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.

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*