Erotic Journey: Love Affair in Hong Kong - Hirokazu Inoue (1973) - Tiger Balm Gardens

Another location Sumio finds himself in during his fruitless search is Tiger Balm Gardens. This view is from behind the mansion which, it turns out, is in fact the front of the house. There is another brief glimpse later in the film (lower image) after Sumio is recovering from his drug trip and I'm not sure if he was supposed to be there or just hallucinating. It's (the trip) a fairly whacky sequence.

Erotic Journey: Love Affair in Hong Kong - Hirokazu Inoue (1973) - Ladder Street, Sheung Wan

Following the initial top down view, the next camera angle is located on Ladder Street as the thugs try and snatch Sumio's money before a passer-by intervenes and saves him.

Erotic Journey: Love Affair in Hong Kong - Hirokazu Inoue (1973) - View from Kung Lee Church Mansions

Kung Lee Church Mansions on Bridges Street is the only location from where this view could be filmed as we see Sumio walking up Ladder Street before being attacked by a couple of thugs who try to steal his wallet. The sequence starts with a view over towards Central before panning down to focus on Ladder Street. The building next to the steps on the left is the Chinese YMCA building that is still around.

Erotic Journey: Love Affair in Hong Kong - Hirokazu Inoue (1973) - Des Voeux Road Central

Sumio (Hirokazu Inoue) wanders around Hong Kong looking for his estranged wife and eventually goes into his company's office - located in the old Gloucester Building on the corner of Des Voeux Road Central and Pedder Street. The building was demolished in the late 80s and Gloucester Tower now stands on the site. During its time, the Gloucester Buiding was quite a highly recognisable landmark because of the clocktower on the roof.

The bottom images are from later in the film as Sumio's sister-in-law tries to convince him to return to Japan. He wanders off in front of the Gloucester Building and walks past the old Alexandra House.

Erotic Journey: Love Affair in Hong Kong - Hirokazu Inoue (1973) - Gloucester Road, Wanchai

The in-car footage continues on the island as we are driven along Gloucester Road. The first image shows the junction with Stewart Road before zooming quickly along (meaning the screencaps are a bit blurred) past the old Wanchai Police Station building. There's a building in the first two images, along Stewart Road, that is still there. It's the one behind the no entry sign in the second image. Gwulo has an image of it here. That and the Police Station are the only old buildings left here.

Erotic Journey: Love Affair in Hong Kong - Hirokazu Inoue (1973) - Cross Harbour Tunnel

The opening credits roll over some in-car scenes as it drives out of the Island-side entrance to the Cross Harbour Tunnel.

Erotic Journey: Love Affair in Hong Kong - Hirokazu Inoue (1973) - Victoria Harbour

There is a surprising number of "erotic" movies that have been filmed in Hong Kong. Up to now they have mainly been a product of European production companies (French/Italian/German or some combination of) so this time we break that mold a bit by featuring a Japanese one.

Erotic Journey: Love Affair in Hong Kong (Japanese title: 色情旅行 香港慕情 - Shikijô ryokô: Hong Kong bojô) follows Sumio (Hirokazu Inoue) whose wife Akiko (Junko Miyashita) has just deserted him and fled to Hong Kong with her lover, one of Sumio's colleagues. He goes to Hong Kong to pursue her and whilst there gets taken advantage of by a rather nefarious character.

The opening Hong Kong scene includes a night time view of the harbour from the Peak area. The rest of the images look as though they were snapped from a cross harbour ferry, and we get some better views of the old Central waterfront.

Templo de Pou Chai, Macau - Now and Then

Not far from Lou Lim Ioc Garden is the famous old Pou Chai Temple (Templo de Pou Chai). Also known as Kun Iam Temple, it was the location of the signing of the first Sino-American treaty (Treaty of Mong Ha) in 1844. There used to be a stone table where the signing took place, but on my recent trip I couldn't find it. I believe it was also once the location of a kidnapping attempt on Fu Tak Iam - Macau's first casino tycoon before it was wrestled from his grasp by Stanley Ho and Henry Fok et al via STDM.

For the purpose of this blog, it's connection to the film world comes from Narazumono (aka An Outlaw) where it was used as the Hong Kong location of the drug gang boss.

I've tried to get some comparisons but my reference material was hindered by the extreme amount of sunlight on the day - meaning I couldn't really see properly - but you get the general idea from the comparisons.

The temple remains largely unchanged since 1964, but you will notice that the large tree on the right in the first image below has been replaced by a small annex building. There looks to have been some changes on the temple roof, but this is hardly surprising given that we have had 62 years worth of typhoons to contend with since the film was made. It's not surprising that some of the Shekwan pottery has gone missing/been replaced.

In terms of the alleyway shot, there are actually two alleyways that run either side of the central altar buildings and it's not easy to tell which one they used in the film. They both look exacatly the same to the point where I can't remember which one it is I have used below for my comparison.

The final images show one of the smaller shrine rooms (on the east side of the complex I think) and the film image is largely obscured by the dark patch on the left used for the Japanese screen titles. In reality the room is quite open and behind the darkened bit is the shrine area.

The front gatehouse above has had an annex added on the right

The main temple roof

One of the side alleyways

Baadshah - N.T. Rama Rao Jr (2013) - Jordan Road, Kwun Chung

Another random Hong Kong establishing shot from Baadshah shows the view looking west along Jordan Road, just past the junction with Nathan Road. Looking at this shot confirms to me that this is old stock footage because the large Yue Hwa sign hasn't been located here since when I first moved to Hong Kong in 2006. So I guess that clears that up about whether or not the footage was stock or not. The Yue Hwa store is still here, it's the flagship store. The lower image shows the view when you turn the camera 90 degrees to the left (i.e. looking south down Nathan Road).

Baadshah - N.T. Rama Rao Jr (2013) - Victoria Harbour

I've been a bit lax on the foreign film side, thanks to the bountiful supply of old Shaw movies on Youtube, so figured a foray back into overseas productions is a bit overdue. This next one is an Indian Telugu language movie called Baadshah. It's a comedy/action starring N. T. Rama Rao Jr. as the titular character who is the son of an Indian gangster helping his dad's boss to get money out of Macau. It's a long film and twisty-turny film and can be seen here.

Disclaimer, no part of the film was actually shot in Hong Kong despite a money heist sequence and dockyard action sequence supposedly being set here. The best we get is some general establishing shots just to remind us that no, this definitely is not India or Thailand, we are in Hong Kong as you can see by the fake MTR sign/dockyard crane writing. I can only assume the general establishing shots were stock footage, but am willing to concede that perhaps they are a product of a brief visit by a second unit cameraman whilst they main crew were filming in Bangkok?. If you know, feel free to comment.