Daddy Cool - Mammootty (2009) - Tai Mei Tuk, Tai Po

For anyone who has bothered making the trip out to the Plover Cove reservoir in north Tai Po, then you would have passed through the village of Tai Mei Tuk on your way there. All public transport here stops at the carpark next to the entrance to the reservoir dam wall. In this film they shot a few brief scenes of the actors riding the rental bikes along the road. The same area can be seen when Antony's wife (Richa Pallod) turns up dressed like a traffic cop. That scene was filmed in the south east corner of the carpark.

The lower images are from a car drive filmed along Ting Kok Road in front of the village.

Pataya, seen in the background, still operates

Daddy Cool - Mammootty (2009) - Dai Cheong Street, Tai Po Industrial Estate

I jumped ahead of myself because, actually, the first view of Hong Kong we have in Daddy Cool is during the opening scenes as the kid, Adi (Master Dhananjay) is singing about how cool his dad is, and we see a picture of said dad (Mammootty) riding along on what appears to be a police bike. Although the plot has yet to move to Hong Kong, these early scenes were shot on Dai Cheong Street in the Tai Po Industrial Estate.

The first image is at the start of Dai Cheong Street at the junction with Dai Fat Street. The No NEtry sign in the background (now gone) is now the entrance to Dai Hung Street. The lower image is further alonbg Dai Cheong Street to the south. The red brick walls belong to the Resonac factory.

The last time I featured this road on the blog is was for Police Story.

The Angel Strikes Again - Lily Ho (1968) - Lam Kam Road, Lam Tsuen

We're all over the place for this sequence, because the junction where Deng Lei puts up the road works sign is actually several miles away from Route TWISK. The junction in question was the old service road running behind Hang Ha Po village in Lam Tsuen. Anyone who ever made the trip tio the Wishing Tree will have either gone into here or the next entrance along. Since the film was shot the sloped entrance has been removed and a flatter access point created further along. However, traces of the sloped road still remain as a footpath. The road is called Ngau Kwu Leng Lane or Lam Tsuen Heung Kung Sho Road  depending on which map you read. It terminates on the lower slopes of Pak Tai To Yan.

In the images below, the car is driving south along Lam Kam Road with Cloudy Hill in the background. Deng Lei hops out of the service road entrance and blocks the road with the signs forcing the car to turn up the village road.

Bullet for Hire - Simon Yam (1991) - Tolo Highway, Tai Po

Shan starts spending some of the money he has earned from the jobs and goes and buys a new car. He then heads out with Han for a spin along the Tolo Highway just outside of Tai Po. The buildings on the right belong to the Chinese University of Hong Kong.

Gen Y Cops - Edison Chen (2000) - SCMP Office, Tai Po Industrial Estate

Here's one I couldn't identify when I was initially researching locations for this film, but I finally found out it was the (former) SCMP offices at the Tai Po Industrial Estate. As far as I am aware the SCMP moved out of this place just before COVID came crashing down on our heads and it currently sits empty. However, the green painted walkways that span the central office space are quite well known (just not to me).

This place and the Hong Kong Academy of Medicine are used for the Police HQ.

Killer Angels - Moon Lee (1989) - #4740 Tai Po Road, Tai Po Kau

This property has appeared before on the blog. Here is the reminder: Bruce Lee in G.O.D. In this film, it is the safe house where the informer is taken by the Blue Angels.

It's been a while since I was up this way (at least 10 years) and I notice from recent images that the whole area where the house was located has been razed. No doubt the various detached properties here were bought up by a single developer and we will see a small gated townhouse development appear sometime in the future. I'm not sure of the state of this particular property but the whole area has disappeared from local maps and in the most recent Streetview the main gate was already sealed with wire fencing. So I assume it has already been demolished.

This film shows a bit more of the property including the interior and adjacent pool area.

The Merry Wife - Li Ching (1971) - Tai Po Market Station, Tai Po

Anyone who has visited the Railway Museum in Taipo will be familiar with the old Chinese-style station building, constructed in 1913. It was actually still a working station until up to the track electrification in 1983 when a bunch of the old stations were decommissioned and then demolished. Luckily, the ornate design of Tai Po Market station appears to have been in its favour and it was turned into a great little museum that is well worth a visit if you get the chance.

This isn't the earliest appearance of the station on the blog, that accolade goes to I Spy which filmed here in 1965 (see my old post here).

This is where Zhenzhen goes to meet Lin Min as he arrives by train to visit her at home.

The Merry Wife - Li Ching (1971) - Lam Kam Road, Lam Tsuen

Next up on my Shaw's hitlist is a 1971 film, The Merry Wife, about a young girl, Zhenzhen (Li Ching) who marries a school teacher, Lin Min (Ling Yun) but then decides to go back to school to complete her studies. The couple convince the husband's headteacher to accept her at his school and it is agreed to as long as they keep it a secret. What follows are some slightly unbelievable situations where their secret is slowly but surely discovered by her classmates and fellow teachers. It's an okay film, supposedly a romantic comedy, more of a drama though, and makes up for it's rather farfetched plot by showing us some great locations around 1971 Hong Kong.

First up is a place I am very familiar with because I spent a month living here at my friend's house on my very first trip to Hong Kong back in November 1995 - yes, I will celebrate a 30 year anniversary later this year. Doesn't time fly? Hard to believe that thirty years prior to that first trip takes me all the way back to the mid-60s before this film was made...(when you get to my age at 50+ years, it's this kind of stuff you think about a lot). Anyway, this is the Lam Tsuen valley in Tai Po and Zhenzhen is riding along Lam Kam Road to go and meet her (then) fiance at the train station.

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).