Police Force - Wang Chung (1973) - Shaw Brothers Dormitories, Clearwater Bay

The two thieves are chased to a "housing estate" before being cornered by Wong. In reality these are the dorms at Shaws Movietown and are currently one of the only remaining parts of the original site. Even the bridge is still there as well as the spiral stair-cased guard tower, albeit looking very decrepit. Sadly the robbers aren't the ones responsible for Liang Kuan's death, so the hunt continues.

Police Force - Wang Chung (1973) - Shaw's Movietown, Clearwater Bay

The robbery scene was shot at the Movietown complex. The yellow building is actually the other side of the building identified here as point A. This area in the complex was eventually replaced by the newer, modern "Shaw House" office block (that still stands today - one of the few buildings that has so far avoided demolition). The old building in the screen cap was still there - covered in plant growth - until a few years ago (see here), but was demolished when the site was sold for redevelopment.

The Yellow Muffler - Betty Ting Pei (1972) - Shaws Movietown, Clearwater Bay

Continuing my wholesale appropriation of all the Shaw movies being posted to Youtube by Celestial Pictures (reminder), the next one I am looking at is The Yellow Muffler starring Betty Ting Pei. Proof, if you ever needed it, that she really wasn't a very good actress at all and just appears to have got through her career by pouting and fluttering her eyelashes.

The story revolves around three sisters who want to break into showbusiness but are held back by their ageing father who also happens to have his own magic show at a nightclub. He gets sacked (basically because he's a bit crap) and decides to go to Taiwan for work and expects his daughters to go with him, but they refuse and eventually only the youngest goes with him. The other two try to make a break on their own but bomb and are eventually offered help to get into the movie business. The film was shot in 1971 and released in January 1972. It does use a couple of outdoor locations but for many scenes it's quite obviously somewhere inside the Movietown complex.

As well as filling in for other locations, Movietown also features itself because of the girls trying to break into the movie industry, but in the film it has become "Golden Crown Studios". See below for some not so convincing matte glass paintwork effects.

Anyway, as with my old post for The Lady Hermit, I've tried to identify a few of the places we see with where they were located within the studio lot (I will try and do this with the old GH studio as well at some point). So it's time to break out my crayons again. The base image I am using is a b&w aerial image from 1982 courtesy of HKMaps.hk. Click on the image for a closer view.

Click to zoom in

The first spot is just after the girls leave the cinema and are walking home. This was shot at point A. I'm not sure what the building was though.

The next image is the glass painting effect I referred to earlier. It shows the real Movietown in the bottom part of the image (the gate and driveway and Shaw House) but for a weird reason has covered up the various warehouses on the hill with fake ones. The close ups were obviously filmed at the main gate (point B).

This building below is located at Point C on the main aerial image. If anyone knows what it was used for please feel free to comment. Those circular vents were quite distinctive and have cropped up in many Shaw films over the years.

Next up is this shot taken from the north side of the plot (point D). Note the previously mentioned building with the circular vents can be seen centre right, just behind Irene Chen's head.

The final bit of Movietown is when the father returns and is given a tour of the studios. The first image shows the covered walkway next to building the building at point E. The group then turn left (marked by the red arrow) and walk alongside the circular vent building at point F. 

Anyway, that's all I could see for now. If anything else pops up I'll be sure to add it.

Operation Lipstick - Cheng Pei-pei (1967) - Shaw Movietown Main Gates

Any self respecting Shaw fan will recognise these gates immediately. They're the main gates at the front of the old Movietown complex and are as iconic as the curved canopy of Shaw House. This shot was obviously taken from the driveway of Shaw House. As far as I know the gates are still installed in the same place but obviously everything is still up in the air as to what will become of the site. Go see them while you still can. Or perhaps some rich fan can buy them and restore them for posterity?

In this scene we are supposed to be at the main gates of the gang leader's house.

