The Brain Stealers - Lily Ho Li-li (1968) - Diamond Hill Cemetery, Kowloon

Pretending that their father has been killed, the siblings go through a mock funeral for him to throw the kidnappers off his scent. This scene was filmed at the Diamond Hill Cemetery.

Tsz Wan Shan Estate (Blks 51 & 52) in the background

The Brain Stealers - Lily Ho Li-li (1968) - Kai Tak Airport

Whilst the family pretend to bury their deceased father, instead he is slipping away to Japan to hide via a plane from Kai Tak Airport.

The Brain Stealers - Lily Ho Li-li (1968) - Port Shelter, Sai Kung

Jia-wen is trying to woo Chiu-lan and takes her out on a boat for the day whilst they are being watched by the agents from the UN. This scene was shot at the Tai Mong Tsai-end of the harbour.

The Brain Stealers - Lily Ho Li-li (1968) - Shaws Movietown

I seem to have lost count how many times Shaw House has been used as a nightclub in one of its productions. In this film it is called Queen Bee and is supposed to be located in Tokyo. In the film it is owned by Chiu-lan's fiance, Jia-wen (Peter Chen Ho) and is where her brother is kidnapped from.

This isn't the only appearance of Movietown in the film though and a few more shots were used for a variety of scenes. The following ones are when the UN are showing agent 009 (Lin Chih-yung) footage of the scientist's laboratory.

The famous yellow gates (Shaw fans know)

There are also some other lab vicinity scenes later that were also filmed inside Movietown. IN fact, I believe the buildings you see below are ones that have been left intact at the very front of the plot (including the old Shaw House). The first building below was the old colour lab located at the south tip of Movietown.

The Colour Lab

You can see the Colour Lab in the distance

The Yellow Gates

The Brain Stealers - Lily Ho Li-li (1968) - Shui Hing House/Prestige Tower

Another Inoue Umetsugu film here in the shape of The Brain Stealers, one of the many spy-oriented movies that Shaws produced in the 1960s. This one stars Lily Ho as a judo expert, Li Chiu-lan, daughter of a famous scientist who has just invented a process to boost plant growth and yield to help solve food shortages in the light of the earth's ever increasing population. The problem is there is a nefarious megalomanic called Dr Zero who want the obtain the secrets so he can use it on humans and create superhumans to help hm rule the world. Dr Zero has been kidnapping scientists from around the world and forced them to invent a machine that can swap peoples' minds (hence "Brain Stealers"), and he uses the machine on Chiu-lan's brother to swap his mind with one of his henchmen.

The plot is hilarious but good fun and although supposedly shot in Hong Kong, Japan, Taiwan and Thailand (according to the excellent HKMDB) it is mainly a studio-based film with the odd location thrown in here and there.

The film opens with a panning shot of the harbour from Tsim Sha Tsui as the camera moves towards a judo class taking place on a nearby rooftop. This is where we first see Chiu-lan's prowess at chucking people around. The building they are training on is what is now called Prestige Tower but back in the 1960s was Shui Hing House. It's a nice view though because we also get to see the upper floors of the former Peninsula Court/Marco Polo hotel, the "Rolex" sign on top of Hotel Merlin and the brand spanking new Hankow Centre in the background (completed 1968 - it's the very clean building in the abckground of the third image).

The Peninsula Court Hotel rooftop (behind the titles)

The sign says (r-l) 香港大川柔道學院 (Hong Kong Great River Judo College)

The Lady Professional - Lily Ho Li-li (1971) - Yau Ma Tei Police Station

The end of the film sees Tian-li turn herself in at the local police station. In this case it's the oft-used Yau Ma Tei Police Station on the corner of Canton Road and Public Square Street.

The Lady Professional - Lily Ho Li-li (1971) - Kai Tak Airport

Tian-li finally catches up with the mastermind behind Shi's assassination and the subsequent attempts to kill her. She knows he is leaving Hong Kong for Europe and goes to the airport in disguise.

The Lady Professional - Lily Ho Li-li (1971) - Waterloo Road, Kowloon Tong

After a brief interlude whereby Tian-li deals with more would be assassins (including two baldies played by Bolo Yeung and Chih Yuen) by putting one through a cement mixer - it's a bit like the woodchipper scene in Fargo - she heads to the airport in a taxi, dressed as a nun.

This shot shows the taxi driving down the slope at the north end of Waterloo Road. Most of the buildings you see are still around. The only really change is the addition of the north/south flyover that avoids the various traffic lights stops around Cornwall Street.

The Lady Professional - Lily Ho Li-li (1971) - The Peak Cafe

Following another attempt on her life, Tian-li goes to the Peak cafe to make a call to the man she believes is pulling all the strings. The sequence starts with a view to the north, looking over Victoria Harbour, before panning south to focus on the Peak Cafe. The scene then moves to the cafe garden where Tian-li makes her call. As you can see from the images, the Peak Cafe hasn't changed very much since then.

The opening shot shows a nice view of Victoria Harbour

The camera turns anti-clockwise and we catch a brief glimpse west

The Peak Cafe. Upper tram terminus building on the right

The Lady Professional - Lily Ho Li-li (1971) - View of the Harbour

Tian-li's friend, Huang, lives in an apartment bought by her sugar daddy boyfriend, who also happens to be the guy tasked to kill Tain-li. In one scene as she is driving home with her friends we see some in-car point of view shots looking over the harbour from the Peak area. Sadly they're a bit blurry, but it's a nice view.

The Lady Professional - Lily Ho Li-li (1971) - Kowloon Wharves

The contract to kill Shi is subcontracted out to the boss of the guy who is blackmailing Tian-li. They are based in a warehouse at some wharves somewhere. The establishing shot shows us the Kowloon Wharves but in the close ups of the warehouses/godowns, it looks like that was filmed elsewhere (possibly even Movietown). This image is a stitch from a panning shot of the area. This area is now all part of the Harbour City mall complex.

The Lady Professional - Lily Ho Li-li (1971) - HSBC Building Mongkok

The establishing shot for the company run by the gold smuggling gang is the HSBC building in Mongkok. It had only been open a couple of years when the film was shot so was still quite modern for the time. The curved concrete shades above each of the window apertures make it quite distinctive. It's still there. In fact I was in there just the other day withdrawing some dosh.

The Lady Professional - Lily Ho Li-li (1971) - Gloucester Road, Wanchai

The two main nefarious antagonists discuss the need to kill Shi as they drive along Gloucester Road in their Rolls Royce. In the background you can see a building site with Far East Motors Ltd on the front hoarding. This was the location of the former Far East Motors car showroom that can be seen in the back of a shot from The World of Suzie Wong. Behind it is the large B.A.T factory that stood along the waterfront until the mid-70s when it was replaced by Elizabeth House. The in-car scenes were obviously shot over a long period as the background outside changes from Harcourt Road to Queen's Road Central. This shot below was the establishing shot for the sequence.

The Lady Professional - Lily Ho Li-li (1971) - Shatin

Once out of prison, Shi is being driven away when a group of killers attack him. Most of this scene was filmed on the new reclamation for Shatin Town. There is the odd glimpse of the old Shatin Floating Restaurant in the background of some shots when it was moored on the river in front of Wo Che Village. The area where the restaurant was berthed is now the Wo Che Estate which makes the location where this sequence was filmed around where the Wo Che and Lek Yuen Estates now stand. In one scene there is a prominent building in the background which can still be seen today. It's the "Siu Tin Toa Home for the Aged" in Sheung Wo Che Village (see bottom image).

This section above was right next to the restaurant (off camera left)

You can see the floating restaurant in the background of both these shots

Siu Tin Toa Home for the Aged with the red paint.

The Lady Professional - Lily Ho Li-li (1971) - Stanley Prison

Chan Shen plays Shi Yun Pu, the recently released prisoner who is now the target of the criminal gang because he is about to testify against them in court. He is released from Stanley prison and is given a couple of police officers for protection. It looks as though the film makers used the real prison interior -  confirmed when the actors walk towards the main front wall through a courtyard area (image 6). The courtyard is still around according the GoogleEarth, but the surrounding buildings have been expanded to encroach on it a bit over the years.

Chan Shen may be familiar to anyone who has seen Cleopatra Jones and the Casino of Gold, as he plays Soo Da Chen (sounds like a made up name) and was the subject of the long foot chase in the middle of the film that starts off in Tsim Sha Tsui and ends on Hollywood Road in front of Man Mo Temple. He died at a very young age of 44 when he suffered a heart attack in the showers of the Shaw Dormitories at Movietown.

This courtyard still exists but the surrounding buildings have grown