The Young Master - Jackie Chan (1980) - Abandoned House Revisted, Lam Tsuen

Following on from my previous post where I had quite accidentally stumbled upon the old abandoned house courtesy of a local hiking website (see here for a reminder), I decided to go and get some of my own snaps today, and I think it was perhaps a very good job I did.

This post really epitomises what I love about finding these filming locations. I probably first saw this film sometime in the late 80's/early 90's and many scenes are ingrained into my memory. It's a great feeling to be standing in the same spot you saw all those years ago on film.

Anyway, the house is located next to Ling Wan Monastery (淩雲寺) at the far end of Lam Kam Road in Lam Tsuen (actually, the monastery even has its own bus stop on the 64K route from Tai Po to Yuen Long). You simply alight at the aforementioned bus stop and walk down to take the first left next to the cement plant. Keep following the road and eventually you'll see the following archway marking the entrance to the monastery.

Through the archway and just to the right is the entrance to where the house is, but this is why I think it was a good job I went sooner rather than later: the whole area has been taped off in preparation for demolishing the house. :-(

It seems to be just my luck, as soon as I find a place it gets removed or demolished. Such is life, but I guess at least I got to wander around before it was demolished. I was a bit naughty and snuck through the tape and various warning signs and took a bunch of pictures. I've uploaded many of them here for posterity's sake, because who knows when this place will disappear. I've thrown in the odd reminder from The Young Master as well so you can see how much hasn't changed in 35 years.

As you can see the whole front area in front of the house has been cleared. I think this is preparation for its demolition. Even the tree stumps have been burnt to remove them properly. Access at the moment is via a rather dilapidated stairway on the right hand side of the house. And it brings you up to the area where the actors (Yuen Biao, Shek Kin and JC) sit down when they first arrive.

It even still has the same chunk missing from the side of the back archway. The bit where Yuen Biao is sitting is right at the front and he is just afew inches from a 3 metre drop to the ground. I don't know what was through the doorway behind JC back in 1980, but these days there is a (recently) shot-creted slope, you can just see the concrete on my pictures. Next we move into the room at the back where, in the film, there is a rope attached that JC hauls himself up.

There is a vine dangling down now, but the roof - not in the greatest condition on film - has almost completely collapsed with just a couple of remaining crossbeams. It certainly wouldn't support someones weight now. The window at the top is still bricked in. I wish I knew more about the history of the place because I can imagine it being a fairly stylish home before it fell into disrepair.

The above view is from the other side of the building (the side closer to the monastery) and as such I don't think you can get too far back (such as where Shek Kin and Fung Fung are talking) because it goes into monastery property (although the monastery seems to have illegally taken over Govt land).

Finally, I'll leave you with a few more shots taken of various angles of the place.

Looking in from the front 

The stairs up to the house are on the right of the picture

I wonder what the lower windows were for because although there is an airspace behind them, there is no basement as such. I did speak to one of the nuns in the monastery and she told me the house was a Japanese house, so I wonder if it was built during the occupation and has been abandoned ever since? It's certainly a strange enough design that I haven't seen before. Anyway, enjoy these pictures now because I am sure this place will just be a memory fairly soon.

The Young Master - Jackie Chan (1980) - Ling Wan Monastery, Lam Tsuen

A late entry due to the age it has taken to locate this particular building. It's the ruined building that JC is taken to by Yuen Biao and Shek Kin when he tries to escape by climbing up to the upper floor on a rope whilst shackled. Here's a reminder.

 Thanks to the rather excellent Chinese Hiking in Hong Kong website (a source I use a lot for tracking down the more obscure stuff) and their great photos we can see that this ruined building - located next to Ling Wan Monastery at the end of Lam Kam Road - is still around and still...a ruin. Unfortunately, it's not possible to link directly to the hike under question, but you can scroll down to the following entry to see the other pictures: 八鄉賞花穿村遊 28/2/2015. Meanwhile here is their photo that I have had to embed rather than link to.

I will try and make an effort to get there soon, but in the meantime we'll just have to make do with the picture from the front.

Shatter - Stuart Whitman (1974) - Lau Fau Shan, Yuen Long

Not quite the film's finale, but almost, as Shatter goes out to confront the bad guys at Lau Fau Shan up in the far northwest part of the New Territories (it's actually part of Yuen Long District). Its halcyon days of oyster cultivation are now over - perhaps as a result of the amount of pollution in Deep Bay these days - and these days it is perhaps more popular for its various restaurants (just don't eat the oysters!) and the mangroves along the coastline and its nearby wetland area. It's also the origin of the Shenzhen Bay bridge - one of the various entry points into the mainland from Hong Kong.

The screen capture immediately above quite clearly shows the small range of hillocks on the Shenzhen side of the bay. They are still there - not yet leveled by the rapid development that has gone on - but now this particular view is blocked by the aforementioned bridge crossing. The larger northern part of that small ridge line can also be seen in the capture below.

Shatter - Stuart Whitman (1974) - Barker Road Peak Tram Station, The Peak

We've been here a couple of times before, most notably on Bud Spencer's Flatfoot in Hong Kong and of course with Clark Gable in Soldier of Fortune. Here we are with Stuart Whitman as he ascends Hong Kong's very famous Peak.

The tram station hasn't changed at all, it's pretty much the same as it was then, but the view at the back has increased in height significantly. The lone tower block you can see on the lower picture is the circular Century Tower (1) - a rather nicely shaped residential block that is still around (and still very stylish), but these days it isn't so prominent, being surrounded with a whole bunch of new stuff. I can't recreate this view using Streetview (or anything else for that matter) because it looks to have been filmed from the side of the track itself, rather than the more easily reachable roadside below, but here is a picture of the station I took at the beginning of the year when I walked up Old Peak Road.

