Bruce Lee in G.O.D: Shibôteki yûgi - David Lee (2000) - Former Regal Kai Tak Hotel, Kowloon City

For an airport based scene (Lee fans should know that he was photographed at Kai Tak airport on many occasions) the filmmakers did in fact return to Kai Tak but rather than film in the recently defunct terminal building, they used the old walkway that used to connect the terminal building multi-story car park to the Regal Kai Tak Hotel on the opposite side of Prince Edward Road East.

Sadly the walkway, as well as the terminal building, has now gone. The hotel is still around and has since been renamed the Regal Oriental Hotel. I'm not sure about the single lane ramps that connected the main road to the airport car park. Google Earth (with 3D turned on) still has a rendition of them but I haven't been there for a while so they could easily have been torn down by now. You can see them in the background of the last picture

Bruce Lee in G.O.D: Shibôteki yûgi - David Lee (2000) - #4740 Tai Po Road, Tai Po Kau

Lee's residence in the film is a rather grand looking place with a big garden and large front gate. There are lots of these types of houses around in Hong Kong if you have deep enough pockets (sadly, I don't). The one used in this film is actually way up in the hills in Tai Po Kau, along the very scenic Tai Po Road around where Tai Po and Shatin Districts meet.

Sadly, there's no Streetview access up to the house because it's a private road (shared by several rather ostentatious village houses) so I have no idea if there has been any redevelopment since 2000. Here is the front entrance. 

The view from the garden terrace is quite impressive. The view here is looking south east towards Ma On Shan in the background. The high rises are actually all on the opposite side of Tolo Harbour but the buildings scattered along the nearer hillside - including the funny shaped tower at the top right of the second picture - are all part of the Chinese University of Hong Kong.

This view below looking north(ish) shows the nearby towers of Deerhill Bay on the opposite side of Tai Po Road.

Bruce Lee in G.O.D: Shibôteki yûgi - David Lee (2000) - Clearwater Bay Studios, Hang Hau

Once upon a time there was a discovery made in the Media Asia film vault (Media Asia had bought a large portion of Golden Harvest's film catalogue in the late 1990's) consisting of a rather significant (for Bruce Lee fans anyway) amount of footage shot by Bruce Lee for his unfinished project, Game of Death. The footage had never been seen before and Media Asia licensed it to a Japanese company called Artport and a Canadian film maker called John Little. Little went on to use the footage in his acclaimed Bruce Lee: A Warrior's Journey film. Artport used the footage by incorporating it into this film: Bruce Lee in G.O.D (Shibôteki yûgi).

In order to make the docu-drama, scenes revolving around Bruce Lee's life during the making of G.O.D were filmed in Hong Kong using mainly local actors (Bruce Lee played by David Lee) but little was done to deal with the modern setting so we have basically lots of scenes involving the Hong Kong of the year 2000 but have to imagine it's the 1972/73.

Although I never actually made it over to Golden Harvest studios (one of the big regrets I have about my earlier trips to HK) I have been told that it was still standing empty in 2000 so I have no idea why Artport decided to use a stand-in for the sake of this film. The stand-in is in fact Clearwater bay Studios over on Ying Yip Road in Tseung Kwan O.

As far as I know the studios are still very much in use and run by Sil-Metropole who use it for both filming and post-production services. The buildings with the red roofing are staff quarters. In the top picture you can also see neighbouring Hang Hau village and the nearby high rises of Fu Ning Garden.

The Million Eyes of Sumuru - George Nader (1967) - Kennedy Road, Central

A quick trip back to Kennedy Road for this last Sumuru post (for the while, at least, while I try and get help identifying some other more obscure places).

After Nader and Avalon find a recently murdered girl in their Italian hotel room, they quickly scarper out the back entrance and into the hands of British Intelligence. The small alleyway they run down is actually a narrow link between Kennedy Road and MacDonnell Road and pops out onto Kennedy Road not far from the location of this earlier post.

The road on the left is a small road that runs up behind Kennedy Apartments at 34a Kennedy Road (and leads to South Garden Mansion) and the brick wall at the back is a retaining wall for the ground floor carpark/terrace of a development called Seaview Mansion. here is a modern view courtesy of Streetview.

The vegetation on the left is obscuring the wall of Kennedy Apartments but judging from other pictures I've seen the wall remains the same except for glass bricks being put in the wall openings. I also get the impression that the pathway has been widened. Looking at the modern picture you can still see the slanted stone steps on the left side of the path and the right hand side looking much more level. I think this portion of the steps, added where the concrete block with drainage holes is on film, was probably created when the neighbouring section was redeveloped into its current building, Kenville (built 1973). Actually, most of the buildings along this section of Kennedy Road seem to date from the 1960's with the exception of the relative "new boy" just mentioned.

The Million Eyes of Sumuru - George Nader (1967) - Yau Ma Tei Typhoon Shelter, Kowloon

When the police are about to launch their attack on Sumuru'a fortress island, they first assemble at a pier in the Yau Ma Tei Typhoon Shelter. Once again the nearby Yau Ma Tei Police Station gives us a rough indication of where the pier stood. You can see the station in the top picture, it's the white building in the background. 

