The Brain Stealers - Lily Ho Li-li (1968) - Shui Hing House/Prestige Tower

Another Inoue Umetsugu film here in the shape of The Brain Stealers, one of the many spy-oriented movies that Shaws produced in the 1960s. This one stars Lily Ho as a judo expert, Li Chiu-lan, daughter of a famous scientist who has just invented a process to boost plant growth and yield to help solve food shortages in the light of the earth's ever increasing population. The problem is there is a nefarious megalomanic called Dr Zero who want the obtain the secrets so he can use it on humans and create superhumans to help hm rule the world. Dr Zero has been kidnapping scientists from around the world and forced them to invent a machine that can swap peoples' minds (hence "Brain Stealers"), and he uses the machine on Chiu-lan's brother to swap his mind with one of his henchmen.

The plot is hilarious but good fun and although supposedly shot in Hong Kong, Japan, Taiwan and Thailand (according to the excellent HKMDB) it is mainly a studio-based film with the odd location thrown in here and there.

The film opens with a panning shot of the harbour from Tsim Sha Tsui as the camera moves towards a judo class taking place on a nearby rooftop. This is where we first see Chiu-lan's prowess at chucking people around. The building they are training on is what is now called Prestige Tower but back in the 1960s was Shui Hing House. It's a nice view though because we also get to see the upper floors of the former Peninsula Court/Marco Polo hotel, the "Rolex" sign on top of Hotel Merlin and the brand spanking new Hankow Centre in the background (completed 1968 - it's the very clean building in the abckground of the third image).

The Peninsula Court Hotel rooftop (behind the titles)

The sign says (r-l) 香港大川柔道學院 (Hong Kong Great River Judo College)

Weiße Fracht für Hongkong - Dietmar Schönherr (1963) - Nathan Road, Kowloon

Here's a view I haven't seen before on this blog, at least from the early 60's. It's a view up Nathan Road from the corner of Middle Road. That corner is now occupied by Oterprise Square but prior to that had one of Tsim Sha Tsui's most popular hotels - The Ambassador - with its large exterior wall mural. We don't have the angle to see the mural on these following screencaps but if you look at my previous posts that include the hotel then you can catch brief glimpses of it.

On the left of the top picture is what I believe to be the former Marco Polo - Peninsula Court Hotel (since replaced by the Kowloon Hotel) and beyond that looks to be the Prestige Tower in its inaugural year (built in 1963). This one is still around with its inward curving lower floors taken up be jewellers and high end fashion. Under construction next door (along to the right) is Alpha House, opened in 1964, and then beyond that is the former Hyatt Hotel (now iSquare) under its original name "The President Hotel". According to this postcard over on Gwulo.com, it opened in the autumn of 1963, but I can't tell from this picture whether or not it's open when this was made. 

Roaring Fire - Hiroyuki Sanada (1982) - Nathan Road, Kowloon

In possibly one of the greatest action scenes from the early 80's - and in what appears to be a scene later heavily borrowed from by Jackie Chan in Police Story 2 - Joji (Sanada) jumps on board a double-decker bus to escape his pursuers.

What follows is some pretty cool fighting and some impressive physical stunts being played out along the lower section of Nathan Road in TST. Yes, this IS the same chase scene that just a few seconds ago saw him jumping over the wall of Man Mo Temple over on HK Island - movie world geography once again taking liberties with physical geography.

So, first Sanada climbs out of the window of the upper level (he's already had a fight on the lower one) and onto the roof.

Notice the planetarium dome in the background and the corner of the Peninsula Hotel just visible on the right of the screen. In 1982 the rest of the Cultural Centre and Museum of Art had yet to be built. He's then followed up there by his numerous attackers and a big fight ensues with no one falling off.

On this second shot we can see the Peninsula at the end of the road and immediately behind it (the next building along towards the camera) was most likely the former Peninsula Court hotel in its very last year of operation before being demolished to make way for the Kowloon Hotel. Somewhere closer to us behind that would be Prestige Tower and the building with the extended part jutting over the pavement looks to be Alpha House. That would make the MTR exit at the bottom right exit E.

At last we make it up to where the old Hyatt Hotel stood (formerly The President Hotel) and the rather well-known Emperor Watch and Jewellery sign that used to hang outside. The flags on the left side mark the Nathan Road entrance to the hotel - nowadays the hotel site is occupied by the iSore...sorry, I mean iSquare Mall. Sanada grabs onto the bottom of it to escape.

He then hangs on twenty feet above the road and waits for another passing bus before dropping on to its roof.