A Queen's Ransom - George Lazenby (1976) - Central, Hong Kong

A Queen's Ransom is the last of the three films that George Lazenby was obligated to complete after he had signed up to Golden Harvest expecting to work with Bruce Lee back in 1973. It revolves around an assassination plot against Queen Elizabeth II during her famed 1975 trip to Hong Kong. You may remember that the French film, Bons Baisers de Hong Kong, also used this trip as the plot for the film and both that and A Queen's Ransom use archive footage from that trip to establish scenes and follow the plot as the police try to protect their Royal guests.

And so the introduction to this film uses quite a bit of archive footage shot around Central, showing some of the sights and sounds going on at the time. So here are a few screengrabs.

Stoner - George Lazenby (1974) - Cameron Road, Tsim Sha Tsui

The bar where Stoner goes to investigate the "happy pill" was the Hawaii Bar at 56 Cameron Road (location courtesy of Vanessa's bar card found here). The block it was in is called Long Kee Mansion and is still around, although the bar has long disappeared from the scene.

Stoner - George Lazenby (1974) - Tsim Sha Tsui Waterfront, Kowloon

In one scene, Stoner goes to get on a boat and is stopped by the bad guys who have come to beat him up. The location is the old waterfront in Tsim Sha Tsui right in front of the old KCR terminus. Look carefully at the background and you can see some of the recognisable brickwork of the clocktower (bottom picture). This also goes some way to show how much the waterfront has been extended since the station was demolished.

Stoner - George Lazenby (1974) - The Peninsula Hotel, Kowloon

Stoner stays at The Peninsula Hotel whilst in town and we get to see the interior of one of the rooms as well as the usual exterior and lobby shots.

Ein Sarg aus Hong Kong - Heinz Drache (1964) - Castle Peak Road, Kowloon

Here's one I forget to post several weeks ago. It is a car-based scene in Ein Sarg aus Hongkong with the three actors driving along (for real, no crappy back projection for this film) Castle Peak Road. This road is one of those long ones that goes on to form a large part of Route 9 that encircles the New Territories. However, the particular section we are looking at here is not far from its starting point (or end point, I guess, seeing as it is only eastbound traffic along this section) down in the Cheung Sha Wan part of Sham Shui Po District.

The top picture shows us a small section of the road just west of the junction with Tonkin Street, and the lower picture shows us that very same junction. The zig-zag style decoration of the building at the back of the second picture is where the current Hing Lung Building (202 to 210 Castle Peak Road) stands today. You can vaguely see the wall of the Tonkin Street nullah behind Heinz Drache's head as well. The nullah was covered up only recently (about 3 or 4 years ago).

Stoner - George Lazenby (1974) - Kau Sai Chau, Sai Kung

The bad guy's hideout is part of a temple complex somewhere near the coast. The temple itself is a studio set, but the lower entrance to the hideout is actually an old concrete box located on the southern coast of Kau Sai Chau in Port Shelter. Kau Sai Chau is perhaps better known for the its public golf course. We've actually seen the area in question a few times before on this log though. Jackie Chan filmed here for Project A back in 1983, you can see the post here.

Stoner - George Lazenby (1974) - Kai Tak Airport, Kowloon

As Stoner arrives from Australia in a Qantas jet, he is already being followed by the bad guys in the shape of Betty Ting Pei and Sammo Hung.

Stoner - George Lazenby (1974) - Central, Hong Kong

Stoner, also known as The Shrine of Ultimate Bliss, is the first in a series of three films that George Lazenby completed under contract to Golden Harvest. I already covered one of the three a while back (The Man from Hong Kong). What happened was that Lazenby had been to Hong Kong to sign on for the original Game of Death when it was still in pre-production with Bruce Lee. Lazenby was there to work with Bruce and my understanding is that The Man from Hong Kong was originally intended to be a Lee vehicle as well (as was Robert Clouse's Golden Needles which was also originally meant to star Lazenby). Sadly, Lee died whilst Lazenby was on his HK trip (he was supposed to be meeting him the night he died) but Raymond Chow being Raymond Chow made the ex-Bond star honour his recently signed film contract and the end result was Stoner, The Man from Hong Kong and finally, A Queen's Ransom.

