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 Angel Strikes Again - Lily Ho (1968) - Port Shelter, Sai Kung

The gang is blackmailing a local airline to the tune of 5M dollars (insert Dr Evil meme) and have instructed them to put the money into the water in Port Shelter. The police follow the money in a local junk to try and capture the extortionists but it turns out they have been duped as the gang collect it from underwater using scuba gear.

Most of this sequence appears to have been filmed in the bit of water between Sharp Island (seen from the east in the first image) and Kau Sai Chau.

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.

Summons to Death - Tang Ching (1967) - Basalt Island, Port Shelter

The film finishes off where it started, in Port Shelter. The sea cave that the pair go through in order to reach the treasure is located on the south east side of Basalt island - one of Port Shelter's easternmost islands. GoogleEarth has a single image that shows the cave here from the same angle that can be seen in the lower image.

Summons to Death - Tang Ching (1967) - Port Shelter, Sai Kung

Back to the late 60s and another Tang Ching film, Summons to Death, where he plays a very similar character to the 009 he played in Inter-Pol the same year. In this film he is some sort of secret agent who inadvertantly gets involved in the hunt for a treasure map when he is approached in a night club by Mei-Li (Tina Chin Fei) in a case of mistaken identity. This one is written a directed by Lo Wei who also makes a briefish appearance as the leader of a group of pirates who come across half of a treasure map. He is captured by the police and entrusts his old pirate buddies to track down his long lost sister (Chin Fei) and get her to find the other half of the map.

The film starts with the origin of the map - the property of another gang of pirates who live on a rather extravagantly pimped out fishing junk. The pirate leader's girlfriend double crosses him and makes off with half of the map with her boyfriend just before Lo Wei and his gang arrive and find the other half.

The pimped out junk is afloat in the middle of Port Shelter in Sai Kung.

Pimp My Ride, HK junk style

Inter-Pol - Tang Ching (1967) - Kiu Tsui Beach, Sharp Island

We first meet agent 009 as he smooches on the beach with a couple of girls (a recurring theme throughout this movie) and he is summoned by his bosses via his radio. The beach in question is Kiu Tsui beach located at the north end of Sharp Island.

Hong Kong Godfather - Leung Kar-yan (1985) - Trio Beach Fishing Ground, Sai Kung

Following the utter decimation of their ranks, the three remaining gangsters: Mad Wei (Leung Kar-yan), Playboy Lung (Norman Tsui) and Sergeant Lam (Cheung Kuen) retreat to a hideout located in a fish cultivation farm next to Hebe Haven. On Google Maps it's marked as the Trio Beach Fishing Ground. You can see Trio Beach in the background left of the top image. The current farm isn't quite as extensive as the one you see on film.

Shelter Island in the background

Operation Lipstick - Cheng Pei-pei (1967) - Port Shelter, Sai Kung

Following a big fracas on the Star Ferry (a studio set) as the baddies attempt to steal a statuette they believe contains the professor's microfilm, the statuette is tossed over board and Lee and Zhang leap in after it. 

The next day they can be seen drying off aboard a fishing junk out in Port Shelter. Their exact location is on the north side of Sharp Island next to where the public pier is now located.

Just Heroes - David Chiang (1989) - Port Shelter, Sai Kung

Wai (David Chiang) has retired from the gangster life and earns his living as a fish farmer. His floating farm is located in Port Shelter at the north end of Sharp Island.

Just Heroes - David Chiang (1989) - Sai Kung Waterfront

Just Heroes is a 1989 gun-fu triad story directed by John Woo and Wu Ma (and an uncredited David Chiang). It was a charitable production done for the HK Screen Directors Guild in support of Chang Cheh, who wanted money to make a new film. 

As you would expect, a large number of his former proteges, such as David Chiang, Ti Lung, Chen Kuen Tai and the like, provided their services and the cast is really a who's who of 1970s era actors and crew filling multiple cameo roles. It even has a serious role played by Stephen Chow as the crazy, but loyal to the end, Jacky.

The story revolves around the assassination of a beloved triad boss (because triad bosses are nice? Yeah right) and the election of his successor. But first the culprit(s) must be found and brought to justice. But who could be responsible?

