The Valiant Ones - Roy Chiao (1975) - Town Island, Sai Kung

The last part of the film, which includes both the final battle between the heroes and remainder of the pirates (led by Sammo Hung) and the grave scene, was filmed on Town Island (伙頭墳洲). Again, this is not a straightforward place to get to and it seems that much of the filming time would have been spent aboard various boats getting moved around from one place to another.

The final sword battle with Sammo Hung's pirate leader was filmed on a sliver of beach at the very south of the island and it is the location I've marked on this post's location marker label (found at the bottom of the post). It's also a location that was used earlier as the Wu's made their way, under escort, to the pirate HQ. Those are the images you can see immediately below.

Seen from the direction of the water, this is also the same location used for the aforementioned final sword battle between Pai Ying and Sammo Hung. Who knows how long it took to film this particular battle, but you can see by comparing the two images below that it goes from very sunny to overcast, so it's possible it took a few days.

Finally, the last sequence we see in the film is of the fallen heroes' graves on a hillside overlooking the sea. It's a panning shot filmed moving to the right and was shot on the hillside above the previous beach battle location. The first image gives a nice view back towards Basalt Island (left) and Bluff Island (on the right). The final shot is looking westerly with Ung Kong on the left and Jin Island on the right in the distance.

This hilltop area is now occupied by a drug rehabilitation centre and so, I suspect, access for film buffs would be highly restricted, if not impossible. However, the serious film fan would probably be able to hire a boat past this part of the island. Trips like this can easily be arranged from Sai Kung waterfront for the right price (it's a fair distance so probably won't be cheap).

The Valiant Ones - Roy Chiao (1975) - Shelter Island, Port Shelter

Just a couple of places left for The Valiant Ones, although this one isn't so much a location as just a nice shot of Port Shelter. The island below the colourful cloud is Shelter Island seen from the south east. It looks as though the cameraman was positioned somewhere just south of Lobster Bay (that's the Lobster Bay headland sticking out on the left hand side). It's just one of the many mood-setting shots used throughout the film.

The Valiant Ones - Roy Chiao (1975) - South Ninepin Island, Outlying Islands

Another brief shot from the "being escorted to the pirates" sequence is a good example of how far King Hu was willing to go just to capture a few seconds of film. As the Wu's are being escorted by the pirate (played by Bee Chan) to the pirate lair, they walk along a cliff face in front of another sea arch. However, this one is actually located on one of Hong Kong's most remote islands - the Ninepins. The arch you can see behind the actors is located on the south island and, actually, there is a Tin Hau Shrine on the hill above it. It was once a stopping off point for fisherman headed out to sea looking for some good luck.

There is no other way to get here but by boat across 3 miles of open sea. It's a crossing best left for a calm and still day (believe me, I've done it a few times on dive boats and it can get rough).

The Valiant Ones - Roy Chiao (1975) - Tiu Chung Pai, Jin Island

The Hong Kong Geopark tour continues as King Hu presents us with another peek at the eastern coastline/outer islands. This time a quick view south from a small rock called Tiu Chung Pai off the south coast of Jin Island. It's actually very close to the sea arch at Kam Chung Ngam which was in the last post. It makes me suspect that these scenes were most likely filmed on the same day.

The Valiant Ones - Roy Chiao (1975) - Chau Wong Yi Kung Study Hall, Kam Tin

One of the key scenes is when Wu Ji-yuan (Pai Ying) heads off to a small house (identified in Chinese as a "Li Family shrine") to catch out a pair of corrupt officials who are in league with the pirates. It turns out that the shrine is in reality a study hall (a traditional Chinese village building where village hopefuls studied for the Imperial examinations) and can still be found in its semi-remote location near to Shui Mei Tsuen in Kam Tin. It's had a modern extension stuck on the side and a bit of a refit but it's still quite recognisable.

The Valiant Ones - Roy Chiao (1975) - Kam Chung Ngam, Jin Island

The more locations I post about with The Valiant Ones and the more it looks more like a Hong Kong travelogue. I have never seen a film that went to a more varied number of different and remote locations than this one. The next location is part of the sequence where the Wu's (played by Hsu Feng and Pai Ying) go to the pirates lair to strike a deal. The whole sequence is made up of a number of different locations, but the one that sticks in the mind a bit more is this famous sea arch located at the southern end of Tiu Chung Chau (吊鐘洲 a.k.a Jin Island).

I've never actually made it here so I don't know how easy it is to get to by anything other than boat, but that doesn't seem to have put off King Hu and his cast.

The Valiant Ones - Roy Chiao (1975) - Whitehead Point, Ma On Shan

There is a quick horse riding scene as Roy Chiao and buddy ride along the beach on their way home. It turns out we have seen this very same beach quite recently - it's the same beach along the north coast of Whitehead Point where the fighters landed at the beginning of DOA: Dead or Alive. However, the shots below show it as it was thirty years before (i.e. with less air pollution).

The Valiant Ones - Roy Chiao (1975) - Shing Mun Reservoir, Tsuen Wan

I'm a big fan of King Hu films no matter on where they were made. Some were made solely in Hong Kong (e.g. The Valiant Ones, The Fate of Lee Khan) others in Taiwan (e.g. Dragon Inn) and some were split between the two (e.g Come Drink With Me, A Touch of Zen).

The Valiant Ones was made, pretty much, back-to-back with The Fate of Lee Khan in 1972. Although The Fate of Lee Khan was released the next year in 1973, for some reason The Valiant Ones had to wait until 1975 to see the light of day.

Chaplin Chang was working for King Hu at the time, in the production company offices in Yau Yat Chuen in Kowloon. I met him a few years ago and he told me that these two films had been agreed to be funded by Raymond Chow. Raymond had said he would fund both films and in return Golden Harvest would take full control of The Fate of Lee Khan once complete whereas The Valiant Ones would remain the property of King Hu Productions. Raymond was a renowned skinflint and delayed the funding for months on some pretext or another and it wasn't until he needed to borrow Chaplin for his own production of Bruce Lee's The Way of the Dragon, that Chaplin was able to get Raymond to sign the contracts and issue the first stage of the funding.

It's most likely that because The Valiant Ones remained the property of King Hu that there was a much bigger delay in getting it into the cinemas as opposed to The Fate of Lee Khan that slipped easily into the well-oiled machinery of the Golden Harvest engine.

Anyway, seeing as this is a locations blog, we may as well start off with the major location used in The Valiant Ones: Shing Mun Reservoir. In fact, Shing Mun Reservoir has been a popular location for countryside filming in Hong Kong for many years - particularly throughout the 70s and 80s. A good place to see examples is Andi's Movie Tours blog. Other than the water level in the reservoir, really not much changes here and to top it all off it is quite easy to get to if you are on a nostalgia trip. Shing Mun is definitely in the top five of outdoor filming locations in Hong Kong.

In this film it is the camp of the so-called "Valiant Ones" as well as acting as the location for the two major battle scenes. Most of the filming was done at the north end of the reservoir where there is a large collection of the silver barked trees that you can see below. The reservoir still has a large number of these and it wouldn't surprise me if they were the exact same trees in many cases. You can see on Andi's blog that the rocks haven't really changed much, the only thing is that looks different is the covering of grass that is obvious in the screenshots below.