This film also ties in with the documentary Kung Fu Killers because Lazenby was interviewed by Grant Page on that documentary whilst in the process of making this film and some BTS clips from it are included.

Despite being largely set in Hong Kong (as well as some shots in Sydney), there are surprisingly few locations to be found and most of the key scenes were done in the studio. But here is a brief shot of the Connaught Centre (as it was known then) as the Hong Kong establishing shot.

The panning shot finished looking over to the Mandarin Oriental and Furama Hotel (in the background). Ooh and before I forget here is another view of  some of the same buildings but from the vantage point of the harbour.

Weiße Fracht für Hongkong - Dietmar Schönherr (1963) - Nathan Road, Mongkok

I've been able to place some more of the neon screen shots from this film, and as predicted by Thomas, they are around the general area of this previous post. The first one is a shot of the sign for the 巴黎百貨公司 or, in English, the rather grand sounding Paris Department Store. It appears to have been a rather more humble store trying to convey a more sophisticated image than was the reality.

Anyway, it and the neighbouring Hill Shoes (山打鞋) were both located in the large block that contained the King Wah Restaurant and Paramount nightclub. The reason this has cropped up now is because I only just posted a picture of the very same building just the other day. What a nice coincidence! Now, perhaps someone is able to tell me if Manning Shirt was the same company as Hill Shoes, or were they just sharing some signage?

巴黎百貨公司

山打鞋

The Road to Hong Kong - Bob Hope (1962) - Connaught Road, Sheung Wan

One final shot from The Road to Hong Kong for the time being and it's a brief scene showing a car driving along the waterfront along Connaught Road. I'm not sure exactly at which point but I would imagine it is somewhere around where the old ferry piers used to be (what would be today's Shun Tak Centre). Feel free to comment if you know anymore.

The Road to Hong Kong - Bob Hope (1962) - Nathan Road, Mongkok

More stock footage from this film includes this nice north looking shot of the junction with Shantung Street along Nathan Road. The Paramount nightclub and Theatre was quite a distinctive landmark at the time. 

Actually, we were here not so long ago because I believe the building occupied the whole block up to Nelson Street and this post was located at the far end.

The Road to Hong Kong - Bob Hope (1962) - Kai Tak Airport, Kowloon

One of the most used establishing shots on HK set films is the footage of a plane landing at the old airport, and this film is no different. Sadly, no low level plane landing but instead some quick footage of a plane that looks to have landed on the runway from the harbour end of the runway.

Ein Sarg aus Hong Kong - Heinz Drache (1964) - Lai Chi Kok Road, Kowloon

I have to say thank you to a Facebook user named "Wai Tse" for this next mystery because he had posted some footage from this film over there and had identified the place in question as Lai Chi Kok Road next to the junction with Tong Mi Road. It just so happens that this is also the junction where Lui Seng Chun is situated.

The junction at the back in the lower two pictures is with Poplar Street. Here is a Streetview of how it looks today. I've also included a contemporary shot of the street from the same angle as the first two pictures. So, many thanks to Wai Tse for inadvertently solving this mystery for us.

The Road to Hong Kong - Bob Hope (1962) - Hong Kong Club, Central

In a rather weird use of stock footage, the Hong Kong Club is used to establish a shot that was obviously meant to still be in India. I guess this colonial style of building is one that can be found in many of the tropical and sub-tropical places the Brits decided to invade during their empire building. In the film, we see it, and the Cenotaph, from the direction of the southern side of Chater Road near to the Supreme Court building.

Weiße Fracht für Hongkong - Dietmar Schönherr (1963) - Nathan Road, Mongkok

A mystery location discovered by Thomas. This rather blurry neon shot from Weiße Fracht für Hongkong is along the Mongkok section of Nathan Road. He's right because there is an almost identical shot - but vastly clearer - on Gwulo showing more or less the same angle and neon signs. So, as we can see, the "otel" sign (top centre right) is actually part of the Sunya Hotel. This means we are looking south, probably from the junction with Argyle Street. Here's the film grab: