practised by Lung Hsia and his family) is based at the Tang Chung Ling Ancestral Hall in Lung Yeuk Tau. This is where Ling Ko-fung (Wang Jang Lee) goes to claim leadership of the sect by defeating Lung's father, the current master.

We've seen it so many times on this blog in local movies and the great thing is fans like us can still go and visit because it forms part of the Lung Yeuk Tau Heritage Trail in Fanling.

Dragon's Claws - Lau Kar-yung (1979) - Kai Ham, Ho Chung

The scene where we are introduced to the Dragon Sect's members as they undergo training in the hills was filmed close to a small hamlet called Kai Ham near Ho Chung. Although not shot in the hamlet itself, just up the main road was a flat area marked as a dumping ground on maps from the late 1970s that more or less corresponds to the location so I believe this is what we can see in the images below. The view in the distance is towards the north slope of Razor Hill and just nestled on the left are the smaller hillocks that mark the area where Clearwater Bay Road joins with Hiram's Highway.

Suffice to say the Ho Chung area, including Kai Ham, is much more developed these days and this area we can see below looks to have been abandoned and left for nature to reclaim. Still, it's a new location for the blog that I haven't seen before.

Razor Hill on the right behind Lau Hok-nin's head

Dragon's Claws - Lau Kar-yung (1979) - nr Wong Chuk Yeung, Sai Kung

The next film comes courtesy of a Youtube channel called Cinema No. 8 - HK Movie which has a ton of HK movies in HD to watch. I have no idea if it's a legitimate outlet for these movies but these channels appear to have better luck in avoiding the YT copyright algorythms than my own (I've had about 5 movies removed in the last couple of months, some of which have been up for several months). You can watch it here.

Anyway, this is a sort of cash-in on the style of movie made popular by Jackie Chan in the late 1970s, similar down to the use of Wang Jang Lee as the main antagonist. The main role is played by Lau Kar-yung - nephew of Lau Ka-leung - who actually does a fairly decent job in his role as a cocky son of a kung fu master who learns a new style of kung fu (from a beggar - sound familiar?) in order to defeat his family's mortal enemy. The best thing in this film, for me, was seeing a young Yuen Qiu do her stuff. She's really underrated and it's a shame it took until Kung Fu Hustle for wider recognition.

Also similar to those other films is the film's opening scene as Wang Jang Lee takes on an opponent at the familiar location near Wong Chuk Yeung in Sai Kung. It's been featured in so many films already and I am sure many more I will cover in the future. As I explained on other posts, I have been up to investigate this area but it is now completely overgrown and unrecognisable. In this film we see it for the opening and finale fight scenes as well as a mid-film scene where Lung saves a woman from being robbed and attacked by a couple of bandits.