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.

Countess Lisl's beach house

"I have champagne and oysters in the fridge. Why not come in for a bite?"
In For Your Eyes Only, Bond picks up Countess Lisl von Schlaf at the Corfu casino. They spend the night in her beach house after three bottles of champagne in front of the fireplace. In the morning, they take a walk along the beach before Loque interrupts them in a beach buggy. Lisl gets killed but Bond is saved by Colombo's men in last minute.

Western Corfu has a rather rough coastline but occasionally you can find some sandy beaches. Probably the longest beach in Corfu, Issos beach in Agios Georgios, is located in the south western part of the island and is the place of Lisl's untimely demise.

The Countess' beach house was built for the film and did not exist. Today however, there is a beach bar around the same place where I can imagine the beach house once stood. The bar is about the same size and there is a small road that leads up to it. I don't think it is completely unimaginable that the bar is built around the same spot.

Countess Lisl's beach house, constructed for the film.

Unfortunately, Corfu has changed from a tranquil jet-set island to a rather cheap vacation destination and at least the southern part of the beach is packed with tourists during the high season. You can also see that a lot of new hotels have been built south of the beach since 1981.

I can imagine that visiting this beach very early in the morning would be magical. A good idea is probably to avoid Corfu from June through August. The best time to go to Corfu is September, when the island has a nice temperature and fewer tourists. The olives are harvested from October.

Kristatos' men are coming up from behind the sand dunes in their beach buggies, trying to kill Bond. Unfortunately Lisl ends up in front of Loque, who shows no mercy. It is a hard location to scout since the dunes obviously have changed shape over the 30+ years that have passed...

"Goodbye Countess."

Countess Lisl is played by Cassandra Harris, who at the time was married to Pierce Brosnan. Pierce visited the set on one occasion during filming, and allegedly Cubby got the idea then, that he would make a good Bond in the future. Harris also appeared in several episodes of Remington Steele together with her husband. Sadly, Cassandra Harris got cancer in 1987 and died four years later, ten years after her appearance in For Your Eyes Only.

The hotel lobby - Grand Hotel Pupp

"-Welcome to the Hotel Splendide, your name Sir? 
-James Bond, you find the reservation under Beech."

In Casino Royale, Bond and Vesper check in to the Hotel Splendide in Montenegro. A Daimler limousine from the hotel picks them up at the Montenegro train station and drives them through town. All the scenes in and around the Hotel was filmed at Grand Hotel Pupp in the Czech spa town of Karlovy Vary. The Grand Hotel Pupp complex is so large and houses so many different locations from the film that I will cover all of them on different occasions.

"You'll sign that dear? You represent the treasury."

The lobby looks just like in the film and hopefully they will not change it in the future. Unless the film team refurbished the lobby especially for the film, the hotel have replaced the green wall-to-wall carpet that featured in the film sometime after 2006.

The entire hotel is beautifully decorated and the lobby is no exception.

"Take the next one! There isn't enough room for me and your ego..."

After picking up his parcel at the front desk Bond and Vesper goes to the fourth floor to spy on Le Chiffre. The elevator can be found just behind the lobby to the right, the same place as in the film.

Production Designer Peter Lamont and his crew fitted the elevator with wooden panels instead of mirrors to make filming possible. Bond presses number 4 in the elevator, something that also was filmed on location.

Pan American to Royale-les-Eaux

In Casino Royale 1967, Peter Sellers plays the Baccarat expert Evelyn Tremble, who is hired by Mi6 to play Baccarat against Le Chiffre. Conveniently he receives the name James Bond 007, like all other agents in the film, to confuse the enemy. (Not the only thing that was confusing in that film!) Just like Connery in Dr No and From Russia with love, James Bond, a.k.a. Evelyn Tremble, a.k.a. Peter Sellers is flying Pan American when on a mission for Mi6. Tremble is supposedly flying from London to the fictional town Royale-les-Eaux in northern France where he will meet Le Chiffre at the Baccarat table.

The plane is a DC-8, one of 25 airplanes that Pan Am ordered from the Douglas company in 1955. The Pan Am airplanes that featured in the official Bond films during the Connery era were Boeing 707s.





Royale-les-Eaux features in both Ian Fleming novels Casino Royale and On Her Majesty's secret Service where it is a seaside resort somewhere on the north-western coast of France. Formerly a fishing village but more of a fashionable tourist destination in the novels it is supposedly located just south of Le Touquet. At least according to Fleming's description in chapter 2 in On Her Majesty's secret service.

It is a little unclear where this scene was filmed, but one possibility, given the background is the Nice Côte d'Azur airport. It is not very likely that Pan Am would use a DC-8 only to cross the English channel and land in northern France given the fact that it was a long range aircraft, but nothing made sense in that movie anyway so...

A stewardess is briefly visible behind Sellers when he arrives at the customs/immigration counter at the airport. The uniform resembles the uniform Pan Am used during the 60's but the front is a little different.

The Mi6 radio control unit - Mi6 HQ?

Midnight in London

In Dr. No, when the radio control at Mi6 looses contact with Strangways who is their station agent in Jamaica, Bond is immediately summoned to M. Moneypenny has apparently been searching London for him and of course he can be found at one of the finest clubs in town. Playing a game of Chemin de fer at Les Ambassadeurs, Bond receives a business card and has to pass the shoe. In the next scene he walks into M's office.

The building to the right is probably the one that still exists today

"-It happens to be 3 am. When do you sleep 007?
       -Never on the firm's time sir..."
              -M and Bond at the office-





The exterior of Bond's office is never shown, but two buildings are briefly visible before the scene at the radio department. When the contact with Jamaica is broken, the foreman of signals immediately informs Mi6. If the buildings shown in the first scene is supposed to house both the radio unit and M's office is not clear.

