The Angel Strikes Again - Lily Ho (1968) - Lung Ha Wan, Clearwater Bay

Lung Ha Wan a.k.a Lobster Bay has long been a popular filming location for local (and overseas) movie productions. In this film it is where 009 and Deng Lei (Tang Ching) finally catch up with the female gang boss. This whole area seen below has changed significantly with the constrcution of the riding school as well as the general growth of trees and other vegetation. You can see the same area from the other side at the beginning of Weiße Fracht für Hongkong. This area (top three images below) is now all part of the riding school. In the fourth image we see the path up to what is now the kite flying area.

Sticking with Lobster Bay and the following captures are from later in the film as the gang pick up their ransom money via scuba diver. The diver exits Port Shelter via the first beach at Lobster Bay (where the concrete ramp was later constructed by smugglers before being destroyed by the British Army). The diver gets into the car and it drives back up Lung Ha Wan Road.

The Generation Gap - David Chiang (1973) - Lung Ha Wan Road, Clearwater Bay

Ling Xi has some sort of dream of them both riding along on a motorbike. This was shot along Lung Ha Wan Road in Clearwater Bay.

Sweet is Revenge - Yueh Hua (1967) - Lung Ha Wan, Clearwater Bay

Continuing a look at some of the movies on the Celestial Youtube channel, here is another title, Sweet is Revenge, starring Yuen Hua as a sort of Robin Hood type character. The film also stars Ho Fan who most people would more likely recognise as a famed HK street photographer, but he also dabbled in acting in the 1960s as well as some serious directing later. In this film he plays an innocent doctor who is framed for a crime and sent to prison so a local General's son can move in on his fiancé. As with many Shaw productions, much of the film is shot on sound stages, but there are afew outdoor locations. The first one is the location of the prison where David (Fan Ho) is locked up.

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For this scene, it looks as though a facade was constructed at the headland of Lung Ha Wan, a.k.a Lobster Bay. This is the exact same spot today where the riding stables are located. In the top image you can see the slight slant of Lung Ha Wan Road mid-distance in the background.

In a scene a few minutes later, Ma (Chen Hung-Lieh) and Wang (Li Ching) are attending to David's gravesite on a hill. This was also filmed at Lung Ha Wan, on the slope of the hill that is now the kite flying area. Even though the stables don't quite extend this far, the slope is now completely overgrown and covered in vegetation. In the last image below, the view to the back is also now obscured by tree/bush growth. For anyone interested, in that last image, the area behind the two actors leads to this beach, and is the same location where Julius (Gabriele Tinti) gets a snake up the jacksy in Black Cobra Woman (see the last two images in that link).

To Be Number One - Ray Lui (1991) - Lobster Bay, Clearwater Bay

Just before I moved to Hong Kong in 2006, I made a brief house-hunting trip in 2005 and, being an avid diver, signed up for some local scuba as well. I was taken by "Splash" (then owned and run by an amiable chap called Damon Rose) to a shore dive site at the end of Lung Ha Wan Road. There's a promontory here which is used for kite flying, and the coast surrounding this area has long been a popular filming location over the years.

The stony beach where I dived is the "Lung Ha Wan" (aka Lobster Bay) that lends its name to this whole area. It's the first beach you come to when heading down the end of Lung Ha Wan Road. Strewn allover the beach are the concrete fragments of a former ramp that, I was told, was a popular smuggling location for local triads until the army came and blew it up. It turns out the demolition took place in 1992 and there is is comment on Gwulo relating to this (I also posted a picture on Gwulo many years ago).

I had wondered what it looked like before the ramp was blown up, and now we need wonder no more because it appears several times in To Be Number One. It's quite the revelation because I wasn't expecting the ramp to be so big.

In the film we see this location on at least three occasions. The first time is when the newly-minted gangsters have enough money to finally smuggle their families into Hong Kong from China on a small sampan. In later scenes, this is also the same place where the gang pick up the opium blocks they have just stolen from a rival gang and, finally, where Tiger Lui's mistress is taken to and shipped back to China after she has been kidnapped by Ng.

Legacy of Rage - Brandon Lee (1986) - Cham Shan Monastery, Clearwater Bay

The temple where Michael takes his wheelchair-bound dad to pray is the Cham Sham Monastery in Clearwater Bay. It's located just off Lung Ha Wan Road and hasn't changed much in the intervening years. It was built in 1964 so doesn't have quite the pedigree of many of Hong Kong's historical temples.

Die Jungen Tiger von Hongkong - Robert Woods (1969) - Lung Ha Wan Road, Clearwater Bay

Another favourite location amongst the various German productions I have looked at on this blog is Lung Ha Wan Road in Clearwater Bay. It's cropped up a few times now and here it is again towards the end of the film as Woods and Wolter chase the bad guy down the winding coastal lane.

Sheung Sze Wan

Sheung Sze Wan and Target Island (Ngam Tau Sha) at the right

Red Dragon - Stewart Granger (1965) - Lung Ha Wan Road, Clearwater Bay

You may recall a while back that in Weiße Fracht für Hongkong, Horst Frank deals with one of his loose ends by tipping her over the edge of Lung Ha Wan Road in a car. Well, he was at it again two years later in Red Dragon only this time he's trying to off Stewart Granger. Same part of the road though. It's blurry, but yet another car takes a dip in the sea and Granger manages to escape by clinging onto the cliff.

Weiße Fracht für Hongkong - Dietmar Schönherr (1963) - Lung Ha Wan Road, Sai Kung

Staying around Lobster Bay for the next post as the mysterious drug heister gets into his car and drives off up Lung Ha Wan Road. I'm 99% confident that the flat area we can see is the space now occupied by the Clearwater Bay Equestrian Centre (CEEC). The slope in the background leads up to where there is now an open space meant for kite flyers (that's the same location used for the photo shoot in All About Ah Long).

The next shot shows the car leaving the flat area and heading back towards the main road past the beach that once had the concrete ramp. Despite the current tree growth it is quite easy for me to recognise this area. I've included a similar angle from Streetview below.

And then as the car drives past the camera, we pan to the left and follow it up the road. Again, the current Streetview placed underneath for comparison.

This isn't the last time we see this road though as the bad guys return later to dispose of a car (complete with requisite drugged victim placed in the driver's seat). They stop the car at a lay-by (it's a single lane road and so has lots of passing places).

They dump the car...

...and then drive off again.

Now, this got me thinking. There is (or perhaps was...it's been a while since I dived there) an old car wreck in the middle of this side of Lobster Bay. It wasn't a modern car either, quite old and in fact was really just the collapsed wheels and steering column - no body and very little chassis left. It's possible that the car wreck in Lobster bay may be this very same car dumped into the bay for the purpose of this film. For a long time people have assumed it was a car that fell off one of the old fast smuggler's speedboats but the age doesn't seem to tally with the time frame. So, if there are any car experts out there who can identify the make and model of the one in the picture above (HK 2358) it might be possible to compare the two to see if they match. My hopes aren't high but it would certainly explain the reason for the car's presence in the bay.