Das Mädchen von Hongkong - Joachim Fuchsberger (1973) - Aberdeen Harbour, Aberdeen

From one harbour to another, Aberdeen features quite a few times in this film, largely because the film makers want us to believe that the murder victims rather plush house (we'll get to it in the next post) overlooks the Aberdeen Harbour.

There are some views of the floating restaurants in the opening credits (which also borrow footage from the earlier 1960's German productions we have already looked at), a nice sweeping view taken from the western end of the harbour entrance - most likely from Shak Pai Wan Road, and also some views of the Chinese Permanent Cemetery taken from the same direction. 

The HK Electric coal fired power station (now moved to Lamma Island)

Aberdeen Fisheries and Marine Office, lower right

Das Mädchen von Hongkong - Joachim Fuchsberger (1973) - Victoria Harbour, Hong Kong

The last of my recently acquired German titles (available from filmjuwelen if you are interested), this one made at the tail-end of 1972 but released in 1973. Das Mädchen von Hongkong stars Joachim Fuchsberger as a tourist visiting a friend in HK only to find out he has been killed. The title is a bit odd because the so-called "girl from Hong Kong" is just an incidental character (played by Li Paelz in 'yellowface') who the main protagonist helps enter Hong Kong at the beginning of the film.

Anyway, the picture quality is excellent and there are some nice locations to look at, but we'll start off with the usual harbour views.

Red Dragon - Stewart Granger (1965) - Fei Ngo Shan Road, Kowloon Peak

Another car chase that ends up at the top of Kowloon Peak. I won't go sdo far as to say this film is a bit of a copycat of other German productions, but we have already had a car crashing into Lung Ha Wan courtesy of Weiße Fracht für Hongkong and that film also features a car chase up along Fei Ngo Shan Road. Then there was Heisser Hafen Hongkong which didn't feature any crashing into Lung Ha Wan but did also have a car chase up Fei Ngo Shan Road culminating in one of the cars crashing down the side of the mountain. So here is a similar scene in Red Dragon: a car chase up Fei Ngo Shan that culminates in a very similar car crash.

Edit: I found out that all of the German productions I've been looking at recently (Heißer Hafen Hongkong, Weiße Fracht für Hongkong, Ein Sarg aus Hongkong and Das Geheimnis der drei Dschunken (i.e. Red Dragon) all had the same producer -Wolf C Hartwig - so this probably explains why some of the locations and scenes appear to have some similarity.

Red Dragon - Stewart Granger (1965) - Lung Ha Wan Road, Clearwater Bay

You may recall a while back that in Weiße Fracht für Hongkong, Horst Frank deals with one of his loose ends by tipping her over the edge of Lung Ha Wan Road in a car. Well, he was at it again two years later in Red Dragon only this time he's trying to off Stewart Granger. Same part of the road though. It's blurry, but yet another car takes a dip in the sea and Granger manages to escape by clinging onto the cliff.

Red Dragon - Stewart Granger (1965) - Aberdeen, Hong Kong

One of the key scenes in this film involves an assassination attempt at the hands of a nefarious Aberdeen fisherman as Granger's character and sidekick are questioning a witness to the murder of the US spy. We start off with a shot of Granger walking down what appears to be Tung Sing Road with what appears to be the Tsung Man Building at the far background (beyond the red signboard).

This shot above shows Granger walking along the main road where it curves into the town. This is the old area (now a bus terminus) where the restaurant pontoons used to be before the waterfront was reclaimed. They head out onto the water to interview a rather younger looking Ho Li-yan before someone tries to off them with a dagger. You may remember this famous Chinese actor from an appearance on Shirley's World a few weeks ago.

Ho Li-yan

The Man with the Golden Gun - RTHK Podcast

Announcement: Sadly, it appears that RTHK has felt the need to scrub most of its archive of the Hong Kong Heritage podcast, so the link below no longer points at the show. It's just one of the things we have to deal with in "new" Hong Kong where history is often seen as a threat.

However, something wonderful happened over on Gwulo. User hkspace_wl discovered that even though the front end of the RTHK website has been modified, the archives can still be accessed via a url. Sadly, the files cannot be listed (as far as I know) and the files have been given date names (ddmmyyyyy.mp3/m4a) without any textual description. So, in order to identify the one I did for this film, I had to go in and plug in afew different dates to find the correct archive. Luckily, the show was only ever broadcast at weekends, so it means the number of possibe dates is limited to then.

Anyway, bingo. I have since downloaded the file, converted it to .mp4 and uploaded it to Youtube for posterity. So a massive thanks to hkspace_wl for this absolute brilliant bit of help.