The foreman of signals is casually dressed for the night shift.


"Foreman of signals, sir. Jamaica's broken off mid-transmission. No Sir it's not a technical fault." 





The buildings that were used in the film can be found at a rather well known place. They are located right next to the real Mi6 headquarters at Vauxhall. Even though the exact same buildings doesn't exist anymore it appears that at least one of the buildings visible in the film still stands on the south bank of the Thames today.

Why these buildings were used is not known. If they are supposed to portray the exterior of Mi6 is not entirely clear but if they are, this is the only time that the Universal Exports is visible during the Connery era. In On Her Majesty's secret service, a sign in the pre-title sequence indicates that the Mi6 headquarters are located in Westminster, close to Big Ben. Then it took another seven films until the exterior would be seen again - this time located at Whitehall in Octopussy.

The real Mi6 can be spotted to the right

Portuguese Macau



"-But what the hell is Lazar? 
         -Not what, who; a Portuguese, lives in Macau." 
                         Bond to Calthorpe

In The man with the golden gun, Bond goes to Macau to find the weapons and munitions manufacturer Lazar who allegedly has manufactured the golden bullets for Scaramanga. Bond is driven to Lazar's gun shop in a cycle rickshaw, but just before he arrives he passes in front of a casino called Casino de Macau. This scene was shot on location just in front of the floating casino called 'Casino Macau Palace', or 'Casino de Macau' which evidently was the name in 1974. Today, the pedal driven taxi is a tourist attraction in Macau and if you want to try one, you will probably pay about five times more than a regular taxi.

So far this location has been one of the hardest to identify, partly because of the insufficient information about the casino but also because of the very few exterior shots. However, a few old photographs proved to be most helpful and made it possible to determine the location.

Original picture website

In the picture to the left the name on the sign says 'Casino Macau Palace' and if this was the name before or after The man with the golden gun is unknown. But the sign and entrance are the only things from the exterior of the casino that can be recognized from the film, even though the name has been changed. The picture below makes it possible to determine the exact spot where the casino was located, namely along Rua das Lorchas, between Ponte No 12 and 14.

Original picture website

The original casino was moored along the quay in the inner harbor, just opposite the buildings that can be found at 220 Rua das Lorchas today. Bond questions Lazar about by whom the golden bullets will be collected, in order to track down Scaramanga. Lazar claims that he delivers them in the casino, without specifying which casino. It is implied that it is the floating Macau Palace that Lazar is referring to since the sign has already been pictured.



"-Who collects them? 
-I swear I do not know! My instructions are to go to the casino and deliver them, get paid and then vanish."
                -Bond questions Lazar-




Only a few scenes from the interior of the casino is seen in the film. In his book: 'My word is my Bond', Sir Roger writes about the casino where you place your bet through an opening in the roof, which indicate that these scenes were filmed on location in Macau. But since the real casino is gone it is impossible to determine where.

Up until some years ago, Macau still had a floating casino with the same name as the original; Casino Macau Palace. Although the building was new (or at least renovated), as seen in the picture below, the casino was located in the same place as the original. But it also had another location, namely in an area called Fisherman's Wharf, very close to the ferry terminal, where it probably was located up until its retirement. I have not been able to determine for how long the casino was located there, but today the floating 'Macau Palace' is anchored in the inner harbor, in the north western part of the Macau peninsula and it looks like it has been out of business for quite some time.

  "I hate to interrupt your dinner but does señor Lazar live here? Lazaaar..?!"
                           -Bond to a Chinese family-

Avenida Amizade opposite Jai Alai Casino

This is the old location of 'Macau Palace Casino' where it was located up until a few years ago, before it was towed away to its present "resting place" in the inner harbor. If the casino currently is being renovated and awaits a reopening is not clear, but the activity during my visit last year was very low. One can only hope that it will be reopened and moved to its original location. 








One of the many references to the past Bond films that can be found in Skyfall is the fact that Bond again ends up at a floating casino in Macau. The "Floating dragon" casino seen in Skyfall is a fictitious casino that was created in studio for the film, but I think it is obvious that the inspiration for the building comes from the original 'Macau Palace Casino'.

Casino 'Floating dragon' in Skyfall

Yacht Club de Monaco

Yacht Manticore is anchored in the middle of Monte Carlo harbor. 

In GoldenEye, Bond follows Xenia and the Admiral from the casino to the Monte Carlo Yacht Club, where they park the Ferrari. Bond watches them from the open air theater Fort Antoine where he takes a few snapshots of Xenia and the boat that belongs to the yacht Manticore. He later returns to his car in the parking lot above the yacht club.

Xenia parks along the Quai Antoine and a boat is waiting for her and the Admiral at one of the small piers. The letters Y.C.M indicates that Manticore belongs to Yacht Club de Monaco.

Bond returns to the Aston and receives a message from Moneypenny through his CD-player with information about Xenia and the yacht. The small parking lot is located right above the yacht club, along Avenue de la Quarantaine, but it appears to be a residential parking today so you might not be able to park here, even with an Aston...

          "Goodnight James, I trust you stay, on-a-top of things..."

The parking lot is visible from Fort Antoine (to the bottom left). 

Located at 16 Quai Antoine, the yacht club will move to a new venue on Quai Louis II, where currently a new clubhouse is being built. The building works will be completed at the end of 2013 so this summer is the last chance to visit the yacht club at its present location.

Fort Antoine is visible above the club

Founded in 1953 by Prince Rainier III of Monaco, Y.C.M. is probably one of the most prestigious yacht clubs in the world and many of the worlds most luxurious yachts belong to the club. HSH Prince Albert II of Monaco, the reigning monarch of Monaco, is the president of the club since 1984.