Bullet for Hire - Simon Yam (1991) - Stone Nullah Lane, Wanchai

Han and Shan are sent on their first job together, which (although Shan doesn't know it) is to kidnap the wife and daughter of one of their fellow gangsters. It turns out that boss doesn't like his hitmen to have any attachments outside of their jobs and so the loose ends must be tied up. Shan messes the kidnap up and Han finishes off the mother in a brutally comedic fashion - he shoots her in the head and her body falls back onto a hawker trolley which then rolls down the road. The large building with the red trim is the St James' Settlement building.

Bullet for Hire - Simon Yam (1991) - 50 Tin Shek Road, Sai Kung

The location of the boss's (Dick Wei) house is a rather secluded small lane in the hills above Hebe Haven in Sai Kung. I have no idea who lived there at the time but they were kind enough to let the film crew blow out the lower windows during the film's finale. It's a location the film returns to time and again as the boss meets up with the killers to give them their new instructions. To channel (now, Sir) Loyd Grossman..."Who lives in a house like this?"

Bullet for Hire - Simon Yam (1991) - Quarry Bay Park

The Elaine manages to throw herself out of the car and runs to a nearby construction site to hide from the gunmen. This is just off Lei King Road and is now the easternmost section of Quarry Bay Park. The building on the opposite side of the road in the top image is Kwun Hoi Mansion - part of the Lei King Wan development.

Bullet for Hire - Simon Yam (1991) - Tai Hong Street, Shau Kei Wan

After Lei King Street, the car - driven by the female Interpol agent Elaine (Elaine Lui) - turns onto Tai Hong Street to try and escape the assassins. The yellow bridge like road in the background was the old vehicular access ramp for the ferry pier. That particular ferry structure has since been taken over by the Marine Police and both piers here now contain their operations. One contains the Harbour Division  HQ (also seen in Black Mask a while back and can be seen in the distance of the top image) and the other (seen on the left of the lower image) is now the Regional HQ.

Bullet for Hire - Simon Yam (1991) - Lei King Road, Shau Kei Wan

This next location feels quite appropriate for this blog because it is in Lei King Road in Shau Kei Wan. The area where the police outrider falls off his bike thanks to a pedestrian in a wheel chair was filmed right next to where the Hong Kong Film Archive was later constructed. In fact in the second image below, the plot of land on the right (then a carpark) was exactly where the HKFA was constructed. The Towngas installation seen in the background is still there.

The end of this altercation actually finishes more or less back at the same spot we see here as the killers chuck a grenade into the car to finish off the foreign Interpol agent. The scenes below were filmed a hundred or so metres back up the road.

Bullet for Hire - Simon Yam (1991) - Island Eastern Corridor

The motorcade pops out of the other end of the tunnel and makes it's way around the Causeway Bay Typhoon Shelter as it heads along the Eastern Island Corridor to its unknown destination.

Bullet for Hire - Simon Yam (1991) - Cross Harbour Tunnel, Kowloon

There are currently three harbour tunnels in Hong Kong but only one gets to use the name "Cross Harbour Tunnel" (the other two are always qualified with either "Eastern" or "Western"). This is where the motorcade next heads as the vehicles head over to Hong Kong Island.

Bullet for Hire - Simon Yam (1991) - Salisbury Road, East Tsim Sha Tsui

The overseas policemen leave the meeting and are given a motorbike escort out of the East TST hotel area and onto Salisbury Road. Not much has changed here other than the hotel names. The Harbourview is now the Intercontinental Grand Stanford, and the Hotel Nikko is the previously mentioned New World Millennium.

Harbourview Hotel on the right (now IC Grand Stanford)

Hotel Nikko, now the NW Millennium

Bullet for Hire - Simon Yam (1991) - New World Millennium Hong Kong Hotel, East TST

Bullet for Hire, released in 1991, is a story about triad hitmen, Ngok (Lo Lieh), Han (Simon Yam) and Shan (Jacky Cheung), working for a ruthless and cunning boss (Dick Wei). The older of the hitmen, Ngok is feeling his age and so boss man brings in new guy, Shan, to assist Han. Their relationship starts off a bit rocky, but Han soon gets to like and trust Shan.

At the beginning of the film a delegation of overseas police (I think they are supposed to be Interpol) come to Hong Kong to meet with the local police brass concerning the increasingly international triad problem. The meeting takes place in East TST in what is now the New World Millennium Hong Kong Hotel but at the time of filming was the "Hotel Nikko HongKong".

A big thanks to Matthew Essary (@wheelscritic.bsky.social) on Bluesky for providing me with a copy for review.

Chinchem Golden Plaza is opposite the hotel

Summons to Death - Tang Ching (1967) - Basalt Island, Port Shelter

The film finishes off where it started, in Port Shelter. The sea cave that the pair go through in order to reach the treasure is located on the south east side of Basalt island - one of Port Shelter's easternmost islands. GoogleEarth has a single image that shows the cave here from the same angle that can be seen in the lower image.