Noble House: The Dragon Garden

The same view as seen in The Man with the Golden Gun

Today, Monday 24th of February, is a special day that marks the addition of Noble House to the blog. In 1988 Pierce Brosnan starred in a TV miniseries based on a novel by James Clavell called Noble House. The original story is set to take place in Hong Kong in 1963 but the storyline in the television series has been updated to the late 1980's. Brosnan portrays the main character Ian Dunross Struan, who is Tai Pan (supreme leader) of Struan's, the biggest and oldest of the British East Asia trading companies in Hong Kong. The most powerful company in Hong Kong is called the "Noble House", a title that Struan's has possessed for decades. The evil Quillan Gornt, head of the company Rothwell-Gornt, is trying to destroy Struan's in order to become the Noble House.

A lot of old Bond locations appear in the series and besides Mr Bond himself, a few familiar faces from the Bond series have leading roles. The most distinctive Bond location seen in Noble House is The Dragon Garden in Hong Kong. Starting with this post I will cover a few of the Hong Kong and Macau locations from the series.

When John Chen is kidnapped and Dunross is summoned to Philip Chen's house he walks through Chen's garden. The location is immediately recognisable from The Man With the Golden Gun where the Dragon Garden was the estate belonging to the villain Hai Fat (supposedly located in Bangkok). Some interior scenes were also filmed on location in Noble House and Chen's living room is probably the same room as where the killing of Hai Fat was filmed in Golden Gun.

In Noble House Brosnan is walking down the same path as Sir Roger had done 15 years earlier. The exterior of the main building however did not feature as prominently in Golden Gun as it did in Noble House. When Dunross is shown into the house for the meeting with Chen and the Chief Inspector of the Royal Hong Kong Police you get a good look at the exterior.

The facade today has not changed notably since 1988 and Brosnan's visit.

Later in the first episode, Phillip Chen runs down in the garden. The same bridge that Hai Fat walks across in Golden Gun (covered here) can then be seen.

The entrance to the garden with the characteristic red doors can also be seen in the first episode of Noble House. John Chen is climbing over the wall into his parents' garden and the inside is then visible. The same doors can of course be seen in The Man With the Golden Gun (also covered earlier).

Today the front doors and the wall have been renovated and probably moved back, since the main road that runs alongside the garden has been widened. But the distinctive red doors can still be found at the entrance.

The Dragon Garden entrance in 2012.

Sir Roger in The Man With the Golden Gun 1974

The first compradore of the Noble House, Philip Chen, is played by non other than Burt Kwouk. Kwouk's connection with the Bond series started in Goldfinger when he played the Chinese villain Mr Ling, and continued in You Only Live Twice where he played one of the Spectre agents in Blofeld's volcano. Kwouk is perhaps most known for his role as Cato, the butler of Chief Inspector Clouseau in the Pink Panther.

The "bad guy" in the series, trying to overthrow the Noble House by selling short the Struan stock, is Quillan Gornt. He is played by John Rhys-Davies, who of course is familiar from The Living Daylights where he played Russian General Pushkin a year before Noble House.

The miniseries appears to have a fairly high budget and is well worth watching. The soundtrack is very memorable and the locations are a pleasure to watch. Overall the performances of the main cast is very good (Brosnan is always very entertaining) and the story has a lot of surprises. It is a must see for any Bond fan and it is also a veritable promo for Hong Kong as a tourist destination.

Hai Fat's residence - part 3

When Bond is invited to dinner at Hai Fat's estate in Bangkok, he arrives later that evening properly dressed in a white dinner jacket. His cover is blown however and Hai Fat has staged a stupid trap for Bond, in true Moore spirit. Disguised as statues, two sumo wrestlers are waiting to take care of Bond, but when that fails, obviously (!), Nick Nack knocks Bond unconscious and is ready to finish him off. Then Hai Fat changes his mind and decides to let Bond live just a little bit longer. He orders Nick Nack to take Bond to his karate school.

