Yellow Emanuelle - Chai Lee (1977) - Repulse Bay Hotel

The hospital where George convolesces is called the "Clinic of Flowers". The location used for the hospital exterior is the Repulse Bay Hotel. We see a few angles of the hotel that are new to the blog including the long driveway up from Repulse Bay Road. The place was demolished in the early 80s and a facsimile of the main entrance (seen in images 1-3) constructed on the same location. There are claims that the facsimile was created using the same bricks/blocks from the original building. I'm still doubtful.

Vanessa - Olivia Pascal (1977) - The Repulse Bay Hotel, Repulse Bay

The Repulse Bay Hotel crops up a few times in this film as the mansion that sits inside the plantation owned by Vanessa's Uncle.

On the image above, behind the fountain and you can see the word "Seaview" backwards. This is the building that sits behind the beach. It was built in 1954.

T.N.T Jackson - Jeanne Bell (1974) - The Repulse Bay Hotel, Repulse Bay

This is the last post from T.N.T Jackson for a while because I still have a couple of shots I need to figure out. For the most part, there were some other locations that were obviously not in Hong Kong and I can only assume these were shot in the Philippines (actually, I found one place was a Buddhist temple located in a place called Caloocan in Metropolitan Manila).

Anyway, here is a brief view of the Repulse Bay Hotel as one of the characters (an undercover CIA agent) goes there for a clandestine meeting. The close ups of the meeting were most likely filmed in the Philippines though.

Incidentally, Glenn Griffith, the great mind behind A Pessimist is Never Disappointed, pointed me to one of his old posts about a documentary on these 1970s female Blaxploitation films. In case you are interested, you can also read about when Glenn first moved to Hong Kong back in 2012 and I took him for lunch in Taipo. I'm a bit sad reading that post now because Glenn's very last picture is of the famous roast meat restaurant, Yat Lok, which closed down just a couple of weeks ago (it was my go-to eatery whenever I was back there).

Oliver's Story - Ryan O'Neal (1978) - The Repulse Bay Hotel, Repulse Bay

The photoshoot that Bergen's character is running takes place on the front garden of the old Repulse Bay Hotel. I think the garden wall is the only original part of the hotel left.

Golgo 13: Assignment Kowloon - Sonny Chiba (1977) - Repulse Bay Hotel, Repulse Bay

There is a brief scene that appears to have been filmed in the garden of The Repulse Bay Hotel as Golgo's rather pompous British client talks to him about his predicament. Pity we don't get to see the rest of the building, but perhaps it was filmed without permission?

Ein Sarg aus Hong Kong - Heinz Drache (1964) - Repulse Bay, Hong Kong

A fair bit of the story is based around a brother and sister who live in Repulse Bay, however, the film makers cheated a little bit as you will see in the post after this one. In the meantime, here is a nice view of the beach and surrounding area - including the Repulse Bay Hotel - before rampant development.

The camera focuses on the Repulse Bay Towers/Mansions (last seen on this blog in Spiderman) and so we are led t believe - courtesy of the establishing shot - that this is where Drache and his buddy are staying. This is a bit odd because we are later treated to views from within the grounds of the Repulse Bay itself. If you think you recognise the top picture below, you do. But this is proof that that particular shot was indeed filmed for this movie because the camera pans to the right to reveal our heroes.

 And what is that we can see in the background of the lower shot? It's Eucliffe.

The Million Eyes of Sumuru - George Nader (1967) - Repulse Bay Hotel, Repulse Bay

The next quick, but reversed, shot is a glimpse from the garden terrace of the Repulse Bay Hotel. Here is the image as it appears in the film.

But the eagle-eyed of you might have noticed the small chain of islets sticking out from the headland at the back with Tau Chau (the largest) just above the post on the right of the screen. The problem is this small group of rocks is actually on the east side of the bay, not the west, so this is how it should have looked.

Of course, the hotel was demolished and rebuilt into a shopping mall by the HK and Shanghai Hotels group but it looks as though the terrace and, in particular, this wall escaped the redevelopment. There is certainly a wall that fronts the locations terrace above Repulse Bay Road that looks exactly the same as this but I don't know enough to say whether or not it is the original one. I hope it is.

Spider-Man: The Dragon's Challenge - Nicholas Hammond (1979) - Repulse Bay, Hong Kong

The helicopter scenes are all over the place, as you will find out over the next few posts. Here is a rather nice shot as the chopper flies through Repulse Bay. You can see the old Repulse Bay Hotel that was unceremoniously demolished in the 1980's to make way for the famous (well, at least famous for the hole in the building with the total nonsense story about it being for a fung shui dragon to pass through) "The Repulse Bay" apartments. Not to be confused with the block you can see in the pictures which is the earlier built "Repulse Bay Apartments".

The other block you can see on the right of the second picture is "Repulse Bay Towers" and "Repulse Bay Mansions" are the lower ones in front. So, basically, all the ugly stuff is still around but the very picturesque hotel has been replaced by a replica mall. "Replaced by a mall" must be one of the most overused phrases on this blog, sadly. *sigh*

Shatter - Stuart Whitman (1974) - Repulse Bay Hotel, Repulse Bay

Here's to a second installment of the Hammer/Shaw brothers' collaboration, the first one being the entertaining Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires which was filmed largely in and around Movietown in Clearwater Bay (hence the dearth of locations I found).

Thankfully for this film, being set in modern Hong Kong (well, 1970's HK at least), the crew were able to utilise some more familiar locatyiuons with some fairly decenty landmarks to be seen. First off the bat is the Repulse Bay Hotel which is supposedly a presidential palace in an unknown African country. Stuart Whitman, as Shatter, is an assassin sent there to kill the country's ruler.

Some nice shots of the front driveway and that very recognisable set of steps up to the main entrance and front verandah. The next shot shows what I believe to be part of the interior which I am hoping is the actual hotel, but seeing as there is no longer a way for me to confirm in person I am hoping someone who actually went there will be able to help. Does anyone remember this room, the foyer/lobby I guess, immediately behind the main verandah?

Lastly we get a sneak peak inside one of the rooms with a nice view over the bay out to the various islands there (Round Island is the big one, Tau Chau is the smaller on the right in the bottom picture).

Now, there seems to be a lot of confusion out there about the fate of this hotel because a replica of the main section of the hotel was built (apparently reusing the same stones from the original building) and turned into a mall/restaurant complex. Sadly, the original hotel was demolished in the early 80's to make way for The Repulse Bay apartment block. A great big monstrosity with a great big square hole in the middle of it.

The only remaining "original" piece of the hotel still around is the garage block on the opposite side of the road that is now the home of various car dealer concessions.

Men of the Dragon - Jared Martin (1974) - Repulse Bay Hotel, Hong Kong

One of the nice surprises about the locations on this film is finding some footage of the old, original, Repulse Bay Hotel.

Sadly, this hotel was demolished in 1982 to make way for the not so great 'hole-in-the-middle' Repulse bay apartments. Later on a replica of the hotel was built as a mall - The Repulse Bay Arcade. I'd heard rumours it was a scaled down version of the older building, but someone involved in the rebuild commented (on Gwulo.com) that the front of the replica was built at the same scale.

Built in the 1920's, it saw many famous visitors over the years before becoming a focus of bitter fighting between allied defenders and Japanese invaders in December 1941. The Japanese renamed the hotel during their occupation and called it the "Midorigahama" until they surrendered in 1945. I also heard from Chaplin Chang that the hotel was popular with the cast and crew of Enter the Dragon during breaks from filming around the corner in Tai Tam Bay.