Les Tribulations d'un Chinois en Chine - Jean-Paul Belmondo (1965) - Stanley Gap Road, Stanley

More Tai Tam Road action in the next scene, but actually the bed isn't on that road, it's on Stanley Gap Road instead, coming down the hill towards the hairpin bend where it meets Tai Tam Road and Stanley Village Road just above the aptly named Hair Pin Beach. Again, the bed must have been doing some fairly funky manoeuvres to get here.

Other than the addition of a painted roundabout to make the turn slightly less hair raising, I don't think this place has really changed much.

Les Tribulations d'un Chinois en Chine - Jean-Paul Belmondo (1965) - Tai Tam Road, Stanley

After starting its perilous descent of Wanchai Gap Road (as seen in the last picture of the last post) the bed suddenly enters a space/time wormhole and appears on the long sloping driveway of a large mansion in Tai Tam called Longview. It then continues onto to Tai Tam Road at the bottom of the driveway.

This is a bit of a bonus for Bruce Lee fans because the lower screencap below shows a brief glimpse of the property opposite the driveway's entrance. What you can see is the terraced tennis courts of Palm Villa - made famous as the location for the tournament scenes in Enter the Dragon.

Driveway to Longview 

Palm Villa estate across the road

If you want to read my (perhaps overlong and a bit too enthusiastic) post on Palm Villa you can click here. Of course both Longview (whose driveway the bed just zipped down) and Palm Villa were part of the M.W Lo property portfolio.

In terms of what is visible in this film, it's a very brief moment but you can just about see the lowest tennis court at the bottom left behind the large tree. The more eagle-eyed of you may be able to make out the circular building poking out from the hedge at the right hand side. If you read the post I just linked to you'll find out it was an outside toilet and served as Ahna Capri's and Bruce Lee's (shared) dressing room during filming. The last time I was in that area, it was still there despite everything around it being redeveloped. The tennis courts are now the "Pacific View" development.

Les Tribulations d'un Chinois en Chine - Jean-Paul Belmondo (1965) - Wanchai Gap, The Peak

One of the things that has interested me most whilst looking at locations for this film is the almost complete lack of growth on the hills. As you will see from later posts as well the film crew for Les Tribulations d'un Chinois en Chine covered some really surprising locations and it's quite staggering to see the changes that have occurred since 1965. This is a great example - it involves a car chase scene that ends with a rather impressive and comical pile up in the middle of the road. The location is the junction where several roads all come together at Wanchai Gap: Stubbs Road, Peak Road, Mount Cameron Road, Coombe Road and Middle Gap Road. Modern day visitors tend to go here to visit the (excellent) Police Museum on the nearby hill or perhaps start one of the hikes through the Aberdeen reservoirs, but I doubt many would recognise it from the following film grabs.

Where Peak Road meets Stubbs Road. Wanchai Gap Road at the back.

Stubbs Road with Black's Link on the right.

Middle Gap Road on the left, Mt Cameron Rd on the right.

The grassy area is now part of Wanchai Gap Park, 

Coombe Road coming from the right.

It's hard to get a comparative view from Streetview so they will just have to wait until my next visit to the Police Museum. Suffice to say all the hillsides are now covered in mature tree growth. The next shot is great, I particularly like the rickshaw puller who managed to find his way to the top of the pile up.

The following is a better, low angled view through the gap. The building at the end is currently a HK Electric substation. I have no idea if it was the same back in 1965. There are some nice houses on the slope at the back. Whether they are still around is hard to say but I think the one above the substation might be the precursor to today's Cameron Lodge. The one further along might be #6 Middle Gap Road and it looks as though the same building is still there today with the two chimneys.

I'll finish on this brief shot of the top of Wanchai Gap Road as the wayward bed starts on its long journey towards...well, actually it ends up in Mongkok as you will see in a later post. If you thought that was daft enough, then pay attention to the next couple of posts as I document its rather convoluted journey to the other side of the harbour.

Les Tribulations d'un Chinois en Chine - Jean-Paul Belmondo (1965) - St John's Cathedral, Central

A brief wander through the grounds around St John's Cathedral and what was once the Central  Govt Offices.

I haven't been up here for a while so I am not sure what is happening the the old Govt offices now that everything has moved over to the new complex near Admiralty station. I'll try and grab some comparison snaps the next time I am in Central.

Les Tribulations d'un Chinois en Chine - Jean-Paul Belmondo (1965) - Hong Kong Hilton Hotel, Central

For some reason the Hongkong Hilton was the number one place to shoot films during the 1960's. It features a couple of times in this film, initially as an office where Belmondo goes to meet someone (could be a lawyer, could be a bank manager - unfortunately I don't know because I can't understand French). Later on, one of his buddies (one of several expecting to benefit financially from his death) tries to shoot him from one of the hotel windows.

I'm fairly certain that this room/suite is the same one seen in Five Golden Dragons and again in The Million Eyes of Sumuru.

The last shot also gives us a nice bird's eye view of the previously mentioned Cricket Ground. You can probably get a similar view today but would need to head into the Cheung Kong Centre which replaced the hotel in the mid-to-late 90's.