As I've covered before, the Bangkok residence is actually located in Hong Kong, where all the scenes were filmed (although the scene where Bond exits his hotel was filmed in Bangkok). The estate is called the Dragon Garden and can be found in Hong Kong's New Territories, approx 1 hour from downtown Kowloon. There are several buildings on the estate, including the main building seen in the picture above, the mausoleum and the building where Hai Fat later gets killed. The swimming pool can also be found in the lower part of the garden. Close to the building that supposedly is Hai Fat's living quarters, is located the small white bridge where Hai Fat enters the lower part of the garden.

-Take Mr Bond to school!

Hai Fat is stopping Nick Nack just before he is about to put a spear through Bond's neck. Bond is then taken to Hai Fat's karate school outside of Bangkok (these scenes were actually filmed on location in Thailand).

The stone bridge is covered with white mosaic and the steps lead up to the house. Just above the bridge, on the right side, is the water spouting dragon, that gave the garden its name. The bridge is also visible behind the dragon in one of the first scenes where you see Hai Fat's guards walking around the place.

Bond is walking down the path that leads up to the garden from the red front gate. This path is still easily recognized and can be found just where you expect it, starting behind the front gate (covered earlier). Some of the lamp posts can still be recognized from the film. Of course none of the statues seen in the film where a real part of the garden. The Dragon Garden is still under renovation, and heaven only knows when, or if, they will open it for the public, although they had been making some progress during the past year. If anyone know something about the status of the renovation process, please let me know. The garden is a must visit when one is in Hong Kong, but since it is a private residence you can't expect to be allowed inside. 

-Grizzlyland...

Hai Fat's residence - part 2

After a short visit to Hong Kong in The Man With the Golden Gun, Lt Hip brings Bond over to "Thailand" and the estate of the industrialist and multimillionaire Hai Fat, who lives on a mountainside just outside of Bangkok. The Bangkok scenes start immediately after the briefing with M in Hong Kong and no establishing shots of Thailand or of a plane leaving Hong Kong are provided by director Hamilton (as usual). You almost get the feeling that Bond and Hip haven't traveled very far... This feeling would prove to be correct because they are still in Hong Kong for the filming of the scenes at Hai Fat's. The estate is called The Dragon Garden, and the exterior and a brief background was covered in an earlier post. Bond, disguised as Scaramanga (equipped with a fake third nipple), breakes in to the estate hoping that Hai Fat and Scaramanga have never met.

Bond stumbles in and finds a naked girl swimming in the pool, before Hai Fat interrupts with his guards. Once, it was the biggest outdoor swimmingpool in Hong Kong, and it can still be found on the estate. This is the pool where Chew Mee was swimming. Despite the rather poor condition of the pool today, the length markings, in feet, can still be found on the edge of the pool. It appears to be 60 or 65 ft long. The markings can be recognized from the film, as can the statues in the corner.

Unfortunately, the estate has been under renovation for several years and is not anywhere near its former glory. But fear not, at our last visit, the renovation was well underway with several workers active, so one can only hope that they will get the garden in shape fast and open it up for interested visitors. The place is still rather well guarded with a gatekeeper and at least one watch dog and the place appears to be run by an incorruptible foreman, so it's probably not worth your while to try and get in without consent from the owner.

"-Good morning, how's the water?
                        -Why don't you come in and find out?

-Sounds very tempting miss..?

                        -Chew Mee!"

          -Bond to Miss Chew Mee-

Another well recogniced feature in the garden is the big dragon. It is filmed with Hai Fat's guards walking around and in the background you can see the white bridge that Hai Fat is crossing later. The dragon, which probably was put in to justify the name, or a ground for it, can still be found on location, although its present working condition is a little unclear.

The dragon can be found just above the path that Bond is walking down in his white dinner jacket later in the evening.

We were lucky enough to see as much of the garden as we did. Apparently the rest of the grounds are in very poor state and not safe to walk around. Probably an excuse, but we weren't allowed anyway. Apparently the Dragon Garden charitable trust is working hard to raise funds for the restoration, but I have no idea when it will re-open. Some of the other garden locations, such as the bridge and the rest of Grizzlyland will be covered later.

