I Spy (TV Series) - Robert Culp (1965) - Tai Po Market KCR Station, Tai Po

Remember I mentioned the Tai Po Railway Museum in my last post? Well, for those who don't know, the Railway Museum in Tai Po was created from the disused KCR Tai Po Market Railway station. When the track underwent electrification in 1983, the whole process saw the fall of some obsolete stations as new ones - catering for the new electric trains - came into use. Tai Po used to have two stations: Tai Po station in Tai Po Kau (later renamed Tai Po Kau station to avoid confusion) and Tai Po Market Station in the old market area. Tai Po Kau was demolished and the site was re-developed into accommodation for KCR workers, and the Tai Po Market station was turned into this fantastic little museum - well worth a visit if you are in HK.

Anyway, here is another good reason to visit the place: in the episode Affair at T'sien Cha, we get to see Cosby and Culp waiting for a train at this very spot.

I was totally astonished when AP first sent me these screen grabs, I am so familiar with this place (I lived in Tai Po for 6 years and often took my kids here) and had no idea that nearly 50 years ago Bill Cosby had beaten me to it. Amazing stuff!.

The icing on the cake is also a nicely stitched panorama, also supplied by AP, which shows the platform in its entirety.

I can tell you that the station building still looks pretty much as it does here, although I believe at some time between 1965 and the 1970's a small pedestrian bridge was added to allow people to cross the track when the train was stopped at the platform.

NB: the track was doubled here because Tai Po Market station was one of the designated passing places for trains heading in opposite directions.

I Spy (TV Series) - Robert Culp (1965) - Sheung Shui KCR Station, Sheung Shui

Well, a few posts ago we saw some nice shots taken in and around the KCR Terminus in Tsim Sha Tsui, this time we are going all the way up to the opposite end of the same track (and actually, it was still a single track at the time) to the very last stop HK-side at Sheung Shui. It's a fleeting glimpse but an interesting one.

Suffice to say everything has changed and not only the station but the whole town (Sheung Shui was a small market place formerly known as Shek Wu Hui) has been merged with the neighbouring area of Fanling to become Sheung Shui/Fanling New Town (Fanling itself was also a former market town, called Luen Wo Hui, run by a rival clan).

The only constant here now can be seen in the distant background and that is the hill known as Tai Shek Mo. Readers of this blog (and my other one) will probably recognise that name because it is the same hill (albeit from a different angle) that features in the background of the Bruce Lee V Sammo Hung fight in Enter The Dragon.

Incidentally, if you ever make it to the Railway Museum in Tai Po (an interesting post on that coming up next), you'll see that the above diesel engine's counterpart, numbered #51, is still on display there.

I Spy (TV Series) - Robert Culp (1965) - Fui Sha Wai, Tai Po

After a bit of searching I have managed to locate the walled village that can be seen in the Affair at T'sien Cha episode. You shouldn't be surprised to hear that it has changed drastically - like many other similar villages in HK - with the addition of modern houses within the ancient walls, as well as a whole new gate house. Anyway, here are the grabs.

Note the hillside in the background because it helped me identify the village.

There are also some shots that were (I am assuming, I haven't been able to confirm) taken inside the village itself.

And another grab from a scene that looks to have been filmed in the surrounding village, called Tai Hang (not to be confused with the other Tai Hang - and no doubt several others - located in Happy Valley).

I've taken a quick grab from Streetview to show what the place looks like today - as you can see the gatehouse has been replaced and some remodeling has occurred where the top of the external wall meets the sides of the gatehouse (was curved, now square). But if you look closely and compare with the very first screen grab at the top, you will notice that some of the original buildings inside the wall are still there (in specific I am talking about the pointed roofs to the left of the gatehouse - they can also be seen in the screen grab). The clincher was of course the background hillside which is in fact the NW side of Cloudy Hill.

Anyway, now I know where it is I will take a couple of screen grabs up there one day and ask if anyone remembers the filming. Keep watching...

I Spy (TV Series) - Robert Culp (1965) - Kowloon KCR Terminus, Tsim Sha Tsui

Some great shots here of the area around the old KCR terminus in TST - it's sole survivor being the familiar clocktower that stands on the waterfront. But how about the following shot showing the old Post Office?

Pretty cool huh? I actually had no idea it was there. Guess I need to read up a bit more. This whole area - including the station building itself, was completely redeveloped and replaced by the windowless Cultural Centre (tell a lie, it DOES have windows, but they are actually skylights on the roof). You catch a glimpse of the development work courtesy of Bloodsport. But in typical HK fashion (this is the place that took nearly 15 years to sort out what to do with the old Kai Tak Airport site), even though the station was knocked down in 1978, the development was still going on in 1986 when Bloodsport was filmed.

Here we see the guys running past the elegant columns of the station facade. In case you don't read my other blog, there are some remaining station columns making up a display in the former District Council garden in East TST.

It's a real shame that the Cultural Centre design couldn't have been adapted to preserve more of the old building (such as the facade) and I feel the waterfront is poorer for it.

