The Head Hunter - Chow Yun Fat (1982) - Sirmio, Tai Po

This location, Sirmio, on its own was one of the main reason I wanted to include this film on the blog.

One of three "castles" built by Eu Tong Sen in the pre-war period, this schloss-style mansion was located on the north shore of Tolo Harbour and caused a bit of a mystery for us on Gwulo/Batgung (can't remember which) back in the day. We eventually tracked it down to a headland now occupied by a large housing development called "Fortune Garden", just off Ting Kok Road. As you can see from the screencaps below, the building was on its last legs by the time this film was shot there and another of Hong Kong's grand mansions soon bit the dust and disappeared. Thankfully, there are some nice photos from the 1960s over at Gwulo and we have films like this to save it for posterity. Incidentally, there is one remaining artifact from the property that is still intact and it's a pagoda located on the headland above the water of the harbour. I have no idea if it has been integrated into the current housing estate or whether it can be reached from the beach. If anyone knows, please feel to comment.

Anyway, Sirmio is the location where Yuen goes to confront his boss only to be followed by both Vickie and the Yuen's crazy former Vietnamese army colleague, Kam, who wants to take revenge for Yuen abandoning him to the North Vietnamese back during the war.

Yakuza on Foot - Tomisaburô Wakayama (1969) - Ting Kok Road, Tai Po

For the remainder of the car chase, the film crew shifted to the northern side of Tai Po and Ting Kok Road. Specifically this is the section of the road near to Po Sam Pai village. It's here where the Yakuza finally get the upper hand and are able to kill the kidnappers and take the girls back to their families, only to find out the angry families were expecting the girls to be off to earn them money. The sandy area on the right of the frame in most of the images, was the formation works for what is now the Tung Tzs Nursery area - a small fish pond area between Po Sam Pai and Chim Uk.

Yakuza on Foot - Tomisaburô Wakayama (1969) - Fui Sha Wai, Tai Po

More than ten years ago I posted about some of the sites the first season of I Spy visited in Tai Po and one of them was a walled village, Fui Sha Wai, about a mile or so north of the main town. Well, just four short years after those scenes were shot, the crew of this film turned up and shot a huge sequence in and around the village. This is the location chosen by the triads to confront the Yakuza for stealing some of their 'flower boat' prostitution earnings via the Yakuza's brothel in town. What ensues is a sword fight, Japan v China, before the gang from Oriental Travel show up and start shooting at everyone. It's here where the two gangs decide to settle their difference and come together to get rid of their common enemy: foreigners!

As I mentioned in the old I Spy post, the main gate of the village has been remodelled since the 1960s, but other than that the area looks more or less the same (albeit with rather more houses in the vicinity).

To Be Number One - Ray Lui (1991) - Island House, Tai Po

It's a bit hard trying to figure out which property (or properties) was used for the interior of Lui Lok's house, seen when the gang leaders decide to take each other out during a supposed friendly "gong sau" meeting on neutral ground. However, the exteriors are a different matter and a hint is given in the acknowledgements as the filmmakers thank the World Wide Fund for Nature. It turns out that the location was Island House in Tai Po, now a WWF office and a place I am quite familiar with thanks to my 6 years living just up the road from here.

Anyway, this is the place where Big Sha and Ho fight off a horde of marauding triad gunslingers before being rescued on a motorbike by "Dummy". If you want a comparison, someone has kindly included a bunch of photo sphere's all around the property. This one relates to the bottom image.

Whicker's Orient - Alan Whicker (1972) - Tai Po Kau Marine Police Base

The Marine Policeman being interview on Tung Ping Chau mentions that anyone intercepted in this area is taken back to the Marine Police Base at Tai Po Kau. Prior to the development of the new towns of Shatin and Tai Po in the 1980s, this base was located on the pier next to Tai Po Kau railway station. Much of the original pier, including the Marine Police base, was destroyed to make way for the Tolo Highway, but the pier that stands there today is basically an extension of that same pier.

The Marine Police were later moved to the old Tai Po Police Station (now the "Green Hub") before moving to a larger purpose-built base in Shatin, close to University station.

The Killer - Chow Yun Fat (1989) - Villa Costa, Tai Po Kau

For the final post from this film, I've left the best until last. Possibly one of the best-remembered scenes from The Killer is when Ah Jong and Danny Lee's policeman end up sprawled on the floor with their guns pointing at each others faces. This takes place in the home of Ah Jong's double-crossing agent, Sidney, where Ah Jong and Jennie have gone into hiding. Yet another example of John Woo's favourite pastime: finding a building about to be demolished and then blowing the sh*t out of it.

Yes, as you may have guessed the house is no longer around. It was located in Tai Po Kau, just off Lookout Link. It and its neighbour were both demolished not long after this film was made and the whole site was replaced into a townhouse development called Villa Costa at #18 Lookout Link. The part of this development that corresponds where the old house and its garden were located, coincides with today's house numbers 10, 11, 12 and 15 (there's no #13 or #14 because...superstitious claptrap). I have no idea if this house had a name, nor who the owners were (although I am sure someone can pay for the land deeds if they are really interested) but given that a variety of Colonial Administration employees used to live around this area, it wouldn't surprise me if this was also given over to a senior officer in the then Govt.

I did notice that whoever wrote the wikipage for the film has stated this property was located in Stanley, but that's patently wrong. So, another falsehood busted.

Please feel free to comment if you have any information you can share about the place. I already posted an image on Gwulo and so far the only comment was to tell me it was the house from The Killer (yes, this despite me already mentioning it in my post there). On an aside, the house next door (whose garden/front hedgerow can be seen in image 1) which also succumbed under the same development project, was called "Hei Yuen" on the 1970 Govt maps. Villa Costa was completed and occupied in 1994, so I imagine the house was demolished within a couple of years of the film being made there.

