Rich and Famous - Chow Yun Fat (1987) - Lung Uk, Tsing Lung Tau

The discovery of former grand villas in Hong Kong continues with the inclusion of the house(s) used for the ambush scene as Ah Chai sends Kwok and Yung to make an exchange with a "General" in Macau. It turns out to have been a trap for Chai as a gang of gunslingers turns up to kill them. Cue a huge shootout in and around the property before Chai, sensing something might have gone wrong, turns up with some machine pistols to rescue his men.

This whole sequence was supposedly in Macau, and it cuts a couple of times to Chai waiting in his boat in the outer harbour as he has been warned not to go on land. However, I can confirm that this location, despite the "Bar Bela-Vista" sign in the first image, was shot fully in Hong Kong around a cluster of old villas collectively known as called "Lung Uk" (according to a 1970 map). It consisted of 4 detached houses on a terrace above Castle Peak Road in Tsing Lung Tau.

Unfortunately (yep, you guessed it), they were redeveloped in the early 1990s into the huge "Sea Crest Villa Phase 3" development (Block 10 specifically). The area was also affected by the widening of Castle Peak Road in the early 2000s. Former (now deceased) Chief Secretary of the Colonial HK Government, Sir David Akers-Jones famously lost his house to the same widening project, and nearby Dragon Garden lost a large portion of its lower gardens to the new road as well.

Anyway, here is an aerial image from 1982 to show you what the site looked like when the houses were intact. The building on the left (#4) is the one that is disguised as a cafe in the movie - where "Number 6" (Shing Fui-on) is sitting as the taxi arrives. The main exchange takes place in the next house (#3) along and the gunfight sort of carries on across these two properties and the next one (#2). Far right was #1 - part of the cluster but located down the hill and can't be seen on film. This post is a bit of an image bonanza because I feel these old forgotten places are worth documenting as much as possible.

1982 aerial courtesy HKmaps.hk

On a 1970 map, the house at the back (disguised as a Macau-sounding bar) was #4

Taxi pulls in to #3

General leaves and goes nextdoor to #2, signalling the ambush

The Black Dragon's Revenge - Ronnie Van Clief (1975) - Villa Alfavista, Tsing Lung Tau

I think this will be the last post from me here for a while as, due to various circumstances, I have to head back to the UK. Sadly for me, the UK has been put on a high risk list for HK returnees which mean my stay will be much longer than originally intended. Anyway, I'll still be online, just not able to produce anything for this blog for the time being.

Anyway, back to Tsing Lung Tau and this time we are next door to Dragon Villa at an apartment complex called Villa Alfavista. For some reason, for the finale, the film crew decided to film the actors walking through the grounds here rather than the actual location next door (even though they filmed much of the finale next door anyway).

You can also see Villa Alfavista in the background behind Ronnie's head in the next image.

The Black Dragon's Revenge - Ronnie Van Clief (1975) - Dragon Villa 旭龍, Tsing Lung Tau

The first thing the intrepid pair do once Van Clief meets up with his Vietnam buddy, Charles Bonet, is head to the house where Bruce supposedly died. Of course, in real life we know this to be the apartment of Betty Ting Pei at "Beverly Heights" on Beacon Hill Road. However, in this movie the location is a large property owned by film star, "Miss Tang". Although the property is supposed to be located in Kowloon Tong, as you will see in a later post, the actual location used is called Dragon Villa, located over on the NT coast at a place called Tsing Lung Tau. Not to be confused with Dragon Garden which is not that far away from this location and has a property inside that I have, in the past, referred to as Dragon Villa. To avoid confusion, I have added the label "Dragon Villa 旭龍" which contains the Chinese characters for the property (pronounced yuk lung in Cantonese).

The property hasn't actually changed very much since this movie was made, with the exception of some extra tree growth and the widening of Castle Peak Road (the same widening project that made the aforementioned Dragon Garden lose its original front wall and entrance gateway).

Anyway, I digress. The property is featured extensively in the film and is also the location of the final fight so we are given a fair amount of different camera angles that reveal bits of the property as the action moves around the garden.

View to Dragon Villa from across Castle Peak Road

I am 100% convinced this interior is real and not a studio set 

If you look on GoogleEarth you can see that the pagoda in the bottom image is still in the garden of the property.

The Last Grenade - Stanley Baker (1969) - Dragon Garden, Castle Peak Road

Another film to feature this rather picturesque private property that sits on Castle Peak Road about halfway between Tsuen Wan and Tuen Mun. This film was before The Man With The Golden Gun, which, I guess, was the film that made the location famous, but we've seen it multiple times on this blog now including I Spy, Men of the Dragon and Noble House. Now that it has been restored it would be good to see it on film again.

The sequence starts with a taxi journey (with Honor Blackman) to the front gate. Now, I have no idea what the Castle Peak Road used to look like but in this film it looks narrow and surrounded with bamboo, so I can't say for certain that this was the actual location of the front gate. However, the appearance of the famous red doors seems to be in favour of it being the right place and not some mock up.

But once we are inside there seems to be no doubt about where we are with the familiar decorations and orange/gold-roofed villa.

And lastly the various Chinese archways and structures on the upper terrace and the nice view over to Ma Wan island in the distance before it was ruined by over-development.