Shatter - Stuart Whitman (1974) - View over Central from May Road, Mid-levels

A rather nice view from May Road where it passes over the Peak Tram railway. I can't recreate the same view today due to the additional tree growth, but in the film the tram passes right under the camera and there is only one place where this happens with the nearby Grenville House apartment complex in view and that is the section at the bottom of Tregunter Path.

Here are the caps - Grenville House is the balconied building on the right.

There's quite a lot to see in the top couple of snaps courtesy of the rather nice city view and I expect most people will be able to recognise buildings such as the Connaught Centre, Hilton Hotel, HSBC (previous version), Bank of China, Standard Chartered (previous), as well as what used to be on the site of the current Estoril Court and the older version of the Peak Tram station building (now called St John's Building - did it retain the name of its predecessor?).

Anyway, Autostitch has also rendered a fairly decent consolidation of these four pictures.

There is also a reverse view from the same spot showing the stone balustrade of the bridge over the track.

Shatter - Stuart Whitman (1974) - Shatin Pass Road: Finale

As previously mentioned, the end of this scene takes place at the iconic Lion Pavilion at the crossroads of Shatin Pass Road where the trails lead up to Lion Rock. Aside from the obvious mass of tree growth that is now evident, and a new lick of paint on the pavilion, not much has changed.

Even the dai pai dong seen in the background of the second screen capture is still there serving up a delightful selection of doll noodles and soda to weary hikers.

No expansive views anymore thanks to abundant tree growth, but here are a couple of snaps from a recent hike I did up there.

A sad reflection on my photographic skills is that Streetview has a better shot of this place - though perhaps the google car was able to ascend on a less busy day because it captured a nice car-free view of the area. The lower one is the view up the side road where the aforementioned dai pai dong still stands. Whether it's owned by the same people is unclear, perhaps the next time I am there I will ask.

Shatter - Stuart Whitman (1974) - Shatin Pass Road: Part 2

We get some cool scenes of Kowloon as the cars head up the hill. Starting with the first picture which shows the proper start of the hill climb just past Fat Chong Temple.

A little further up we also catch a glimpse of the old version of the Shatin Pass Estate at the background. The current buildings are quite new and significantly higher than the original, but we can see what the originals looked like courtesy of the HK Memory website:

https://www.hkmemory.hk/collections/public_housing/All_Items/images/201307/t20130702_61462.html

Actually, the above picture is a great example of why we can't get the same views today as we used to, not that it is necessarily a bad thing, but the amount of greenery that now covers the hillsides (all over HK) mean former views are now blocked. Personally I prefer the additional, and the views are only blocked because I am limited to using Streetview at the moment. You get a good idea of the barren nature of the area from the next few shots.

The white building on the lower left is the Tze Wan Shan Police Station. It's still there although now painted in the more usual blue/grey colour scheme now on all local police stations.

Now, although this car chase scenes terminates at the Lion Pavilion - a very well known landmark along the Wilson Trail where the trail breaks off from the road to head north - the film makers have tried to cheat us a bit and also shot some further footage further east along the road. These are the shots below which show this more easterly section of the road near the intersection with Kwun Ping Road. Lion Rock can be seen in the distance on the top picture below.

Shatter - Stuart Whitman (1974) - Shatin Pass Road, Tze Wan Shan

One of my more vivid memories of this film is from watching it on UK television with my grandad back in the (most likely) early 80's. I particularly remember this scene when Shatter is followed up Shatin Pass road to the Lion Pavilion. I'll cover the Lion pavilion in the next post to keep the picture count manageable, but here is a quick shot of the junction of Shatin Pass Road and Tze Wan Shan Roads - just down the road from where the Fat Chong Temple stands.

Tze Wan Shan on the left, Shatin Pass Road coming up the hill

Looking up Shatin Pass Road

All those years ago watching this film  I never quite thought that one day I would be hiking up this road - it's one of the easier ways of getting up into the Kowloon mountains. Anyway, here are the corresponding Streetview captures. As you can see, HK is much greener than it used to be (thankfully) and the mesh fence on the left hand side of the bottom screen capture (above) has now become the aforementioned Fat Chong Temple.

Roaring Fire - Hiroyuki Sanada (1982) - Shanghai Street, Jordan

Here is another one courtesy of the rather keen eye of Thomas Ngan who managed to identify a watch company shop sign on the screen capture leading to the identification of this street scene as a section of Shanghai Street in the Jordan Road area. So once again thanks to Thomas.

One of the things that really threw me off the scent is also the seemingly rather wide nature of the road here. The camera angle is obviously playing some tricks because this part of Shanghai Street is really no wider than any other part as you'll see in the Streetview capture below.

You can see the buildings are pretty much unchanged, but there is much less overhead signage (although I can one sign is still there in the distance) and of course there has been massive high-rise development at the far end. Look carefully and you can also see the black characters can still be discerned on the lower floor wall of the corner building (on the corner of Nanking Street).

Anyway, credit where credit is due and I've pasted Thomas' comments below so you can see where the information came from.

Hi Phil, 

I might have found something. There was another Watch company captured in the foreground called 廣濟表行. I googled it and found someone posted a photo of a Rolex with invoice in discuss.com.hk showing three addresses on the invoice. Two in Kowloon ...http://www.discuss.com.hk/viewthread.php?tid=14690593&page=3
Address one reads #126 Shanghai Street and address 2 reads #224-226 Tai Po Road. I remember there was a Kowloon Watch Co. Store around the location about 20 years ago. Might have to check other older photos of the area for clues. 

T