To finish off we have a quick glimpse of the old station platform sign. These big white signs were used all along the KCR line at each station. The Railway Museum at Tai Po still has one (because it is the former station as well), but more about that one later. Look at the top and you can see the Peninsula Hotel poking up at the back.

I Spy (TV Series) - Robert Culp (1965) - Tiger Balm Gardens, Tai Hang

Once one of HK's most popular attractions, it was sold to Cheung Kong Holdings (aka Li Ka Shing) a while ago and has subsequently been turned into a highrise development called "The Legend". Luckily for us the centrepiece, Haw Par Mansion, was preserved and is currently undergoing the process in which it will be decided how it can be used.

Anyway, another part of the Affair in T'sien Cha sees our intrepid duo here as well wandering around not only the gardens but also the terrace and swimming pool that were adjacent to the mansion.

Lots of snaps but all worthy of inclusion I feel simply because this place has gone and won't be back. I think that there should have been efforts to preserve the pagoda as well but it wasn't to be. I will head back there at some point and show you all what's left.

I Spy (TV Series) - Robert Culp (1965) - King Yin Lei, Hong Kong

Let's kick off the I Spy posts with the beginning of the episode entitled Affair in T'sien Cha. The location should be very familiar to anyone who has read either of my two HK-based blogs. Yes, it's our trusty Chinese-styled house above Wanchai - 8 years before it became the distant lair of the nefarious Han, and ten years after it was the abode of Clark Gable.

For those familiar with the series itself, you will know that the premise is that Robert Culp plays a tennis player who travels the world participating in competitions and Cosby is his coach - but of course the roles are just a cover for their real work as spies.

What I hadn't realised, and which I have to thank AP for making me aware of is that - as you can see - King Yin Lei used to have a (grass, no less) tennis court right at the front of the property, next to Stubbs Road! I had no idea until AP sent me these caps - anyway, sadly the court was buried under a land slip during a typhoon the following year (1966).

I Spy (TV Series) - Robert Culp (1965) - Hong Kong Locations

I Spy was a popular American series that ran in the mid to late sixties and although I was aware of it and its stars (Bill Cosby and Robert Culp), it wasn't until a few weeks ago that I found out that a large part of the first series was filmed on location in HK.

For this small, but frankly amazing, piece of information I have a person called AP to thank (he is a frequent commenter and loyal follower of this humble blog). He is also the person who has supplied me with ALL of the screen caps for each of the HK-based episodes, so a very big thank you to AP.


AP has been kind enough to supply me with standard screen caps on an episode-by-episode basis, so I will stick with that format, and also done some rather snazzy merges to create some revealing panoramas of 1965 HK. What makes me smile a bit about this series is that, according to wiki, it was actually banned in the south of the US because it used Cosby as one of the main stars. Many of the scenes we will look at have Bill Cosby running around some fairly remote parts of the NT, and in 1965 someone with black skin would have been an absolute head turner in pretty much all of the New Territories given the significant rural character of the place at the time.

Anyway, a big thanks to AP for sorting this all out for me (and you), I am his conduit and all I am doing is trying to pin down some of the places he has sent to me. So, before we get started with the screencap biz, here is the series' opening titles courtesy of Youtube.

Noble House (Mini series) - Pierce Brosnan (1988) - Stubbs Road, Wanchai

Another part of the Dunross driving scene sees his big gold car passing in the vicinity of the famous King Yin Lei - although we don't actually see the house itself on screen, only the road just next to the driveway entrance. Shame, it's a great looking building. The building on the right hand side terrace is part of Evergreen Court.

Noble House (Mini series) - Pierce Brosnan (1988) - 22 Magazine Gap Road, Hong Kong

An early scene in the show has Dunross driving around in his big clunky Merc, passing lots of local places of interest etc. Here is one grab which features a house called "Katoomba" at #22 Magazine Gap Road. It was up in scaffolding when the filming was done but just for a renovation rather than redevelopment.

Incidentally, the road that Dunross drives down (top picture, bottom left) is actually the driveway leading to #26, and not a public road as the sequence seems to indicate.

Yellowthread Street (Opening Titles) - 1990 - Hong Kong

A quick trip back to my A-level days here and a series that, at the time, fascinated me but sadly was only shown once (as far as I know) on terrestrial TV in the UK before being repeated every so often on some satellite channels. The fascination for me should be obvious to anyone who read s my blogs - it was filmed in HK at a time when I was very interested in the place (as I still am).

The producers only made one series before it was canned - an understandable decision when you see some of the episodes and the plodding dialog as well as some really poor acting. Just as the whole thing was starting to improve, it ended.

I did hear from one of the series' writers (some involved in one of the more standout episodes, I hasten to add) who told me that Season 2 was going to be much more in the mold of HK action films. I think it would've been fun, but such is life.

Anyway, now I have manage to get my hands on the whole series I thought it would be fun to include some of the locations here. Starting with the opening credits, courtesy of the series musician Roger Bellon.

Now the introduction has been done, we can get on with the locations, I'll do them episode by episode (13 in all) if I can but will start with some of the places we can see in the opening sequence above.