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.

Ferry to Hong Kong - Curt Jurgens (1959) - Round Island nr Repulse Bay, Hong Kong

In a linking shot that supposedly portrays the ferry (named the Fa Tsan in the film) as it paddles its way into Macau, we see a quick glimpse of Round Island (Chinese: 銀洲) that looks to have been taken from the Repulse Bay Road - from the angle I would estimate somewhere near to the where it gets joined by Belleview Drive. I'm not familiar with the 1959 version of the road so have no idea if there were lookout spots around there. I suspect there was though.

In fact, that may possibly be part of the road we can see on the right hand side. Either that or a pathway or terraced garden. Either way, we can see Round Island on the left behind the tree (look closely and you can also just see the tip of Tau Chau sticking into the edge of the screen), the headland that disappears into the distance is in fact the south eastern coast of Lamma Island and the closer, green hillside behind the road (or whatever it is) is in fact the side of Middle Island.

Unfortunately for me there are no great comparisons to be found using GoogleEarth because much of the roadside is now covered in trees (which is a good thing) obscuring the view out to sea. But below I have included a Streetview picture taken from the much lower Seaview Promenade. You don't get quite the same awesome angle, but at least to get to see the bit I am writing about.

And, of course, clear days like the one we see on the film only really happen in the summertime, so I guess the Streetview was a wintertime affair.