Then … In voiceover Jo tells us about Henry, the cook at the Golden Dragon restaurant at 816 Washington Street (map). (Infamously, in 1977 only 3 years before the movie was filmed, a gang-related shooting at this restaurant left 5 innocent diners dead and 11 injured).
… and Now, it was business as usual over the years after the massacre, then after being shut down in 2006 due to health inspection issues the restaurant reopened a few months later as the Imperial Palace; it’s still there today.
… and Now, but in a nod to its past it still advertises Golden Dragon dining.
The character of Henry (Peter Wang) was inspired by the real-life cook at Hon’s Wun-Tun House (still there at 648 Kearny Street) who used to wear a Star Wars tee-shirt. Henry wears a ‘Samurai Night Fever’ tee-shirt, in so doing mocking the way American entertainment mocked Asians. He sings “Fry me to the moon!” as he cooks. Between smoking and swigging milk he rants in Mandarin about American diners’ timid orders … “Ha! Three orders of sweet and sour pork! Damn! These stinky old Americans day to night just eat this!”.
The tee-shirt, a promo for a Samurai film festival at the Kokusai Theater, references John Belushi’s portrayal of Samurai Futaba (based on Toshiro Mifune’s role in Akira Kurosawa’s Yojimbo) in 16 Saturday Night Live TV episodes spanning 1975 to 1979, He spoke in mock-Japanese; he brandished his sword. Back then it was considered very funny. Today, less so.
Then … The 280-seat Kokusai Theater, at 1700 Post Street on the corner of Buchanan in Japantown (map), opened in 1971 as the Toho Theater and was renamed the Kokusai in 1972. A scene for Chan Is Missing, seen later in the movie, took place in the upstairs cocktail lounge at far right. The photo below from the 1980s shows it as it was when the movie was filmed.
… and Now, the theater was closed in 1987 by its owner who feared competition from the newly opened AMC Kabuki 8 complex down the road and who sensed an opportunity for a more profitable business; he converted it to a Denny’s restaurant. Several small businesses occupy its street-level space today.
Then … Jo and Steve enter the restaurant and tell the waitress they are there to talk to Henry. This is a street-level room judging by windows glimpsed along the back wall. But this interior is very different from the Golden Dragon’s interior; it must have been filmed somewhere else.
… on location … In this on set photo the low budget shoot is captured perfectly as cinematographer Michael Chin films the table shown above and sound man Curtis Choy stands behind the table; the lady who played the waitress doubles as a crew member, holding the boom.
Director Wayne Wang confirmed Citysleuth’s suspicion, revealing that the interior scenes were filmed in the then Ruby Palace restaurant at 631 Kearny Street near Portsmouth Square (map).
… and Now, 5 years after Chan was filmed the Ruby Palace became the R & G restaurant which is still in business there today. It has been extensively remodeled since then; the street-level space has been divided into a bar, the dining area shown below, and small private dining rooms.
When Jo asks about Chan Hung, Henry laments that he and Chan both studied aeronautical engineering at university together, but here in America they can only get jobs in a restaurant. Then when Taiwanese friends of his showed up recently Chan had rushed out the back door and hadn’t been seen since.
Then … when the next order arrives, for five won ton soups, Henry switches to English to tell the waiter … “We don’t have won ton soup - we have won ton spelled backwards - ‘not now!’ Hahaha!”
… on location … Wayne Wang and actors discuss the kitchen scene (photo by Nancy Wong).
… and Now, this too was filmed in the Ruby Palace. Its kitchen (R & G, below) has also seen changes but still retains the same feel.
Here’s a recent photo of the R & G Lounge; specializing in Cantonese cuisine, one of Chinatown’s most popular restaurants.
Then … Scorpio has had enough of being stalked. Bizarrely, he offers to pay a thug $200 to beat him up so that he can frame Callahan to get him off his back. The thug watches him approach their meeting spot, making his way past some large unusual-looking equipment.
… in 1972 … CitySleuth thanks reader CDL who recognized the building on the hill behind Scorpio as City College’s Cloud Hall and was able to identify this location. It was filmed at the old Elkton Shops in the Muni Ocean Division Bus Yard near Balboa Park (map). In the 1972 image below, Ocean Avenue is at bottom right and San Jose Avenue at upper left. The arrow at right points to that same equipment, still there a year after the movie was filmed, in a storage area at the north-west corner of the facility. In a comment below, reader Notcom has identified the equipment as an abandoned 40 foot tall Steel Refuse Burner, aka an incinerator.
… in 1971 … Reader CDL also contributed this closer look at the incinerator in a photo taken the year the movie was filmed.
… in 1979 … by the end of the decade the Elkton Shops had been torn down to make way for this brand new Muni Metro Rail Center. The arrow points to where the storage area and incinerator used to be. A bus yard covers the area where the old Shops used to be.
… and Now, the facility today, now known as the Muni Maintenance Green Division, has hardly changed in the 40 plus years since it was built. I-280 passes by alongside it and that’s Balboa Park on the right across Ocean Avenue.
