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Kung Fu: The Legend Continues |
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Last night was a rough night. I did not sleep well at
all. I now have a full-blown cold, perhaps with a low-grade fever. I
can't check that since I do not have a thermometer. Went for a walk
early this morning to the corner grocery store hoping to see what I
could get for my cold since the gift shop was still closed. . . . No
luck, though I do not see it as a wasted trip. It was informative in
two ways. It told me how far the store was in walking distance (about
a 20 minute walk-round trip) and what time the store opened, if anyone
else wanted to know. It did not open until 9:00 am. I will need to
wake Maria and then get some breakfast before everyone gathers to take
the tour bus.
There were 17 of us on the location tour. I realized after we had left that the only film I had was in my camera. I had not brought an extra role of film. So Helen and I worked it out where I would take pictures of the signs and she would take everything else. We would then swap photos, and when it came time, I would include her shots with mine and we would have a complete look at the tour that way, so begins our tour. (It has been nearly a year since the gathering of fans and unfortunately, I never received the photos from Helen. She tried mailing them twice, but they never came. Someone from the post office must be enjoying her photos, so I have rewritten the original account of the trip and added others that were given to me [I'll tell you about that story later-how I got those]. As well as a few shots that I captured from the Episodes.) |
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Location #1 - Maria Curtis Park and the Blaisedell Home
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Maria Curtis Park - You Are Here Sign This image shows the location where the bridge was from the Season Three opening episode "Right of Passage." The scene took place at the end of the episode. The scene is as follows: Peter and Caine walk onto the bridge and stop to talk. Peter talked about whether they had faced the greatest evil and Caine replies. Peter then asks about him leaving and Caine states that he must stay here. Peter then asks, "Will things be different?" And Caine replies, "You will have to do all my fighting for me." (Caine was joking of course).
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Blaisedell Home After everyone walked back to the van and we headed to our next location, Sandra passed out photos of Captain Blaisdell's house. Someone mentioned about seeing the front of the house when Peter got into his car in one of the episodes. I remember seeing the front of the house in the very beginning of the episode "Retribution." That may very well be from the same episode. You only see it for a second or two and then they switch to the interior where they are setting the table in the dining room to prepare for a special guest, Kwai Chang Caine.
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Location #2 - Port Credit and the Brewery
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Port Credit Marina Sign This little port town (now a suburb of Toronto) was the birthplace of Chris Potter, our own Peter Caine. It is also a port of entry for boats coming and going between Canada and the US. The marina was used for the site of Xia's boat in "Dragon's Daughter." Makes me wonder what other port locations were used. In the two part episode with Sing Ling, Caine, Peter, and the Ancient, they had gone to a ship moored in the harbor. That ship contained the assassins from China. It would be interesting to know where that harbor is or if it was the same harbor. There is also a scene where Peter met Donny Double D at a marina.
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The Brewery On our way to our next location, Sandra once again passed out photos, this time of The Brewery where many episodes were filmed. I can think of at least three that were filled there. "Dragonswing," "Retribution (the sequence back in time)," and "Escape." There may have been more, but these three come to mind. |
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Location #3 - St. Peter's
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St. Peter's Anglican Church This is the church that was used in the episode of "The Sacred Chalice of I Ching." It was to represent the Church of St. Adele in France. Matthew Caine had drawn an image of the church in his journal.
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Image from Journal I asked Sandra whether they had used all the grounds of the church. She seemed think that the rest were studio shots because Michael Sloane had not indicated to her as to how much of the church had been used. I suspect that they used as much of it as possible. Where there were catacomb shots that I think might have been studio shots. And it is possible that some of the interior of the church was used as well. Of course w won't know that unless we were able to spend a little more time at this particular site. Here are some exterior shots from the show that I captured. These of course are for argument sake. If you look at the images, you can see that these are clearly exterior shots as well. |
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St. Peter's Anglican Church Rear view.. |
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St. Peter's Anglican Church Side wiew. |
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St. Peter's Anglican Church Rear view at night. |
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Location #4 - The Chinese Center
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The Chinese Center |
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Dragon Wall Here we stopped to see two things that had been used in two episodes. One was the Chinese Wall of Imperial Dragons. |
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Dragon Close Up This wall had been used to signify Matthew's Temple in the episode "The Return of Sing Ling," where Sing Ling needs to go to China to replace the lost pearl in the statue of Buddha, the statue being hidden below the remains of Matthew's temple. I was curious about that wall and whether each dragon represented either a particular emperor or perhaps a particular imperial dynasty. |
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The second was the Chinese Pagoda in the center of the square. This was where
Caine and Peter sat discussing what they were each going to do in regards to
tracking down the murderer in "Dragon's Daughter."