The film opens on the Sai Kung waterfront as the gang turn up to destroy the smuggling operation of some rivals. The location was a piece of newly reclaimed land on which now stands the Marine Police East Division base.

Yakuza on Foot - Tomisaburô Wakayama (1969) - Port Shelter, Sai Kung

The final scene, as the two gangs say their farewells aboard a couple of junks, was shot in the northern secton of Port Shelter. It's a bit misty but the background shows the low lying islets of Cham Tau Chau (left) and Pak Sha Chau (right) with the larger Sharp Island on the left hand side of frame. And with that, we bid farewell to this movie.

The Water Margin - David Chiang (1972) - Port Shelter, Sai Kung

The Water Margin is a 1972 Shaw Brothers film directed by Chang Cheh. Readers who followed the Alan Whicker posts last year may be interested to know that it is this film that was in production when Whicker went along and interviewed David Chiang and his brother, Paul Chin-pei. There was also some behind the scenes footage seen in that documentary. For those interested, you can watch the documentary (and others) here: What Makes Shaw Run Run?.

The film is supposedly just a small snippet of the full "Water Margin" tale and details how the bandits seek to approach Jade Unicorn (played by Tetsuro Tamba), the fellow student of one of their enemies, in the hope of getting his help defeating him. In doing so they inadvertantly drop him in trouble with the local Imperial court who arrest him for harbouring bandits following a tip off from his adulturous wife and her scheming lover.

I watch this film and scratch my head as to why David Chiang became such a big action star because I don't think I've seen a single film where he has looked good during a fight. He just goes through the motions most of the time, with hardly any power. In this film he plays "The Prodigy", Yen Ching, whose signature fight move is as uninspiring as all his other movies but largely involves rolling around on the ground.

Anyway, the film begins with some ships coming in to shore at the stronghold of Shi Wengong (Toshio Kurosawa), the main protagonist of the film and arch enemy of the Liangshan bandits. The location is, of course, the section of Port Shelter just off the coast from where Shaws Movietown was located. The coastal area you see on film is now the location of the HKUST Fok Ying Tung Sports Centre.

If you look in the near background of the bottom image, you can see a low rocky outcrop behind the soldiers.This is about the only thing that still looks the same, as long as you go at low tide.

The Magic Stone - Nancy Kwan (1966) - Ninepin Islands

To be fair, a large portion of the footage in this film includes a lot of rather anonymous looking coastline, but I thought a brief glimpse of the Ninepin Islands was worth including. The boat was probably in the outer reaches of Port Shelter when this was taken, so not really that far from land. The Ninepins are 3 miles from the mainland of Hong Kong.

Legacy of Rage- Brandon Lee (1986) - Town Island, Sai Kung

The film ending consists of some B&W images of Brandon and new-found son meeting Four-eyes on a remote pier next to a lighthouse/beacon. This one took some tracking down but I finally located it on the north tip of Town Island in Sai Kung, on the outer edges of Port Shelter.

Unfortunately there are no nearby pictures for comparison but if you want to search on GoogleEarth it's called "Doorhead Lighthouse" (門頭角燈塔), but whether this is the proper name or some local nickname, I have no idea. It's not the first time we have featured Town Island on the blog. Anyway, I think that just about wraps up this deep dive into Legacy of Rage.

Legacy of Rage - Brandon Lee (1986) - Kau Sai Chau and Tiu Chung Chau, Port Shelter

The scene where Michael and Brandon do some target practice with Michael's .357 Magnum was filmed in the waters between Kau Sai Chau and Tiu Chung Chau. In the top image we are looking south east towards Tiu Chung Chau and the beach shot in the second image was taken from Kau Sai Wan with Tiu Chung Chau on the left hand side.

Bloodfight - Yasuaki Kurata (1989) - Tai Wan, Sai Kung

There are quite a few "Tai Wan's" in Hong Kong, but the one featured here is located a short distance north of Sai Kung town, along the Tai Mong Tsai Road. It's here on the beach that Masa does some more exercises with his wooden sandals with Port Shelter in the background.