The position of the pier/waterfront where the actors are seems to tally with the north side of Man Cheong Street. A large portion of the Ferry Point Estate was already completed by 1966/1967, so I think I am probably correct in saying this most likely filmed on the north side of man Cheong Road in front of the Man Wai Building (completed in 1966). The low rise buildings along the road at the back (it's still Ferry Street by the way) have since been replaced by one of China Light & Power's substations and the Saigon Street Playground.

In the lower picture you can see the old tenements that used to line Ferry Street that have since been replaced by Prosperous Gardens, but the building at the back between Maria Rohm and Paul Chang's head (he played the Police Inspector) is the still-standing Wah Tak Building along Waterloo Road.

The Million Eyes of Sumuru - George Nader (1967) - Star Ferry Pier, Tsim Sha Tsui

Despite the fact that she runs down a pier in Yau Ma Tei Typhoon Shelter, when the camera flicks over to her jumping on the ferry it is actually about a mile to the south at the Star Ferry Pier in Tsim Sha Tsui. But can you spot the rather obvious continuity error?

The top picture shows the ferry that she is running to, and the bottom one shows the ferry she actually gets on board.

The Silver Star (top picture) seems to still be in service in Hong Kong. It was brought into service in 1965 so was fairly new when this film was made. The Radiant Star is a relative veteran of film and despite going out of service in 1971 we have seen it before on this blog courtesy of an appearance in The World of Suzie Wong.

The Million Eyes of Sumuru - George Nader (1967) - Ferry Street, Yau Ma Tei

Maria Rohm's escape through the streets of Kowloon terminates at a ferry pier along, fittingly, Ferry Street in Yau Ma Tei. In fact there are two locations used in this shot, the first is this one Ferry Street, and the second one appears to be the Star Ferry Pier in Tsim Sha Tsui. A quick editing job makes it look like they are the same place. The older buildings along ferry Street seen below have long since gone, they were once part of the "six street slum" that was replaced by Prosperous Garden, but the Yau Ma Tei Police Station is still around for the time being and you can see it in the lower pictures where it sits along Public Square Street.

We had a glimpse of this area when we were looking at Ferry to Hong Kong a couple of years ago, and in fact this jetty is the same one used for the berth of the ferry in that film. I keep banging on about how much this area has changed, especially with the creation of the west Kowloon reclamation (which basically filled in the old typhoon shelter). But pictures speak a thousand words, so here's the Streetview.

The Million Eyes of Sumuru - George Nader (1967) - Wholesale Fruit Market, Yau Ma Tei

Coincidentally, this place was in the news last week due to a rather severe fire that ripped through part of the old market buildings (some built as long ago as 1913) and caused quite a bit of damage.

It appears very briefly in Sumuru as Maria Rohm (who also happened to be the wife of the producer Harry Alan Towers, hence why she is in this film, Five Golden Dragons and The Vengeance of Fu Manchu) makes her escape from the clutches of her former cult and makes a dash for it through the old streets of Kowloon.

The Million Eyes of Sumuru - George Nader (1967) - Kennedy Road, Central

After mentioning a hard-to-trace car park where the previous chase scene starts from, I ran into a bit of luck only a short time later and managed to track it down to a building on Kennedy Road. Here is the scene in question, it's when Nader leaves the night club and his associate is suckered into stopping to help a man lying on the road before being kidnapped. 

It turns out that this building - which looks like a low rise car park on film - is still around and is called Chenyu Court. It was pretty much brand new when this film was made (built in 1965) and has had surprisingly little done to it since then. The problem I had was that Google's excellent and very useful Streetview is currently having a problem with this location in that whenever you try to go there it throws you back onto MacDonnell Road. I've reported it but decided to head over this morning and take some of my own pictures for a change. The results are below. In the film we are still supposedly in Italy, and some Italian signs were put up to try and convince us as such.

The curved wall below is also still there and part of the boundary wall of the lower building of St Paul's Co-Educational College that fronts this part of Kennedy Road. I couldn't quite recreate the same angle without risking being run over.

I also wandered past Chenyu Court and confirmed that the parking lot seen in the film is this one as well. Sadly the grill was down so my view was a bit restricted, but I think you can see that it hasn't changed at all in the last 50 years.

The Million Eyes of Sumuru - George Nader (1967) - MacDonnell Road, Central

At the beginning of the film, Nader follows some kidnappers disguised as ambulance men along a twisty and rather dark street. If I was more familiar with Hong Kong Island I am sure I would have found this sooner, but the fact is even after 10 years in HK I know the streets of the Island itself very poorly. Anyway, after some rather long winded searches I have eventually found some of the buildings seen along the route and they are on MacDonnell Road.

Although I haven't quite found out where the funky looking carpark is where the chase starts (I'll stick it up on my "help me" page at some point), it's not long before we are passing a few recognisable spots. The following two shots show the garage of the precursor to today's Visalia Garden.

If you look carefully at the left hand side of the top picture you'll notice a wall fronting some apartments. The wall is still there (along with the apartments) and are part of Donnell Court. The current Streetview is below. 

The next shot is taken just around the next bend and shows the darkly illuminated exterior wall of St Paul's Co-Educational College. The current Streetview shows a bit of work going on outside, but I imagine people familiar with the school will recognise it below.

The next shot also shows us looking up to the next bend in the road. The building on the right belongs to the Christian Science (ha! gotta laugh at that name) Reading Room. The pillars at the back are part of a structure that looks to be part of the Morning Light Apartments up the slope - perhaps they are part of a small garage structure?