The Gazebo I suspect there were other scenes from other shows that were shot at this location. It would give Chinatown the feel that it was much larger, more of a district area of the city, than just a small section of town. The next location is not that easy to find. It isn't even close to being near Chinatown, though it would be nice to see if the narrow alley entrance that was used in "Sing Wah" could be found.
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Location #5 - Caine's Apartment
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Caine's Balcony-Street Shot I am speaking in regards to Caine's loft apartment. When this site was looked at, I thought it was referring to the small balcony area, but in actuality, but if you look along the roofline, you can see greenery. The balcony area is actually too small to be the terrace area for Caine. But the roofline could house a penthouse area that is not that easy to see from street level. It would be a rooftop apartment. This makes more sense to me than the small balcony area. In the show, when Caine is out on his terrace, you get the impression that the terrace is larger than it appears to be in the photo. That certainly is a trick of the camera, and the fact that the set that is used in the studio is much larger. The two pictures (scranned together to appear as one) suggest a much larger space. |
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Caine's Balcony-Interior Shot |
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Location #6 - 101st Precinct
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101st Precinct The next location, City of Toronto Parkdale District Office, not far from Caine's, was the 101st Precinct. The small sign gives testimony as to its normal use. As we drove to the next location, I barely got a shot of the Sky Dome for my hubby along the way. This was one of the landmarks that they avoided shooting because this would have given the location away. The show was supposed to take place in a city in the Midwest that way it could represent any city. |
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Location #7 - Peter's Apartment
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Peter's Apartment Sandra asked which building contained Peter's apartment. Half guessed it was the left, the other the right. Turns out it was the building on the right. In the show, you only saw the one tower. In "Enter the Tiger" we see a different view, one that was closer to the ground. We saw more of the entrance at street level. As the tour continued, we found ourselves in downtown Toronto. Here we just drove by several locations starting with our next one. |
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Location #8 - Old City Hall
| The Old City Hall/Courthouse was used in the show Manhunt. One side is the city hall and the other is the courthouse. |
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Location #9 - New City Hall and Courthouse
| Across the street, is the square and the new City Hall and Courthouse. The square was used in two scenes from the episode "Citizen Caine." |
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Location #10 - The Hospital
| The Hospital This was referred to a lot as Peter's second home, the Hospital. |
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Location #11 - The Sutton Place Hotel
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Sutten Place Sign |
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Location #12 - The Museum
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The Emperor The next place we passed was the museum where they filmed "Sunday at the Museum with George." I replied to Helen wondering if George was still there, stuck in that painting. Though we did not go inside to see, I do have an image of the sarcophagus that was used for the emperor. Makes me wonder if this was real or fabricated. |
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Location #13 - The Precinct Hangout
| This was one of the hangouts for the precinct gang. I believe it was once Chandlers, but today it is now a dress shop. It wasn't until our next stop that we got out to walk around again. We were getting pressed for time so we simply took photos from the outside. |
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Location #14 - Case Loma
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Casa Loma saw many a crew here for several shoots for several episodes. "Tournament," "Enter the Tiger," "Illusion," and "Brotherhood of the Bell." We then went to our last and final location. |
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Location #15 - Chinatown
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Chinatown is made up of two streets, one wide street Spadina, |
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and one narrower street, Dundas. There are actually smaller side streets, but we stuck primarily to these streets. We only had an hour to look around. Sandra handed out a sheet that had a list of addresses on both sides for each of the streets. We were to see what we could find on that list. We split into two groups. My group headed north up Spadina. We were able to find most of the locations on that list. All the sites were used in season one from the Pilot show "Initiation" except for one. The scenes were (in order by address) the alley where Caine collapsed (332) from the fight, the scene when Caine first arrived (338). Hsin Kuang was where Peter shoots the heal of Chan's shoe (346). The rooftop scene where the assassin and Caine fought was across the street from Tap Phong (360) between two other buildings; a fabric store (395-this one was used in Sacred Trust); and Caine's kwoon (408). |
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The Tea Cup We had about a half-hour left so we went down to Tap Phong's (the Emporium) and did a little shopping. I picked up a teacup similar to the ones that Caine and the Ancient drank from in various street scenes, primarily in "May I Walk With You." |
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China Newspaper The woman wrapped the teacups in newspaper. I kept it for it's graphic quality. Now I wished I had picked up the teapot and a second cup for myself, but I didn't think I would have room in my suitcase to take them home. Perhaps I will next time. I really would like to go back. I also promised myself that I would come back to Chinatown on my leisure day and take my own walking tour. While I was there, I could hear the sound of the music playing in my head and little scenes between father and son. It made me feel so much at home. I cannot wait to go back on my leisure day. All too soon we were getting back on the van to go back to the hotel for the reception. And you will not believe what happened there.
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Continues with Episode 2 - The Reception
Alisa Joaquin Copyright@2004.
This personal account cannot be reprinted or sold in any other form without strict
permission from the author. It is being distributed here solely for your enjoyment.