Operation Lipstick - Cheng Pei-pei (1967) - Shaw House, Clearwater Bay

A familiar sight to any Shaw fan worth their salt is the front of the old Shaw House building with its curved concrete canopy. Shaw House has often stood in for other locations in a variety of Shaw productions and co-productions (examples: The Million Eyes of Sumuru, Shatter) and in this movie it serves as the front entrance for the Silver Dice Night Club where the gang are stationed and where Lee (Cheng Pei-pei) is offered a job.

The Lady Hermit - Cheng Pei-pei (1971) - Shaws Movietown

Given that last year saw the death of Cheng Pei-pei, I thought I would watch The Lady Hermit. It was one of the final few films she made in Hong Kong before retiring and moving to the US in the early 1970s. 

The movie centres around a young female martial artist, Cui Ping (Shih Szu), who is on a mission to hunt down the famous/infamous "Lady Hermit" in order to convince her to teach her kung fu. Little does she know that said Lady Hermit is living incognito as a maid at the company of Cui Ping's family friend. Being young and headstrong, Cui Ping insists on taking on the town bad guys and eventually has to be rescued by Lady Hermit and soon guesses her identity. The two then leave in exile to improve their skills before returning to fight their arch enemy, the Black Demon. There's a little bit of a love triangle thrown in with the presence of Lo Lieh who both women are quite smitten with. 

There's not so many locations to see, but the ones we have will be recognisable to most avid Shaw fans, starting off with the obvious: Shaws Movietown.

The current state of the old Movietown site is that most of the interior sound stages and production buildings have been demolished (during the second half of 2021 while we were all in lockdown), leaving a big flat open area surrounded by the perimeter buildings that remain. Shaw's old villa is still around, as is Shaw House at the front and the more modern office building that was immediately next to the main gate. I believe the old dormitory buildings are also still around. I do have a bit of insider information which is that the development company that bought the site now want to sell it again. It appears that the HK Govt has imposed a bunch of requirements on the development (such as the retention of several buildings - though I don't know for sure which ones) that made it difficult for the company to go ahead carte blanche. So it looks like the site will remain as is for the time being unless some sort of compromise can be reached.

Anyway, suffice to say the town and building shots throughout this film were shot on the Chinese town set at Movietown. This post gives me a chance to show off my terrible Ms Paint skills because I have taken a recent aerial snap via GoogleEarth and overlayed where these locations used to be. Apologies in advance...

The arrow points north. The red circle at the top left indicates the location of the pagoda set with the wooden bridge (green line) leading away from it. The yellow area is the location of the original Chinese town set and the blue line inside it shows the "river" that has the small ornate bridge crossing it at the lower right hand end of the line. All the other buildings to the top and left of the old site are part of the HK University of Science and Technology. 

Shaws remained inside their original plot for all of the 1960s with the exception of this temple set, built on the site of the Clearwater Bay School. I've not marked it on the aerial image but that's the building at the lower left. The temple occupied what is now the open area in front of the school (seen here in Black Mask). 

Starting in the 1970s, Shaws began utilising more of the area surrounding the original site (e.g the aforementioned pagoda and large bridge sets, more Chinese style street sets etc). All of this land has now been taken over by HKUST which makes me think that, perhaps, Shaws may not have been supposed to build there in the first place? If any film historians know better, please feel free to comment.

Here are the screencaps for a few of the scenes. The first is the small stream and bridge (in the film, it stands in for Baijiang town where the Black Demon is extorting the local population). On my aerial image above this is the yellow area and the river/stream is the blue line running through the middle of it. You may also remember it from other films such as Come Drink With Me, The Blood Brothers, The Million Eyes of Sumuru, etc.

The pagoda set, seen in the finale, was, as indicated on the aerial image, located just past the Shaw Dormitories. Perhaps this image from Whicker's Orient is a better illustration. The bridge that Shih Szu runs across to get to it was indeed located next to it. The bridge area was later expanded to include a more permanent wooden construction seen in many a Shaws movie later on. Although in the image below, she is running away from the pagoda, which is behind the camera. This area is now basically all taken over by the HKUST Business School. I have no idea if you can just rock up and walk around. The campuses here started to get strict on entry policies following the 2019 protests. No harm in giving it a try though.