Les Tribulations d'un Chinois en Chine - Jean-Paul Belmondo (1965) - Hong Kong Cricket Club, Central

The large open concrete Chater Garden (if you can call something covered in concrete a "garden") was once the grassy pitch for the Hong Kong Cricket Club. For over a hundred years it operated as a sports ground (from 1851 until 1975) and I guess the French film makers caught it on film in the last few years of its existence before the Cricket Club moved to its current location up at Wong Nai Chung Gap. Call me old fashioned but I prefer the site of green grass to drab grey concrete any day of the week. Sadly it's the latter that prevails in HK these days.

The first photo shows the camera pointing almost directly west and we can see The Hongkong Hilton Hotel, the Peak, Bank of China/HSBC/Standard Chartered as well as the former LegCo building (originally the Law Courts and now returned to the legal world as the Court of Final Appeal). Interestingly, the building behind the Courts is what looks to be the 2nd generation Prince's Building under the final stages of construction. There looks to be scaffolding and catch nets installed around the exterior.

The next picture is looking NW and you can see a corner of the Mandarin Oriental at the extreme left as well as the cricket club's clubhouse below it (was it the club house or just a viewing pavilion?). You can also see the former Hong Kong Club building and City Hall poking up just behind it. The building with the metal spikes on the top (behind the scaffolding) is the former Cable and Wireless Building. The building in scaffolding looks to me to be the old Hong Kong Club annex that was actually in  the process of being demolished (Gwulo puts the demolition year as 1966, so that ties in nicely).

The next picture below shows a closer view of the buildings already mentioned but the final one below is a view looking NE and shows what I believe to be the Naval dockyard power station chimney.

Last, but not least is this brief shot over to the old Murray Barracks building. The new(er) Bank of China building now occupies that location and while the HK Govt likes to trumpet a heritage preservation success concerning how the old barrack building was carefully taken apart and then reassembled brick-by-brick in Stanley, the reality is something slightly less romantic.What really happened was that no one knew how to put the thing back together so they simply poured a huge concrete rectangle to serve as the centre of the building and then reattached the balconies like hanging baubles on a Christmas tree. HK-style heritage preservation indeed.

Les Tribulations d'un Chinois en Chine - Jean-Paul Belmondo (1965) - Robinson Road, Central

Here's one that took a bit of effort to find. It's a great shot that shows why (I think) HK is now well past its best and far too cluttered. Take a look.

Just look at that wide open view when owning an apartment in the mid-levels pretty much guaranteed unimpeded views of the harbour and beyond. Can you guess which part of Robinson Road this is? It's the junction where Albany Road and Old Peak Road meet. There are a couple of key features that helped identify it (other than the general topography). The concrete base in which the large tree sits is still around. I doubt the tree is the same one from 1965 but the concrete base seems to be the same.

The second clue can be seen in the last screencap just above the red pillar box (that's a post box for the non-UK crowd). It's a white slab that runs along the top of a wall of the one the properties down the road. It turns out that it is still around and belongs to the only property that has stood the test of time: 1A Robinson Road. It's age (built in 1963) means it's been spared the indignity of some crap pretentious name and goes simply by its address. You can still see the white slab in the Streetview grab below. The red pillar box has been replaced by a new green one, but it's interesting (and often useful when it comes to identifying locations) to note that it still occupies the same position as its Colonial predecessor.

I'll leave you with a couple more shots from 1965 which show a small corner of the building that once occupied the location of what is now a high rise called "The Albany", plus a nice retro taxi cab.

I believe the previous version of The Albany (seen on the left in the above pictures) was in fact Govt quarters but that's about all I know of the place. The current high rise development was opened in 1989 so I can only assume the Govt quarters were still around until 1987. By the way, in case you hadn't realised, the wide open space behind the tree was and still is part of the Zoological and Botanical Gardens. The view is now blocked by the Robinson Road elevated road.

Les Tribulations d'un Chinois en Chine - Jean-Paul Belmondo (1965) - Aberdeen Waterfront, Aberdeen

We were just looking at the famous Aberdeen floating restaurants but there was also a large amount of filming - covering multiple scenes - done around the old waterfront in front of Aberdeen town. The following screencaps are a small selection.

 If you've read my previous posts on this location then you will already know that this old waterfront location (where the original restaurant jetties were located) has long since fallen to reclamation and is now the Aberdeen bus terminus.

Les Tribulations d'un Chinois en Chine - Jean-Paul Belmondo (1965) - Floating Restaurants, Aberdeen Harbour

There's a fair amount of the film shot in and around Aberdeen and the harbour so I thought it better to split it into a couple of posts. This post shows the various images of the main two floating restaurants in the area at the time: Tai Pak and Sea Palace.

In the film the Tai Pak is in fact supposed to be a large floating massage parlour with Belmondo entering the place before the movie cuts top a very obvious studio set of a massage room and lots of baby powder flying around the place. However, we get some nice views of the exterior.

 Above - the Sea Palace

Les Tribulations d'un Chinois en Chine - Jean-Paul Belmondo (1965) - Hollywood Road, Sheung Wan

In the film, we are given the impression that this next scene is directly next to the previous scene in Central. Of course this is the famous Man Mo Temple along Hollywood Road and in reality a fair walk from that last location in Central. Belmondo goes here twice in the film (both times on the run from pursuers) and enters the temple. I've included a couple of screencaps of the interior but I'm (at the moment) not 100% sure it's the real interior - although the column bases do seem to match the real ones.

And a few interior shots.