Asia-Pol Secret Service - Wang Yu (1966) - North Point Aerial View

Next up is an aerial shot of North Point. The estate immediately next to the pier is the old North Point estate that was demolished not long before my "permanent" move to Hong Kong. The undeveloped hillside on the right hadn side of the image shows the spaces where Pacific Palisades and Tempo Court would be build along Braemar Hill Road but the interesting bit for me the the presence of a small square block of buildings just above there (centre right of image) that I know was once a grand Chinese style mansion called "Kai Yuen". If you click on that link to Gwulo and read the comments you will see that today's Kai Yuen Street is actually the former driveway of the mansion. It appears the house was demolished towards the end of the decade and later developed into Bedford Gardens.

Asia-Pol Secret Service - Wang Yu (1966) - Wanchai Waterfont

 Another aerial view, this time of the Wanchai waterfront looking west. The only really identifiable landmark for me here is the old British and American Tobacco factory that can be seen in the lower right of the screen. This was replaced by Elizabeth House in the 1970s, so it gives you a rough idea of the area captured by the image - roughly from Canal Road (you can see its line in the bottom left of the screen, I can even see Top-View Mansion) to Stewart Road. For those who would like to know what this looked like from the waterfront, The Million Eyes of Sumuru has a very good angle, encompassing more or less what can be seen here (in that link, the B.A.T building is the leftmost one, consisting of two different sized brown coloured blocks)

Asia-Pol Secret Service - Wang Yu (1966) - Tsim Sha Tsui Peninsula

The next few posts are aerial images supposedly seen from Wang Yu's plane as he makes his approach into Hong Kong. The first shot shows us the Kowloon peninsula and for the knowledgable readers it's a nice look at mid-60s Tsim Sha Tsui. It's just a shame the resolution isn't better. However, I thought it might be a good idea to add another version (lower image, in case it wasn't obvious) with some identifiers on to add some context to other films I have covered that have been flmed along the waterfront here.

1. Ocean Terminal: It was opened in March 1966 and it looks to be open here with a couple of ships berthed there. It's been seen on multiple films but the best examples include: Five Golden Dragons, Sunset, and Forced Vengeance.

2. Hong Kong & Kowloon and Wharf Godown Company: I've featured them before for Shirley's World, Jason King, Golden Needles, and The Peking Medallion. Note that in the bottom image of The Peking Medallion link, the Sea Terminal building can be seen in the background. Which leads me on to the next item

3. Sea Terminal: Scenes were shot here for Le Monocle Rit Jaune - however, at the time of my original posting I was unaware it existed and had mistakenly said it was Ocean Terminal and negelected to include any screen caps. This has now been rectified.

4. Former Govt Dockyard/Fire Brigade Dock: We've seen this place a couple of times on some fairly classic films. In 1963 (yeah, I know it was released in '65, but believe me when I say it was filmed 2 years prior) it can be seen as the are where Lord Jim convalesces following his desertion of the ship. Around the same time this aerial image was taken, the dock was also converted into hankow docks for The Sand Pebbles.

5. Un Chau Manon Godown Company: This area is probably most famous because it was featured in Revenge of the Pink Panther. However, it was also used in an earlier film for the finale of L'inconnue de Hongkong. (I haven't posted about that location for that filmed yet because I hadn't identified it at the time.

6. Ferry Point Estate: still under partial construction at the time of this shot (the estate wasn't fully completed until the early 70s I believe. It's been seen alot over the years. In Heisser Hafen Hongkong, construction had just begun.  You can see it in the background of Shirley's World. It can be seen in the background of many films, but the closest we have ever got (so far) is for Ultraviolet in 2006.

Asia-Pol Secret Service - Wang Yu (1966) - Old Peak Road, Mid-levels

The HK police make their way to the home of the businessman involved in the HK-side of the gang's operations - who happens to be Wang Yu's biological father. The car is shown driving around the circular ramp that connects Old Peak Road with May Road. Spot the previous version of Queen's Gardens at the left hand side. The same location was filmed the following year in Five Golden Dragons but from a slightly different angle.

For long term readers, you will know that the landslide scenes in the Noble House miniseries were filmed on the empty slope after the old Queen's Gardens was demolished and before the construction of the new one commenced.
 

Asia-Pol Secret Service - Wang Yu (1966) - View of Victoria Harbour

A big thanks to Peter Nepstad for supplying me with a copy of one of the titles from my Missing Films list of several movies I am having problems getting copies of. This mid-60s title was a co-production between Shaws and the Japanese company Nikkatsu. Apparently it was part of the remastered DVD release by Celestial in the early 00's but I have had no luck tracking down a copy even in Hong Kong. Peter has been kind enough to send me one so we can have a good look at the many locations.

One of the most interesting things about this movie is that two versions were filmed (a bit like Irreversi): a Japanese one starring Hideaki Natani in the main role, and the Chinese version with Wang Yu. The version here is the Chinese one, but if anyone knows where the Japanese one can be found, please let me know as it would be interesting to compare scenes and see if there is a difference in locations.