It's funny, but this bridge scene appears to have been the inspiration for the similar scene in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. It has very similar vibes (i.e. obviously a model) and at one point we can see little dolls falling into the water (no crocs here though). Check it out...

Aaaaaaaargh....*plop*

Just Heroes - David Chiang (1989) - Caltex Garage, Clearwater Bay Road

It seems to be a month for including petrol stations on the blog. This one, where the gang boss is executed along with his bodyguards, is located right outside the old Shaw Movietown complex in Clearwater Bay. It's still a Caltex outlet.

Royal Warriors - Michelle Yeoh (1986) - Shaw Movietown Dormitories, Clearwater Bay

Now for the first of a few posts that deal with the car chase. A chase that, as you'll see, covers so much ground it must have taken at least a week to shoot. It starts with a car bomb as Yamamoto's (Sanada) wife and daughter are preparing to drive to the airport. This was filmed along the side road to Shaws Movietown where the staff dormitories still stand (for now). The building site on the opposite side of the road (where Raging Bull comes from in his truck) was most likely the site for the new TVB studio buildings. These have been demolished already, along with most of the rest of Movietown.

The hoarding behind was most likely for the construction of the new TVB studio buildings

Actor dorms on the right, admin staff dorms on the left (with orange trim)

The Water Margin - David Chiang (1972) - Shaws Movietown

It wouldn't be a Shaw movie without at least a small mention of the Movietown sets. Anyway, there now follows a hiatus in posts as I look for new films to feature and perhaps resurrect some of the old film related history posts from the old blog. If anyone has a film they would like me to cover and can point me in the direction of a copy, then feel free to comment.

Come Drink With Me - Cheng Pei-pei (1966) - Shaw's Movietown, Clearwater Bay

It wouldn't be a Shaw movie if the Movietown set didn't appear at least a few times. In Come Drink With Me there are at least two recognisable (to me) spots in the old Movietown lot that have been used. The first is when we are initially introduced to Cheng Pei-pei's character, Golden Swallow. I'm not sure how convincing this disguise is given how stunning Cheng Pei-pei was, but in the shot below she is supposed to be disguised as a man, and this is how the bandits first encounter her. The location is the small bridge which can also be seen on this blog in The Million Eyes of Sumuru and Bons Baisers de Hongkong. It's interesting to note how the buildings surrounding it had changed from time to time.

The second location I want to show will be quite familar to regular readers because it is the large temple set that was used many times during the 1960s. In fact it has appeared at least twice on this blog as well because it was used in The Vengeance of Fu Manchu and The Million Eyes of Sumuru. In Come Drink With Me, this is the Buddhist temple operated by a corrupt Abbot who is in cahoots with the bandits. The bandits are using it as their hideout and have Golden Swallow's brother captive there.

In terms of its location on the Movietown site, the temple was constructed on the area that is now occupied by the Clearwater Bay ESF School site. You can see the site (lower left) was later (early 70s) turned into another Chinese town set, but it looks like the temple building was kept and incorporated into that new set.

The Blood Brothers - David Chiang (1973) - Shaw's Movietown

It wouldn't be a Shaw movie without a trip to one of the outdoor sets built on the old Movietown lot. Actually, there are a couple of places here worth showing.The first is the "permanent" built-set of a Chinese street that was used a copious amount of times for Shaw productions as well as overseas productions in need of some traditional style architecture as a backdrop. Secondly, Shaw's had space at the back of the lot which they used for temporary set construction. It was the area we see in the second image with the view over Port Shelter and Shelter Island in the background. All that area has since been taken over by the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.

Whicker's Orient - Alan Whicker (1972) - Shaw Villa

Part of the interview Whicker conducts with Sir Run Run was filmed in and around his villa, located on the backlot of the studio. Judging by the footage, it doesn't look like Shaw used his swimming pool very much even back then. I really hope it is kept for the new development because I do like the 1960s style of the place.