Inter-Pol - Tang Ching (1967) - Nam Sang Wai, Yuen Long

The next film from the ever expanding Shaw collection on Youtube is the 1967 James Bond rip-off, Inter-Pol. It stars a very suave looking Tang Ching as Chen Tian-hong (a.k.a agent 009). Following some fellow agents being killed in the Philippines, he is called in by his Interpol bosses to investigate a US dollar counterfeiting scheme believed to be operating out of Hong Kong.

The opening scene is supposed to be in the Philippines but was actually filmed at Nam Sang Wai, a popular filming location that has been featured many times on the blog, but it's slowly being threatened by redevelopment and no doubt will one day just look like another high rise suburb.

To Be Number One - Ray Lui (1991) - Nam Sang Wai, Yuen Long

Ng falls for Tse Yuen-yin (Cecilia Yip) and ingratiates himself with her kids to get closer to her. In the story, she lives in a stilt house on a pond somewhere. I can't find the exact location unfortunately, but I am certain this was filmed in Nam Sang Wai. Sadly it's another place increasingly affected by redevelopment and many of the former ponds have already been filled in for redevelopment.

Flash Point - Donnie Yen (2007) - Nam Sang Wai, Yuen Long

The gang have taken Wilson and his girlfriend captive in a remote location and Ma takes the newly captured older brother (Ray Lui) to exchange hims for them. The remote location is of course the Nam Sang Wai wetlands just north of Yuen Long. This place has been used plenty in both local and overseas productions. I wonder how long it will stay this undeveloped though as developers on both sides of the border have been eyeing this area up for redevelopment for years. According to Dan Thomas' old (and sadly neglected) Hong Kong on Film blog, the old house was a proper relic and not just built for the movie. The last time Streetview was updated in this location was 2015 and the house was still standing, but quite a lot has happened in Hong Kong since then so there's no guarantee it's still there now. 

Isabella - Isabella Leong (2006) - Nam Sang Wai, Yuen Long

Several scenes in the film were also shot at Nam Sang Wai in Yuen Long. The area around what is marked on the map as "The Wedding Bridge" (I can only assume because it is popular for wedding shoots) features in the car crash scene where Ma tricks Yan into thinking her dog was killed in the accident, as well as a later scene when Ma throws his illegally acquired revolver into the water following his decision to face his wrongdoings.

Ma examines the dog

Shan Pui Village in the distance

Ma disposing of the gun 

SPL - Donnie Yen (2005) - Nam Sang Wai, Yuen Long

Chung's undercover man inside Wong Po's gang is discovered and killed out in Nam Sang Wai. It's a popular filming location for those who want to portray a very remote part of Hong Kong, or indeed as in some films, pretend that the location is in Mainland China. I'm not sure how long this view will be untouched given the number of skyscrapers that now dominate the Shenzhen skyline over the border.

Something Good - Luca Barbareschi (2013) - Nam Sang Wai, Yuen Long

Our next film, Something Good, is an Italian production shot with English dialogue and filmed mainly in Hong Kong. Also known as The Mercury Conspiracy and The Mercury Factor, it stars Luca Barbareschi (who also directed) as Matteo, a sort of middleman dealing in the world of tainted food sales. The story appears to have been partly inspired by the melamine milk scandal that rocked Mainland China a few years ago (and had unforeseen affects on HK as the border areas became saturated with milk powder/baby formula tourists).

Matteo is in Hong Kong to set up a dodgy tainted milk formula business to export into Africa with some Chinese business partners led by Mr Feng (Kenneth Tsang) and his son Zhao (Carl Ng). His goings on bring him into contact with a Chinese woman, Jiazhen (Zhang Jingchu), who runs a restaurant business in memory of her son who was killed by tainted food.

The opening scenes are supposedly set in Mainland China where Jiazhen lives with her son. The establishing shots are definitely of the stock variety and I suspect that the close ups were shot in Hong Kong because the following shot, still supposedly in the Mainland, shows a part of Nam Sang Wai with the west end of Kai Kung Leng in the background.

The actual location is a now collapsed (according to a photo on Google Earth) boardwalk close to the Nam Sang Wai and Sing Kei stores - not far from the river boat crossing. 

Election - Simon Yam (2005) - Nam Sang Wai, Yuen Long

There are afew scenes that were shot in the Nam Sang Wai wetland area in Yuen Long. However, I think that in the film this is all supposed to be taking place over the border in the Mainland (or I may just have misunderstood what was happening).

The abandoned house where the gangsters are surrounded by the police is located there, as well as the scenes where Big Head (Lam Suet) gets beaten up by Gordon Lam. The rural road where Big Head is waiting for the truck to drive down is Nam Sang Wai Road on the eastern bank of the Shan Pui River. The camera shot through the windscreen of their car was taken almost directly opposite the (marked on Google maps as) "Northeast Electrical Enterprises Ltd" warehouse (which can be seen on left of screen in the third image).

Yellowthread Street (TV Series) - Bruce Payne (1990) - Nam Sang Wai, Yuen Long

To go and seek advice on the rogue Red Pole (a Red Pole is the Triad equivalent of an enforcer), Brady goes to see and old friend in Nam Sang Wai. Nam Sang Wai is an area north of Yuen Long New Twon that still houses many, quite attractive, fish ponds. We've been here before on this blog when we were looking at Danny Lee's River of Fury.

It's quite difficult to ascertain the exact point where Brady (Mark McGann) is simply because the area doesn't have too many identifiable landmarks, however, the following picture gives us a slight clue because it contains some of the buildings that can still be found on the nearby Tung Tau Industrial Estate. The building to the left of Brady is the Hung Wai Industrial Building. If you look closely it seems to be empty, this could be because it was newly built in 1988 (I'm still unsure if the filming of this series occurred in 1989 or 1990).

The next shot shows us a wider angle of the same direction with a nearer building partially obscured by the panel at the end of the wooden platform. This building is also still around and sits on the northern limit of the industrial estate. It's the Mansfield Industrial Centre, also completed 1988 which makes me think 1988 was perhaps the year when the estate was itself finally up and running.

Anyway, if we take a rough approximation of the buildings and work backwards we can kind of see the area where the filming took place. It's near a small hamlet called Chung Hau Yu Man San Tsuen (涌口漁民新村). Sadly Streetview doesn't venture into that part of the area so I have instead marked it on the location link at the bottom of the post. In the meantime we will have to make do with a Streetview grab from a short distance away in Shan Pui Village. As you can see it's not too far away from where the film camera was positioned for the lower shot.