Heroes Two - Alexander Fu Sheng (1974) - Pak Shek Au, Kwu Tung

The next up is another Shaw movie, Heroes Two, that I shall dub "Locations: Two" because that's the number of places I have been able to identify for this one. The reason being that, like many Shaw movies, much of it was shot on sound stages at Movietown.

The film stars Fu Sheng as the legendary Fong Sai Yuk, a mythical fighter from Ching Dynasty era. He gets duped by Ching officials into getting fellow rebel, Hung Hei-gun/Hung Hsi-kuan (Chen Kuan-tai), arrested and makes amends by freeing him from his subterranean dungeon prison. The film culminates in a big brawl between the rebels and the local Ching officials.

The film starts off with the burning of the Shaolin temple and the hunt for Hung. This whole sequence was shot in a place that should be very familiar to readers of the blog by now, it's the formerly-beautiful-rolling hills-but-now-a-building-site-for-the-Northern-Metropolis Pak Shek Au. So many films, particularly Shaw ones, were shot here over the years and the area is basically now ruined. Forever.
 

Dirty Tiger, Crazy Frog! - Sammo Hung (1978) - Ho Sheung Heung

The area where Tiger and Frog are confronted by Panther (Dean Shek), the casino owner, is a familiar one to this site because I was the one who was able to identify for Enter the Dragon. Yes, we're back in Ho Sheung Heung and the "fung shui" hills behind the village. The key giveaway here is the presence of Tai Shek Mo in the background with its recognisable crooked peak (see image 2). Quite a few of the scenes in this movie show a lot of mist/fog/low cloud and this is very typical weather for Hong Kong around Feb/March time.

The Lady Hermit - Cheng Pei-pei (1971) - Ho Sheung Heung

Lady Hermit and Cui Ping don't have to travel far to find exile as they come across some abandoned huts located just around the corner in Ho Sheung Heung. I have a love/hate relationship with this place because it has caused me so much trouble over the years. However, on finishing that little journey of discovery, it turns out that many more films were shot there including The Lady Hermit. It looks as though the huts in the film were built on the east slope of the "middle hill". This will make sense if your read my linked article. In other news, the local village, Ho Sheung Heung, is spending some money to renovate the local road and surroundings and I believe they have recently constructed an access path and  pavilion on top of the third hill on this site. This should give you a reasonable view of the site of this filming to the south. I will report further when it has been completed, so keep your eyes open. In the meantime here are the screencaps.

The Lady Hermit - Cheng Pei-pei (1971) - Pak Shek Au, North District

As Cui Ping runs after Miss Leng we are treated to some expansive views of one the the Shaw production's favourite exterior locations: Pak Shek Au in Kwu Tung. As mentioned in previous posts, this once large open area filled with rolling hills was often utilised courtesy of its large open spaces and ease to get to - it's located just north of the Castle Peak Road as it passes Sheung Shui on the way towards Yuen Long. Back then it was perfect due to its remoteness from modern Hong Kong but fell out of use during the 1980s when development in Hong Kong, and Shenzhen over the border, began to make period filming more difficult. Lots of modern infrastructure started popping into view. The area is currently undergoing huge change as the HK Govt forges ahead with its "Northern Metropolis" development - building large high rise residential blocks on part of the area that can be seen in the images below. I saw a news report on what they have planned for this place and I doubt there will be anything left in about 10 years time. It's quite sad that this area, despite a small bit of subsequent development, has retained a certain amount of beauty, and the HK Govt and its developer friends are determined to replace it all with modern construction.

In Search of Bruce Lee's Last Filming Location

I was recently made aware that one of the extras on the Enter the Clones of Bruce Lee documentary is a small location video tour called Bruce's Hong Kong. The snippet I was sent included the footage of Ching Chung Koon followed by Bruce's fight against Sammo at the beginning of Enter the Dragon and basically saying that the fight scene was shot in a "still unidentified location". 

If only Frank Djeng - the creator of the otherwise informative film - had got in touch. I know my blog stuff here is a bit niche, but the location of the fight has been public knowledge since 2009 when I was first able to track it down. In fact, it was one of my first big location scoops and was what sent me down the path of finding all the other places that make up these (now numbering in the thousands) location pages for Hong Kong-shot movies.

In fact, my old (granted, now deleted) historical blog even had a page called Bruce Lee's Hong Kong on which I detailed a significant number of Lee-related Hong Kong sites. It certainly seems to have been useful to a large number of people coming to Hong Kong and wanting a consolidated list of places to visit. It also formed the basis for some walking tours that I have decided to reinstate here (see the right hand side bar of the blog). Even before that I had written an article for Time Out in 2011 that identified the site. So I am a bit confused as to why it still seems to remain a mystery. Especially since some other information I have documented publicly (such as the appearance of the original Jumbo back in 2011) did make it into that little 'documentaryette'. Well, anyway, regardless of the reasons, it seems like a good idea to revive an old deleted post, from blog v.2 (when I was using Wordpress) in 2009, that detailed the events surrounding the location's eventual discovery. 

Bruce Lee's mysterious last filming location

The Water Margin - David Chiang (1972) - Ho Sheung Heung, North District

Back to Ho Sheung Heung and the location where Bruce Lee fought Sammo Hung in the opening scenes of Enter the Dragon. Despite taking me several months to locate, it turns out this place was a popular filming spot through the 70s. These days it's still fairly over grown and impenetrable but I still wait patiently for the day when some idiot accidentally starts a hillfire and reveals some lost film artifacts.

