Killer Angels - Moon Lee (1989) - Lai Yue Hing Tong, Fanling

People may know this place by another name, the "Fanling Babies Home", and it was a regularly featured property in many movies following the exit of the orphange in the mid-60s. Andi has the best break down of many locations over on his blog. In this movie it is the location where the gang have all their kidnapped women holed up in preparation for shipping them to the Middle East. The real name of the house was Lai Yue Hing Tong (賴餘馨堂) - the babies home was only located here between 1940 to 1966.

Dirty Tiger, Crazy Frog! - Sammo Hung (1978) - Fanling Babies Home, Fanling

Next up is Dirty Tiger, Crazy Frog!, one of those late 70s kung fu films that would feel a bit generic if it wasn't for the presence of Sammo in the role of Frog, a gold digging opportunist who married a wealthy old woman in order to get access to her family heirloom - a knitted metal pullover that makes its wearer impervious to blades.

He runs off with it but loses it to some con artists and teams up with the bounty hunter, Tiger (Lau Kar-wing), to get it back. It's directed by Karl Maka (who makes a brief appearance, with hair, as a local policeman) so expect that level of humour. One of the funniest bits for me is when Frog's old wife turns to weep at a portrait of her father and it's quite obviously a drawing of a snarling Richard Ng.

Anyway, the film kicks off with some local thugs attempting to best Tiger by sneaking up on him. This whole sequence was filmed at Lai Yue Hing Tong (賴餘馨堂) aka the Fanling Babies Home. This old mansion was a popular filming location until its demolition in the early 1990s. I think the most recent production to film there featured on the blog is probably Shadow of China (1989).

A Lotus for Miss Quon - Lang Jeffries (1967) - On Lok Tsuen, Fanling

The (accidentally) dead undercover policeman has a girlfriend who turns up looking for him. The police chief tells her that he has probably gone off on a jolly somewhere and proceeds to have his men mow down the poor girl in the street next to the police station. In this case it was indeed the street next to the police station.

These days it's just an alleyway next to the World Trade Square building (that replaced the mansion that was the former Fanling Babies Home) but back in the 60's before the area was redeveloped it looked to be the northern part of Lok Tung Street. In the top image, the background buildings were on the corner of Luen Cheong Street and Luen Wo Road with the main Sha Tau Kok Road running in front of them.

A Lotus for Miss Quon - Lang Jeffries (1967) - Lai Yue Hing Tong, Fanling

So, we already know where Mark Jason's large villa is located within On Lok Tsuen. The building that stood in for the police station was the nearby Lai Yue Hing Tong (aka Fanling Babies Home). This place was originally discovered (from a film locations point of view) by Andi on his Movie Tours blog. You can see his post here. In terms of my own blog, I've only seen it the once before.

A Lotus for Miss Quon - Lang Jeffries (1967) - Li Garden, On Lok Tsuen

The next film up is a 1967 production (a French and German co-production, I think) that appears to have been shot almost entirely in the New Territories. It's based on an thriller written by James Hadley Chase (who, incidentally, also wrote the original novel - A Coffin from HK - on which Ein Sarg aus Hong Kong was based). The story is set in Vietnam but I suppose given the time it was made into a film, filming in Vietnam was not a possibility and so Hong Kong's vast New Territories serves as a decent stand in.

The main protagonist, Mark Jason (played by Lang Jeffries), is a school teacher who rents a nearby villa and one day finds a stash of diamonds in his wall. Unknown to him, the local corrupt police chief is also after the diamonds and Jason gets deeper and deeper into strife as he tries to escape to HK with his newly found stash and Vietnamese girlfriend (Miss Quon).

I think finding most of the locations in this film is going to be quite a challenge, but we can start off with a couple of easy ones. The first one is the villa that Jason was renting and where he finds the hidden stash of diamonds.

This building has been seen before on this blog, albeit from a side elevation. It's Li Garden (李園) in On Lok Tsuen just south of Fanling and I did a post for it a while back for Golgo 13: Assignment Kowloon where it makes a very brief appearance. However, if you are a fan of old HK movies then it may be quite familiar to you from being a popular filming location for local films back in the 50s and 60s (example here). Sadly none of the old mansions in On Lok Tsuen seem to exist anymore and the area has been turned into an industrial estate.

I had originally found that the building sits on the site of today's Smile building, but after examining aerial photos from the mid-60s it has become obvious to me that it was actually on the plot now occupied by the Kader Industrial Centre at 17 Lok Yip Road.

Golgo 13: Assignment Kowloon - Sonny Chiba (1977) - Lee Garden, Fanling

Here's a quick post from Golgo 13: Assignment Kowloon that I had a bit of trouble trying to identify. The problem was that it was inserted directly before the Bethanie sequence giving the impression that it was in or nearby the Bethanie grounds. By pure coincidence I saw a snippet of an old Cantonese movie and saw the same place and it turns out that it was located in On Lok Village in Fanling. This is the same village that once had the Fanling Babies Home.

The village still exists - it's located quite close to  Fanling East Rail station - but the section containing all the large European-style villas was turned in to a factory estate. I'm not sure how many villas were demolished but just one or two would have been a sad sight to see. The villagers at the time agreed and about 200 of them staged a massive protest to try and prevent the demolition. Sadly it was in vain, although apparently the protest took a serious turn when tear gas was fired and around 20 or so people were arrested. Anyway, its beauty meant it was popular with film and TV companies as a filming location. The only thing I can't find is the exact location of this place and how it relates to the modern layout of the estate.