Looking out across Tolo Harbour

Back garden and terrace

They'll never get the stains off the rug, but I guess they didn't have to

The Killer - Chow Yun Fat (1989) - Tolo Harbour, Tai Po

The boat chase is so long it passes all the way down into Tolo Habour with Pat Sin Leng on full show in the background. This is quite an impressive chase because this would be a distance of around 50km - having to go all around the north coast of the Sai Kung Country Park and all the way down the Tolo Channel.

Pat Sin Leng in the distance

Police Story 2 - Jackie Chan (1988) - Ting Kok Road, Tai Po

When the bombers use a public telephone box to make their next extortion demand, they use a call box in Tai Po near to the Tin Hau Temple on Ting Kok Road. The scene starts with a beat policeman walking along Mei Sun Lane (top image). This is an interesting shot for me because in the background is Eightland Garden. This is the very first place I stayed when I first visited Hong Kong in 1995. My friend's family had a flat in there. The taxi driver dropped me off on On Chee Road ecause he had no idea where the place was and I was left to wander around asking in my stilted Cantonese where the address was. An old person who spoke English took pity on me and showed me the way. 

Anyway, nostalgia aside, the cop takes a call to go an find out who is using the phone box. The phone box is on the other side of Ting Kok Road and the bad guy jaywalks across the road to grab a cab when he is stopped by the cop. Actually, this area looks very much the same now as it did back in 1988, with the exception of Mei Sun Lane which now looks slightly less ramshackle.

Police Story 2 - Jackie Chan (1988) - Tai Po Industrial Estate, Tai Po

This is where Jackie is seen directing traffic immediately after the incident with the speeding trucks. Funnily enough, Dai Fu Street is the exact same place where Chan was hanging onto the bus by the umbrella in the first Police Story.

Police Story 2 - Jackie Chan (1988) - Tolo Highway, Tai Po

After issuing a bunch of tickets to the bus drivers, Ka Kui can be seen driving along a highway before being directed by the dispatcher to another traffic incident. This scene was filmed along the Tolo Highway driving towards Tai Po. The buildings on the ridge in the background belong to the Chinese University of Hong Kong.

An Orphan's Tragedy - Bruce Lee (1955) - Tai Po KCR Station, Tai Po Kau

Continuing with some local films, here is one I actually posted about many years ago but removed when I decided to concentrate of foreign productions. Anyway, here it is again.

This is one of Bruce Lee's childhood movies (he was 14 when it was made) loosely based on Dickens' Great Expectations. Lee plays the childhood version of the main characters, whose father has been framed and wrongly convicted of a crime but escapes and then helps his son study to become a doctor. Apart from a rather anonymous hilltop where the young Frank (Bruce Lee) runs into his (unbeknownst to him) biological father - an impossible place to find even for me - there are two scenes filmed on location at the old Tai Po KCR station at Tai Po Kau. The first scene is when Frank (Bruce) departs to go to study medicine. The second scene is when Frank returns after his studies and has morphed into the rather drastically much older, Cheung Wood-yau (father of Chor Yuen in case you didn't know).

Yes, prior to electrification in 1983, there used to be two Tai Po KCR stations. One of them, Tai Po Market station, was decommissioned in 1983 and subsequently became the Hong Kong Railway Museum*. The other was originally called Tai Po station and was located next to the ferry pier at Tai Po Kau. This station was also decommisoned in 1983, but was also subsequently demolished and redeveloped into a KCR staff quarters called Trackside Villas.

The name of this latter station appears to have caused some confusion when it operated, and so the name of the station was later changed to Tai Po Kau to reflect the fact that it wasn't really in Tai Po town. The station was really located here because it was a dropping off point for the nearby ferry pier that provided ferry services all over Tolo Harbour - once a very convenient way for outlying villagers to access the market at Tai Po.

Anyway, in 1955, as you can see from the screen caps below, the station was still called just "Tai Po".

Train approaching from Shatin direction

The view towards the north/Tai Po proper

The little girl is a 7 year old Josephine Siao

*It was at the museum that I first discovered this film because a short clip from it - showing the two scenes I have mentioned - is included in a visual display inside the old station building. For those interested, I did actually venture over that way once and took some photos of where the station used to be. Click here.

Police Story - Jackie Chan (1985) - Dai Fu Street, Tai Po Industrial Estate

Despite grabbing an umbrella from a poor woman on On Cheung Street in Tai Po centre, and then popping out from the side of the Siu Lek Yuen Telephone Exchange in Shatin a few seconds before, the geography defying chase goes back to Tai Po as Jackie chases the bus down. Props again to Dan for locating this one originally as Jackie uses his filched brolly to attach himself to the side of the bus.

As we get the in-bus point of view of Jackie running behind the bus we are on Dai Fu Street in the Tai Po Industrial Estate. The bus is driving west and we are looking east.

Then in the side-on view it looks as though the bus is now driving back the way it has just come because the wall at the back belongs to a building on the north side of the road (you can see the wall on the left in the third image - it now belongs to "Pico" but I have no idea who was there in 1985)

Then as we look out of the bus again, after Jackie has successfully grabbed on (for the time being at least), we are now back to the original direction. I think it's safe to assume the crew did a fair amount of filming up and down this road.

The final shot is of the bus veering around the corner and making jackie swing out into the road with just his crappy little umbrella keeping him attached. This was the corner of Dai Fu Street where it turns south in a right angled bend. The buildings at the back are the ones now owned by Pico (just mentioned) where the side on view was filmed in image 2. Suffice to say the industrial estate has a lot more buildings here now and the green can no longer be seen. Unilever and Fairwood have two large factory centres in that green bit now.