In this scene, Yan Ching (David Chiang) has just saved Jade Unicorn from being assassinated by his corrupt guards, and hangs around waiting to rob someone so he can get enough money to go to Liangshan and team up with the bandits. It turns out that the two people he decides to rob are Liangshan bandits.

Tai Shek Mo (Crest Hill) in the background

The Water Margin - David Chiang (1972) - Pak Shek Au, North District

Here we are back at Pak Shek Au near Kwu Tung. It's a favoured filming location for many a 60s- and 70s-made period film thanks to its - then - relatively unspoilt environment. Since those days it has undergone significant change as small industrial sites (and their requisite corrugated iron and steel structures) occupied much of the central area. Although even now, those rather unsitely structures have themselves now been cleared to make way for the start of the much-heralded "Northern Metropolis".

In the scene below, Chao Gai, the bandit leader (played by Tung Lam), has just been ambushed and atttacked by Shi Wengong and is impaled with an arrow before being rescued by Lin Chong (Yueh Hwa).

The area below can be indentified by the presence of a small ridge in the background that has the English name on Open Street Map of "Mt Kirkpatrick" and "Mt Kilpatrick" on older ones. I suspect the older one is the correct name. In front was a flat area with a couple of large ponds that was later utilised for the aforementioned cluster of small industrial buildings as well as the community centre, sports pitch and camp site. Someone took a photo from the Tung Wah campsite which shows Mt Kirk/Kilpatrick in the background. It gives you an idea of how much the place has changed. Also, fans of the genre may be interested to compare the images below with the last image on my old post on The Fate of Lee Khan. It's more or less the same camera angle.

As Chao Gai tries to escape, he rides his horse to the east with a view towards Tai Shek Mo (Crest Hill). You can see a similar view in this shot from The Blood Brothers.

And...finally a view over to the distinctive peak of Ki Lun Shan which can be seen in this image from The Legend of the Seven Golden Vampires. In fact, you will see those two shots were taken from more or less the exact same place.

Whicker's Orient - Alan Whicker (1972) - Lo Wu Border Crossing, Sheung Shui

As well as footage of the Man KamTo crossing, The Freedom Swimmers also has a brief shot of the covered railway crossing at Lo Wu.

Whicker's Orient - Alan Whicker (1972) - Man Kam To, Sheung Shui

The next installemnt of Whicker's Orient is called "The Freedom Swimmers" and focusses on those from the Mainland who make the often dangerous crossing from China into Hong Kong. The episode starts at the border at Man Kam To where Whicker interviews Superintendent Stanley Flowers and explains to the viewers the reality of the border between Hong Kong and China. 

You can compare the views below with those shot for Spearhead from the same watchtower around a decade later.

La Fine Dell'innocenza - Annie Belle (1976) - Beas River Country Club, Sheung Shui

Linda and Annie head to Beas River Country Club where Linda meets her lover for a quickie whilst Annie hangs out and eats an ice cream. We don't get to see the famous former Jardines front gate but we do see a bit of the grounds including a building with the zig-zag staircase that (I believe) now houses the club's gym (feel free to correct me if you know better).

Snake in the Eagle's Shadow - Jackie Chan (1978) - Ho Sheung Heung, Sheung Shui

Here is a location that holds a special significance for me because this is the filming location I was able to "rediscover" after it was seemingly lost to most peoples' memories many years ago. Like many former rural filming spots, the encroachment of modern technology meant many places in Hong Kong were no longer suitable for filming period-set films and, here, electricity pylons were erected along the south slope of Tai Shek Mo in the background. As such it was diificult to film here without having the pylons and associated cables looming into view.

SPL - Donnie Yen (2005) - Tai Tau Leng Playground, Sheung Shui

Named after a nearby walled village, Tai Tau Leng (大頭嶺) Playground is the rather interesting use of some undercover space created by the Fanling Highway flyover. Instead of filling the space full of planters, as is usually the way in Hong Kong, some enterprising urban planner has instead turned both sides of a traffic roundabout into a covered playground (playground in Hong Kong means space for leisure activities, not necessarily a kiddy climbing frame sort of deal as it means in the UK). It's here where Ma (Yen) and Lok (Ken Cheung Chi-yiu) go to collect a gun from an underworld contact only to fall into a trap.

Election - Simon Yam (2005) - Sheung Shui MTR Station, Sheung Shui

One of the gang heads over the border to pick up the society's "dragon headed baton". He heads to the border via the - what was then still called - the KCR line at Sheung Shui train station. The film was made back in 2005 before the Lok Ma Chau border station was opened (2007) so the only place to go to cross the border (via the train) was Lo Wu hence the singular destination sign in the top image below.

Spearhead in Hong Kong - Stafford Gordon (1981) - Beas River, Sheung Shui

Four years before Jackie Chan and Danny Aiello visited the Beas River Country Club to confront Roy Chiao's bad guy, Martin Jacobs (playing Lieutenant Pickering) heads there for some fatherly advice from a retired Brigadier. Once again the famous - former Jardines Stables - gate is the instantly recognisable landmark that tells us we are way out in the Kwu Tung area of the New Territories, not too far from Sheung Shui.