Here’s Cloud Hall at City College, seen in the distance behind Scorpio at the top of the post, the visual clue to the beating location’s identification.
Then and Now … To see exactly where the old Shops were, toggle between this 1969 aerial view and today’s site by clicking or tapping the image below.
Then … Scorpio is standing on a wooden platform that ran alongside the north wall of the Elkton Shops. He spots the thug waiting for him in the shadows at the bottom of a set of steps. Note the large multi-paned windows and a downspout in the concrete wall next to him…
… aerial view … in this c. 1960s aerial photo we see a good view of the north side of the Shops and in particular the same multi-paned windows and downspout. The elevated wooden platform, partially in shadow, can also be seen, and too the incinerator. (Compare this view of the Shops to the similar 1972 image above).
Down below, urged on between blows by Scorpio, the thug more than earns his $200. He even throws in a brutal kick at the end … “This one’s on the house!”. Ouch.
Next we see the media surrounding Scorpio as he is wheeled down a hospital corridor. They hang onto his every word as he names Harry Callahan as the one responsible for his condition. A later scene was identifiably filmed at San Francisco General Hospital on Potrero Avenue so this most likely was also filmed there.
Chan Hung resided at the Hotel St. Paul at 935 Kearny Street (map). Jo and Steve go there a number of times to try to find him but each time he was, er, missing.
Then … In this composited vertical panorama of Jo parked in front of the hotel note its art deco sign. Note too across Kearny the Chevron Chinatown service station with its Chinese styled buildings. The Sentinel Building, aka Columbus Tower, is partially visible on the left and on the right across Jackson Street from the gas station is the empty lot where the International Hotel used to be before being callously demolished in 1979, only months before this scene was filmed.
… and Now, the hotel is still there but has been renamed Hotel North Beach; how neat that the original art deco sign was retained. A modern extension of the Sentinel Building with commendable integral styling has replaced the gas station and across Jackson a new residential International Hotel opened in 2005 on the site of the old - a long-overdue salve on the wound caused by the City’s brutal overnight eviction of its elderly residents in 1977.
…. In 1960 … Stepping back in time a little more, here’s a 1960 photo of the Sentinel Building from FoundSF showing the gas station before its structure was orientalized, the original red-brick International Hotel and off to the right the Hotel St. Paul blade sign at the corner of Kearny and Pacific.
Trivia for Trekkies: in this 1986 scene from Star Trek - The last Voyage Home Kirk, Spock et al appeared at this same location. Note the blade sign partially visible above the Winchell’s sign. By then the International hotel had been demolished.
Then … As Steve exits the hotel you can see the name written on the overhead glass.
…. In 2007 … an archival Google Street View image from 2007 captured the same Kearny Street doorway when it was being remodeled as a window. The hotel still had its original name then.
… and Now, here it is today. Note the blade sign on the corner of the building - compare it to the original on the far right side of the 1960 image above; the name was simply changed at the top.
Around the corner on Pacific two ghost signs on the side of the hotel still display the original name.
Then … They return later. Note that the door is an in-swinging half-glass single door whereas the earlier exterior view of the main entrance (see the Then image above) shows an out-swinging all-glass double door.
… and Now, director Wang has confirmed to CitySleuth that this staircase was filmed inside the Hotel St. Paul. The closest match that CitySleuth found at the hotel is the one below, looking down to the converted main entrance; the issue of the different doors is still unexplained.
They knock on Chan’s door but there’s no answer. CitySleuth recently walked the Hotel North Beach corridors; they had not been modernized but he found them not to match the styling in this movie shot. What’s more, a corridor junction next to an exterior window, as below, doesn’t exist there, suggesting that it was filmed elsewhere. Except director Wang recalls that it was indeed filmed in the St. Paul.
Scorpio is next seen watching pole dancers perform on a platform in the middle of the dimly-lit Roaring 20’s nightclub at 552 Broadway Street (map)…
Then … but he’s less than thrilled when he spots Callahan, clearly not there for the show.
… in 2010, the nightclub closed down during the pandemic, preventing CitySleuth from getting a current interior photo. But Dirty Harry fan Malcolm Czopinski has been there; in 2010 he took photos of the manager and one of the dancers by the pole dance platform for his Dirty Harry appreciation blog.
Scorpio heads for the exit, barely (excuse the pun) heeding the action alongside him. Callahan follows him out.
Then … in this panorama Callahan is walking past the Hungry I club on the right after exiting the Roaring 20’s. A liquor store sits between the two clubs.
… and Now, the liquor store, Broadway Cigars and Liquors, is still there under the same name; the clubs on either side of it however have yet to reopen since the pandemic (reportedly the Hungry I has just reopened only the bar). Ominously the sad facade of the Roaring 20’s on the left recently posted a For Lease sign.
Pre-pandemic, below, this block was the centerpiece of Broadway’s red light district; it’s now a sorrier version with only the Condor back in business.