I shall leave the original post in as it was below for the time being.
_______________________________________________________________________________

For those of you with an interest in James Bond, Annemarie Evans from RTHK's Hong Kong Heritage radio show recently asked me to contribute for a small segment on The Man with the Golden Gun as a sort of tribute to Roger Moore and his recent passing.

You can hear my dulcet tones on the podcast at the following link. The James Bond bit starts at around the 20 minute mark. The program also has a large archive of past shows and are well worth a listen for anyone remotely interested in Hong Kong heritage and culture.

https://podcast.rthk.hk/podcast/item.php?pid=164&eid=94417&lang=en-US

Many thanks to Annemarie for making me sound as though I actually know what I'm talking about...

Red Dragon - Stewart Granger (1965) - Kai Tak Airport, Kowloon City

The spy agency sends two agents to HK to infiltrate the smugglers who are illegally shipping electronic parts to Red China inside hollowed out logs. Michael Scott (Granger) arrives first but is soon followed by Carol (played by Rosanna Schiaffino) who has been recruited to take the place of the secretary - who was shot dead at the Botanical gardens.

Red Dragon - Stewart Granger (1965) - Zoological and Botanical Gardens, Central

In the 1960's, Stewart Granger made a bunch of movies in Europe, quite a few of them for German companies. One of that batch was a spy thriller called Das Geheimnis der drei Dschunken (The Secret of the 3 Junks) or Red Dragon as it was known for its English release. Sadly, there doesn't appear to be that many prints of it around and the version I obtained looks to be a straight transfer from VHS with the screen being cut off at either side of the screen. This is a big shame because even though the film is a fairly average potboiler, it has some decent locations on screen and we don't really get to see them in their full glory. Horst Frank returns as another baddy (we've seen him recently in this blog in
Heisser Hafen Hongkong and Weiße Fracht für Hongkong.

One of the earlier scenes shows an American spy (as we find out later) walking through the Botanical Gardens in Central to meet his girlfriend, only to discover she has been shot dead. The scene starts on the famous steps before moving to another part of the park with what looks to be the Catholic Cathedral in the background.

Sadly the detail isn't clear because of the nature of this print and it's perhaps too obscure a film for anyone to make any effort in a restoration. Never mind. Is that the Catholic Cathedral spire at the back left? I haven't been to the gardens for a while but I think the front part of it is quite dense with tree growth so I am not sure you get anything like this open view anymore (tall buildings aside).

A Queen's Ransom - George Lazenby (1976) - Various views from the Harbour

I must be losing my deductive powers because I have a bunch of stuff from A Queen's Ransom that is still eluding me, so I'll finish off for now with some of the (I assume) archive footage from the Queen's visit. The first view screengrabs show (if you squint) some helicopters doing a fly past along the harbour front. The big buildings at the top of the screen are Fairmont Gardens (on the left) and Realty Gardens (to its right) along Conduit Road. Film fans should remember that Realty Gardens was the site of the Mok Villa, made famous as the hospital in Love is a Many-Splendored Thing, and also seen recently in Heisse Hafen Hongkong. 

You can still just about see the choppers in the shot below that shows the old waterfront view before the reclamation and extensive development that has since occurred on the north side of Gloucester Road. The very beginnings of that development can be see in the form of that tall white building which is the (still standing) Telecom House. You can still see the China Fleet Club with its large San Miguel sign on the roof (centre right) and the old Luk Kwok Hotel with its SANYO advert.

 

Finally looking in the opposite direction we can see the Queen's launch pulling out from Kowloon side with the Peninsula Hotel partially in view on the left, the Sheraton Hotel dead centre and the hill on the right hand side that is known as Blackhead Point and has the old Signal/Time ball tower on it. 

A Queen's Ransom - George Lazenby (1976) - City Hall, Central

Here's a few shots of the area round City Hall. The first shot shows the camera looking west along Connaught Road with the City Hall building on the right hand side. On the extreme left is the lower floors of the Furama Hotel (now replaced with AIA Central building) followed by what was once the home of Cable and Wireless - Mercury House. I'm not sure what year it was demolished but it has since been replaced by the short-lived Ritz Carlton (seen here) and then again by the current building, CCB Tower. Next along is the recognisable form of the old Hong Kong Club building with the Mandarin Oriental Hotel just beyond on the other side of the square.

There is also some archive footage of the Queen visiting City Hall from the harbour side of the building (i.e. what would be off camera to the right in the top picture).