The Dragon Garden is definitely the most interesting location in Hong Kong, after the Peninsula of course. It is truly beautiful, despite the poor condition, and one can imagine how the place must have looked in 1974 with the pool filled. The most striking thing is that, much like Danila village in Corfu, this place has been untouched for decades. For us location fans it is always better to find a place untouched than renovated beyond recognition.

Hai Fat's residence, Bangkok / Dragon Garden, Hong Kong - part 1

In The Man with the golden gun, Bond is trying to locate Francisco Scaramanga, the hit man who killed the solar energy expert, Gibson, in Hong Kong. Bond assumes that who ever hired him could afford a million dollars and his interest is drawn to Hai Fat, the multimillionaire that Gibson worked for. He learns that Hai Fat lives outside of Bangkok on a mountainside surrounded by guards. Bond accompanies Lieutenant Hip to "Bangkok" where Hai Fat lives. They are scoping out his residence and Bond jumps the wall. Posing as Scaramanga himself he reveals his fake third nipple, supplied by Q, for Hai Fat who seems convinced that Bond is Scaramanga and invites him to dinner. 

The Dragon Garden in 2012

Even though the action is supposed to take place in Bangkok, the Hai Fat estate is located in the New Territories in Hong Kong, where the film team was based in April 1974. The estate is called The Dragon Garden and was built in the 1950's. It was designed by an industrialist and philantropist called Lee Iu Cheung and it once housed the largest private outdoor swimmingpool in Hong Kong (the pool where Chew Me is swimming). Notice part of the red Chinese gate behind the main building in the left picture. The gate is found just in front of the mausoleum where Hai Fat is talking to Scaramanga.

The lack of letterbox in the door indicates that it's not the main entrance

When Bond returns the same evening, dressed in black tie, we get to see the entrance. The red doors with the yellow balls are still the same and even the letterbox is visible earlier in the film when Bond is escorted out. The word ´Letters´ is briefly visible in the film. Sadly the original metal plate, seen in the left picture, has been replaced with a new one at the main door, carrying Chinese characters. Behind the main door is the path that Bond is walking down in the film, leading up to "Grizzlyland".

The name is Scaramanga, Mr Fat is expecting me.

Hip drops off Bond outside of Hai Fat.

In the film there are two doors next to each other. However, there is only one door at the main entrance today and it is not very likely that a second door was put up just for the film, so the surrounding wall has probably been changed since 1974. There are still two separate entrances, but they are much wider apart than in the film. It is possible, but very unlikely, that they recreated the doors in Pinewood but most likely has the high wall been changed.

Along the front side of the Dragon Garden runs the same wall that Bond and Hip are looking over in the first scene. They are probably standing at the very left part of the surrounding wall.

The exterior of Dragon Garden in 2012. The main entrance to the right.

The Dragon Garden is currently undergoing renovation and it is not easy to get in touch with anyone in charge. It appears to be a slow process, probably due to the lack of funds, but things are going in the right direction. So far, the front doors have been given new paint. The estate is still privately owned by the Cheung family and it is not accessible for the public. We have had the fortune of a quick tour of some parts of the garden but that will be covered later. The estate is guarded by dogs and a security guard, although not as heavily armed as the Hai Fat guards.

                
 "-Don't tell me you saw him?!
                   -He even invited me to dinner. He must have found me quite titillating!"
                                                    -Lt. Hip to Bond-

The Dragon Garden is located along Castle Peak Road in the New Territories. It's quite easy to find if you are driving along the Castle Peak Road but it is unlikely that the cab driver will know what you are talking about when you mention the Dragon Garden, so good luck getting there. The road running alongside the estate has been expanded quite a bit and probably rerouted since the 1970's and it is hard to know the exact spot where Hip parked his car.

Notice the still unpainted front door in early 2012. 

More information about the garden can be found on the website of the Dragon Garden trust. http://dragongarden.hk