Spearhead in Hong Kong - Stafford Gordon (1981) - Stanley Fort, Hong Kong

Roughly ten years before Soldier Soldier was filmed in Hong Kong there was another British Army based show that was filming at Stanley Barracks. Shown in 1981 (I imagine filmed either that year or the year before) it was the third (and last) series portraying the fictitious 1st Battalion Royal Wessex Rangers on their Hong Kong tour involving mainly operations against illegal immigrants near the border. The drama is slightly more serious than Soldier Soldier and there isn't the same comic relief as that show but I'm quite impressed with the fact that the geography is true and the places mentioned are the ones where the filming took place. Also there are a few familiar faces that showed up (familiar to me as someone who grew up in the UK watching UK television, that is) including a pre-Only Fools and Horses Nicholas Lyndhurst, Roy Holder, Ric Young (Lord Jim, Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom) and not forgetting Burt Kwouk who turns up as a Triad.

Anyway, as mentioned, the Battalion is based out of Stanley Fort so a large selection of locations seen are around there with a few places out in a still very undeveloped New Territories. Here is a few scenes from Stanley in the first episode called Night Games. You will of course remember that as well as Soldier Soldier, Bloodsport was also filmed in and around here. These days it is P.L.A controlled and goes by Stanley's Chinese name: Chek Chue Barracks.

These first two shots show a helicopter landing at the barracks, in the frame you can see Lo Chau (small stony islet at the bottom of the first image) and the prison (bottom of second image).

Soldier, Soldier (TV Series) - Robson Green (1992) - Stanley Fort, Stanley

As the base for the fictional King's Fusiliers throughout their stay in HK, Stanley Fort features fairly heavily throughout the series (so I am sure this is the first of several similar posts). Here are a few shots from A Touch of the Sun.

I've never been to Stanley Fort and therefore am not 100% sure of the building identities, but I'll give it a stab. The first picture is of the accommodation of the battalion commander, Lt Col Fortune, which, I believe, is Conway House (aka Building 18).

Conway Hse/Building 18?

Next up we see the swimming pool down by the lowest row of accommodation blocks that face Stanley Bay - although in the background we can see the row of blocks on the higher terrace. They are (from right to left) Richmond, Halifax, Chester and Windsor (Buildings 89 thru 86).

The next building is one we have seen on this blog before - it can be seen in Bloodsport - but I am not sure of whereabouts it is within the fort. I am guessing it is the nameless E-shaped block on the maps in the centre of the Fort (now called Chek Chue Barracks, by the way) that has the bowling green in front of it?

Another block, also seen in the above Bloodsport link, is what I believe to be Building 10. An elongated colonial building that sits on the road just above the parade ground and sports field.

Building 10 - also seen in Bloodsport

We get to see a brief glimpse of the road in front of the lower accommodation blocks (buildings 90 - 95), although I am not sure which one we are looking at.

And rounding off this post with a quick look at the parade ground with Building 10 in the background.

I'm not familiar with the fort and so can't say how much has changed since the P.L.A moved in to Chek Chue Barracks (Chek Chue is the Chinese name for 'Stanley' in case you didn't know), but judging from GoogleEarth, the majority of landmarks we see in the series are still around as far as I can tell. I'd love to hear from anyone familiar with the compound or perhaps who actually lived there with the army.

Bloodsport - Jean Claude Van Damme (1987) - Stanley Military Barracks, Stanley Peninsula

I have a big thank you to say to Neil Macdonald for helping identify the following location (and a few more I will put up in the next few days). For those who have missed his great comments, I have made a post out of them here.

Neil used to work as a production manager for Salon Films who were responsible for co-producing many of the films I have featured on this blog - including Bloodsport, Double Impact and many more. Basically, Neil was the location manager for these films and so he is probably the one single person in the world who can provide some great answers about the places used in them.

Anyway, one of the first things he identified was the Stanley Barracks (Stanley Fort as it was back then) used for the training scenes in Bloodsport, as well as the 'school' that the young Frank was bullied at. Here are the grabs.

Unfortunately, due to the fact that this facility is now occupied by the PLA (that's the Peoples' Liberation Army in case you didn't already know), and my usual resources (Streetview and Panoramio) don't have anything helpful I can't really provide any decent comparison for confirmation so we will just have to accept it as it is. The thing I can't do is provide an exact location within the compound - this will have to wait until some kind soul makes some more comprehensive pictures available. The PLA do host open days at various barracks, but I'm not sure if Stanley is included let alone whether non-Chinese (like me) would be allowed in.

Having said that, the building seen in the top two snaps does happen to have been snapped back in the 1960's courtesy of the Queens Royal Surrey Regiment who were stationed there at the time. I can't seem to do a direct embed of the picture so have copy and pasted it. For the sake of acknowledgement the website it can be found on is at the following URL (and is well worth a read): http://www.queensroyalsurreys.org.uk/hongkong_china/hkc10_1.html#

Look carefully and you will see it is the same building, albeit when they filmed Bloodsport the trees had grown (well, it was 25 or so years later). The soldiers above are basically standing/seated in the same spot that the guy is standing in in the second screen grab.

So, once again many thanks to Neil.