The Legend of the Seven Golden Vampires - Peter Cushing (1974) - Pak Shek Au, North District

I must admit to being stumped by this location for quite some time (years probably) and in my talks with various other people, such as Andi (who is much better at this than me), we came to the conclusion that the following area - one used by Shaw Bros on multiple occasions I hasten to add - must be somewhere up in the hills around Sai Kung and Movietown.

However, search as much as I could, I could just never find anything to match the ridge lines in the background.

It wasn't until just the other day that a particular ridge line struck a deeply buried memory in my brain and I eventually managed to finally place the filming location in Pak Shek Au - a small hilly area located between the Lok Ma Chau border area and Castle Peak Road, just down the road from Ho Sheung Heung.

Ho Sheung Heung and its neighbouring hill, Tai Shek Mo, you may remember as being the location of the filming of the fight scene between Sammo Hung and Bruce Lee at the beginning of Enter the Dragon, and it turns out that Tai Shek Mo was also instrumental in me being able to identify this location to. That's it at the back right, seen from the west, in the first picture below.

Now, these days this whole area has greened a lot but has also suffered from the sort of unchecked illegal development that blights much of the New Territories - basically a mish-mash of concreted parking areas, container storage, light industrial workshops, plant hire and other various blots on the landscape. This is a big shame when you see how empty and open it was back in the 1970's.

Now, we already know from some of the great spotting Andi has done that nearby Ho Sheung Heung has been featured in multiple films, including many Shaws productions, and seeing that this place is very close then it's easy to imagine it being a popular spot for filming here. I need to check but I believe there are many Shaws films that feature these same hills and dirt tracks (I'm pretty sure Come Drink With Me is one of these considering the last but one picture Andi has put in this post that shows Tai Shek Mo and its military insignia).

Anyway, mystery solved. Here are some more grabs. The first one shows a hill in the background that I've actually been to the top of without realising it's the same place, it's Ki Lun Shan. Somewhere hidden between there and the actors is the 1970's version of the Castle Peak Road (a much smaller version of the current one, but still a main thoroughfare at the time).

Ki Lun Shan in the background

Finally to finish, a shot taken as the actors walk closer along a dirt road towards Tai Shek Mo. The are you see is now filled with the aforementioned ad hoc industrial workshops previously mentioned. Incidentally, the HK Govt currently has plans to turn this whole area - or at least the nearby part called Kwu Tung - into a New Town. There's lots of opposition but it could be the industrial blight will be replaced by something even worse...

The Legend of the Seven Golden Vampires - Peter Cushing (1974) - Silverstrand Bay, Sai Kung

Proof (if ever you needed it) that Shaw Brothers were able to convey the sense of many different sorts of landscapes and locations on film from the comfort of their own backyard. This next scene was actually filmed on the hilltop behind the Movietown studio lot - an area that was taken over by the University of Science and Technology back in 1991 for their staff quarters.

Here are some film grabs looking down into Silverstrand Bay with its small rock outcrop just jutting out into the water.

Look in the far background and you can also make out the distinctive sharp profile of High Junk Peak sticking up in the ridgeline at the back. This angle could only be gained from the hillside behind the studio.

Incidentally, I believe that the small flat location seen in the top picture (where the carriage is sitting) has since been converted into a small garden with a pavilion attached to the staff quarters - however, I'm not sure of how much public access there is here - if any. Silverstrand went on to become slightly notorious  in the early 90's when a series of fatal shark attacks occurred there.

The Legend of the Seven Golden Vampires - Peter Cushing (1974) - Fei Ngo Shan, Sai Kung

In this classic collaboration (one of two) between the UK's Hammer Studios and Shaw Bros in HK, the film makers took advantage of the unspoilt mountainous area around Fei Ngo Shan (Kowloon Peak) to film the hilly scenes as the protagonists make their way to David Chiang's lost village.

Several scenes were shot but all incorporated approximately the same area. First there is this view of everyone stumbling up the hillside.The distant peaks poking up at the back are in fact eitehr end of the saddle ridge of Ma On Shan.

Judging from the angle I am guessing the camera was fairly close to the Fei Ngo Shan Road as it goes over the hill and down the other side towards Tate's Pass. Not an exact placement but this dip is close enough to the road so that the film crew had an easy job of it.

The second part featured above was reasonably close by with a view down into Port Shelter, or at least what seems to be the Hebe Haven part of it. I think this one was shot slightly further east.