Bruce Lee: True Story - Ho Chung Tao (1976) - Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Kowloon

Along with the trip to Beverly Heights apartment building, we also follow the ambulance as it arrives at Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Kowloon.

Bruce Lee: True Story - Ho Chung Tao (1976) - Beverly Heights, Kowloon Tong

The movie opens and closes with the events surrounding Bruce's death and we see a bit of footage of an ambulance arriving at the real-life location, Beverly Heights, where Bruce died on 20th July 1973.

Bruce Lee: True Story - Ho Chung Tao (1976) - Palm Villa, Tai Tam

Our old friend Bill Lake pops up in the Enter the Dragon scene. He plays Bob Wall's character for a brief moment as the pair walk across the tennis court. In terms of the location, yes, it's the same place where Enter the Dragon was filmed and although this tennis court wasn't the main one used in that film, it was seen in that movie. It's the upper tennis court that is being used (for reference, please see my old post here) and in a couple of the shots below you can see the steps that lead up to the single remaining doorway that led into the old garden area (now an American Club games court). For your information, it was on the other side of that doorway that the club had erected its metal plaque. You can also see the same tennis court in the top left of this screen grab.

Anyway, as you can see, even just 3 short years after Enter the Dragon the place had become quite overgrown.

Bill Lake as O'hara

The steps on the right lead up to the still-standing garden area

The wooden gazebo can be seen in the screen capture I linked to above

Bruce Lee: True Story - Ho Chung Tao (1976) - 6 Stanley Beach Road, Stanley

Here's another one of those large houses that are a pain in the butt to pinpoint because most have since been sold off and redeveloped into several smaller (but equally expensive) properties. I'm left with small clues in the surroundings and a headache from squinting at old aerial images. This particular mansion took several days to track down and it wasn't until I saw an old image from a previous film (Les Tribulations d'un Chinois en Chine) that I finally knew I had found the right place.

In the movie it is the location of the fight between Bruce and a challenger in the shape of the very awesome Chiu Chi-ling. It's based on the supposed real-life challenge match that took place between Bruce Lee and Lau Dai-chuen at the luxury mansion of corrupt Police Inspector, Tang Sang. Did it happen or didn't it? There are a surprising number of sources that say that it did but because it was done in secret no one has any proof other than hearsay.

Well, in the film, instead of Tang Sang's unknown mansion (somewhere in the NT, near Fanling, was the last I heard) we are taken to another rather impressive mansion with some rather nicely landscaped gardens. After searching so many places where I thought it might be it turns out it was a large property located at #6 Stanely Beach Road.

I have no knowledge of who owned the place (and can't be bothered to spend the HK$25 to find out to be honest) but it had a certain art-deco/Bauhaus style that was popular in HK during the post war years (pillars and curves) and it's a great shame that the plot now consists of some underwhelming three-storey cookie-cutter houses. Whenever I get a location like this - nice and gone - I like to include as many pics as possible. So here they are.

The background building is still around, it's called "Beach Mansions"

The hill in the background is the Stanley Peninsula

You can see the Hong Kong Sea School left of frame

Bruce Lee: True Story - Ho Chung Tao (1976) - Rutland Quadrant, Kowloon Tong

In one scene, Bruce comes to the defence of some roadworkers who are being bullied by some local jogging "expats". I use this term in the derogatory sense that is implied in the film - basically a bunch of forerigners come down the road and expect the roadworkers to move out of the way for them - a surprisingly prevalent attitude of many people in HK, although no longer the preserve of just the foreign contingent in Hong Kong.

Anyway, fans of the genre will easily recognise Mars - Jackie Chan's right hand man for many years - as the main worker. Bruce can be seen running towards them along Cumberland Road whereas the runners come from the direction of Waterloo Road along Rutland Quandrant.

Bruce Lee: True Story - Ho Chung Tao (1976) - Kai Tak Airport, Kowloon

Bruce arrives in Hong Kong via the airport and is greeted in arrivals by his friend, Unicorn Chan, played by...Unicorn Chan. Not the first time Chan has used his friendship with Bruce to his advantage, but I'm sure he wasn't the only one. Anyway, we see afew shots of the old terminal interior.

Bruce Lee: True Story - Ho Chung Tao (1976) - View over Central, Hong Kong

When the story moves back to Hong Kong, there's a brief establishing shot of Central and the harbour from somewhere up high. Although the resolution isn't great, you can see that Jardine House (then called the Connaught Centre) was still the highest building still at the time with the Bank of America building (Gammon House - later involved in a massive financial fraud leading to its sale and renaming) under construction. It's hard to believe that these two are now just hidden in amongst the more modern taller skyscrapers now.

Bruce Lee: True Story - Ho Chung Tao (1976) - Mongkok Road, Mongkok

A bit of nostalgia for me because this was part of my old VHS collection when I was still at school (we're talking circa 86/87) so I spent a good many hours rewatching. I hadn't seen it for a good 30 years when my good friend, AP, sent me a copy and I was quite surprised by how many of the scenes I recalled immediately. For those who don't know, this film (also known as Bruce Lee: The Man, The Myth) was Ng See Yuen's attempt at a "biopic" of Bruce Lee. To be fair, it's not a bad portrayal and no more far-fetched than Rob Cohen's Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story.

A fair bit was filmed around Bruce's old haunts in the US (Seattle, San Francisco etc) before the action moves to Hong Kong but there is a scene early in the film as Bruce (Ho Chung Tao) goes to visit his sifu, Yip Man, for one last bit of practice before moving to the US. In the film, Yip Man was portrayed by Yip Man's real son, Yip Chun, and the venue for this farewell scene was (apparently) Sifu Chiu Wan's school, located at 28 Mongkok Road.

I have no idea if the school is still around but the plaque at the back reads (r-l) 詠春正統 or "Orthodox Wing Chun", and was supposedly given to Sifu Chiu Wan by Yip Man himself.

If you are a Wing Chun expert and can add (or correct) anything about the school and its Sifu then please feel free to comment below.

An Interview with Bill Lake

A few months ago I was lucky enough to be involved with an interview with Bill Lake about his time in the 1970s (and beyond) Hong Kong movie industry. The interview was conducted by my good friend, Arnaud Lanuque, for his very informative and interesting bilingual (French/English) YouTube channel called House of Asian Cinema. I wouldn't be exaggerating to say Arnaud is one of the top experts on Asian cinema but is probably not known to many reading this because much of his work is for a French speaking audience. 

For those who don't know who Bill is, he's an ex-soldier in the British army who stayed on in Hong Kong after his military career came to an end and was involved in some classic 1970s Hong Kong movies and TV shows. You can see a good list on HKMDB but it's not exhaustive. I've covered some of his films on the blog (Golgo 13: Assignment Kowloon, Anti-corruption and soon to come Bruce Lee: True Story) but no doubt I'll be able to cover more in the future. In the meantime, here are some of Bill's recollections (filmed in October 2021).

Love Circles - Michelle Siu (1985) - The Peninsula Hotel, Tsim Sha Tsui

The last post from this film sees us outside the Peninsula Hotel as Blake, the crooked journo fresh from his blackmail shenanigans, catches the hotel shuttle bus back to Kai Tak airport. And so the Hong Kong chapter of this story ends as he hooks up with someone he meets on the bus.

As the bus turns left onto Salisbury Road we get to see the Planetarium and the former Intercontinental Hotel, now renamed back to the Regent Hotel.