It's also fitting that this is my next film because Wang Yu just recently passed away on the 5th April. I'm not a fan of his work at all I'm afraid but I appreciate the contribution he has made to the movie industry. I suspect that my opinion of him is coloured a bit by the recent documentary covering the making of The Man from Hong Kong which painted him as rather unpleasant (e.g. deliberately eating flies before his kissing scene with the female co-star), Cheng Pei-pei calling him the trouble maker between Lo Wei and Bruce Lee in an interview for the HK International Film Festival several years ago, oh yes and the general links to Taiwanese gangsters and the murder charge.

Anyway, in this movie a very young and pre-superstar Wang Yu plays a member of Asia-Pol, a of Pan-Asian Police organisation along the lines of MI6 or the CIA. They are out to bring down a notorious Japanese gangster who is smuggling gold into Japan from Hong Kong. It's basically a pretty decent attempt at a James Bond type film with all sorts of twists and turns and even some nifty gadgets thrown in for good measure. The action starts off in Japan before moving to Hong Kong where, in a sub-plot, Wang Yu's long lost biological father is assassinated by the gang after he has been involved in some of their logistical work.

The opening Hong Kong scene is a nice panning shot taken from a moving car driving somewhere along the Peak area. The eagle-eyed will be able to spot points of interest, but for most people it's just a nice view of Hong Kong before it became cluttered with high rises.

La Fine Dell'innocenza - Annie Belle (1976) - Headquarters House, Barker Road

The final location from this brief delve into 1970s erotic cinema is a location on Barker Road, just around the corner from the Chief Secretary's residence. Although it is still marked as "Headquarters House" on some maps, this residence underwent a name change following the handover and is officially known as the "Commanders Residence". Before the handover it was occupied by the Commander of British Forces so it makes sense that it is now occupied by the Commander of the PLA's Hong Kong garrison.

This film appears to have captured the site before the house was built. This ties in with the information on Wikipedia that states the house was in use from 1978 onwards. Aerial images show an empty plot as late as June 1977. The podium terrace that the actors are standing on in the scene below was most likely already there for the previous occupant - a building called "Dunedin". If you look at image 3 below, you can see the edge of an empty patch on the left side of the frame, so it's possible the site had been recently cleared in order to make way for the building of the new house.

Prior to living here at 11 Barker Road, the official residence of the British Commander was Flagstaff House - coincidentally used in another mid-70s film of the same genre Emmanuelle 2 (the former resident of Flagstaff House at that time was kind enough to let me know that the interiors seen in that film were indeed the real interior of Flagstaff House at the time).

The property's driveway was also used as the driveway to the house owned by Angelo and Linda, Annie's obsessive friends, although the house in the film was definitely not one in Hong Kong. At the end of this scene, the friends are filmed coming down the driveway in their Rolls Royce as they chase her to the airport. Some geographical movie jiggery-pokery ensues as the Land Rover containing Annie emerges from the opposite driveway - the entrance to Bracken Hill (#12 Barker Road) - which is lower down the hillside from where she was supposedly picked up.

Podium of 11 Barker Road

Actually, this brief shot appears to have been filmed lower down on Barker Road

Empty patch on the left and Cragside Mansion in the background

Driveway of 12 Barker Road

Driveway of 11 Barker Road

La Fine Dell'innocenza - Annie Belle (1976) - Port Shelter, Sai Kung

The boat travels all the way to Port Shelter where it puts down anchor in the water just to the north of Sharp Island. There's a brief shot of the boat with the Sai Kung mountains in the background and Tai Chan Chau to the right. A similar angle can also be seen earlier in the film when Annie first notices the group of monks and that appears to have been filmed on the rocky beach of Tai Chan Chau.

La Fine Dell'innocenza - Annie Belle (1976) - Victoria Harbour

Annie is getting a bit disallusioned with things and throughout the film keeps noticing a Buddhist nun. After the incident in the pool at Statue Square she spots the nun once again and this time follows her onto a boat. As the boat makes its way through the harbou we get some rather nice views of the surroundings, hence why I have included it. Feel free to comment about the identity of the ship if you know it.

La Fine Dell'innocenza - Annie Belle (1976) - Connaught Road, Central

After crossing the harbour, the pair are eventually stopped on Connaught Road next to the Hong Kong Club, and a naked Annie makes a run for Statue Square and plunges into the ornamental ponds there to try and escape the police. Note the old Electra/Mercury House on the left and the old Hong Kong Club building. CCB Tower now stands on that site.

Electra/Mercury House on the left, next to it is the old Hong Kong Club

I'll never look at these pools in the same way again

La Fine Dell'innocenza - Annie Belle (1976) - Cross Harbour Tunnel

Cheng takes Annie to an illegal gambling place where the forfeit of losing a bet is that Annie must sleep with the winner. The problem is he's a huge grotesque giant of a man with missing teeth, so she does a runner out of the door sans clothing and the pair escape on the motorcycle with Annie on the back in her birthday suit. The pair ride the motorcycle through the cross harbour tunnel.