Daddy Cool - Mammootty (2009) - Nathan Road, Kowloon

Another highly featured location is Nathan Road. It looks like the film company hired one of the open top tour buses and just drove up and down Nathan Road capturing a variety of snippets. The first image below shows Nathan Road at the junction with Ning Po Street. The second one was further north between Shantung Street and Nelson Street. The third one was outside New Lucky House on the corner of Jordan Road.

All the neon signs have since been removed

California Fitness was in Grand Tower

New Lucky House (with the green triangular pattern) on the right

Daddy Cool - Mammootty (2009) - Avenue of Stars

A significant proportion of the musical set piece was filmed along the (old) Avenue of Stars along the Tsim Sha Tsui waterfront in Kowloon. For those who never got the chance to experience the original AoS, you didn't miss much. It was a bit of poorly-managed tourist tat, full of spelling mistakes and overpriced film memorabilia. It underwent a renovation a few years back when New World Development (the owners of the land) decided to knock down the New World Centre and rebuild it into the current K11 Atelier monstrosity. When reopened, the "new" Avenue was just as disappointing as the old one, and the old centrepiece - a life size bronze sculpture of Bruce Lee in a fighting stance, paid for and provided by fans - was relegated to one side as some sort of coffee shop ornament for the local Starbucks.

Daddy Cool - Mammootty (2009) - Central Waterfront

Some scenes were also shot in front of the IFC mall on the Central Waterfront.

Daddy Cool - Mammootty (2009) - Stanley

Next up and father and son head along the waterfront in Stanley. Once a rather bustling area Stanley's fortunes have fallen significantly in recent years. I last went about 2 years ago and the place was dead. It just doesn't seem to have recovered from the COVID years.

The whole musical sequence is a bit choppy so we get views of multiple places in a quick succession of edits. The lower images are from a later part when the pair are out on a boat, but it looks like this was filmed in Stanley Bay. And later still they are back on land hanging around on the reconstructed Blake Pier.

Daddy Cool - Mammootty (2009) - Sai Yeung Choi Street South, Mongkok

During this singing/dance piece the camera work is quite jumpy and erratic so it wasn't possible to capture every quick edit. However, the first street- level view is looking north along Sai Yeung Choi Street South. The big sign above is for the Wing Lung Bank which still stands on the corner of what used to be Nelson Street before it was pedestrianised and turned into an entrance to the nearby MTR station. The bank is still there, but the sign has, sadly, gone. It's in all three images, but in case you can't read Chinese, it's the one with four red characters above the police van in the second image.

Daddy Cool - Mammootty (2009) - Dai Cheong Street, Tai Po Industrial Estate

I jumped ahead of myself because, actually, the first view of Hong Kong we have in Daddy Cool is during the opening scenes as the kid, Adi (Master Dhananjay) is singing about how cool his dad is, and we see a picture of said dad (Mammootty) riding along on what appears to be a police bike. Although the plot has yet to move to Hong Kong, these early scenes were shot on Dai Cheong Street in the Tai Po Industrial Estate.

The first image is at the start of Dai Cheong Street at the junction with Dai Fat Street. The No NEtry sign in the background (now gone) is now the entrance to Dai Hung Street. The lower image is further alonbg Dai Cheong Street to the south. The red brick walls belong to the Resonac factory.

The last time I featured this road on the blog is was for Police Story.

Daddy Cool - Mammootty (2009) - Victoria Harbour

Adding to my growing list of Indian productions shot in Hong Kong is Daddy Cool, a Malayalam language film released in 2009. It stars Mammootty as a cop who is idolised by his cricket-loving son, but sadly I can't speak any Malayalam, so you might be better off reading the plot summary found on Wikipedia. The film was largely shot in India and it appears that the Hong Kong section was just the setting for one of the musical numbers. That said, they managed to squeeze quite a few places into that 10 minute-or-so segment. If you want to watch it, you can find it on Youtube.

Erotic Journey: Love Affair in Hong Kong - Hirokazu Inoue (1973) - Kai Tak Airport

The final location we see is, fittingly, Kai Tak Airport, as Sumio's ever-suffering sister-in-law decides it is time to return to Japan and leave him to wallow in his sadness. Uncharacteristically, it looks like they have walked all the way there as they pop out of a subway on Olympic Avenue and walk towards the terminal. The subway is still there, the airport is not.

Erotic Journey: Love Affair in Hong Kong - Hirokazu Inoue (1973) - Tai Pak, Aberdeen

After discovering that his mate has attacked his inocent sister-in-law, Sumio shoots the man and he and sis go for a heart-to-heart on the Tai Pak in Aberdeen Harbour.

Tai Pak (L), Sea Palace (R)

Erotic Journey: Love Affair in Hong Kong - Hirokazu Inoue (1973) - Views from a vehicular ferry

Unfortunately for Sumio's sister-in-law, the first person she happens to speak to is Sumio's psychopathic new friend who just drugs and assaults women. He starts chatting her up as she rides the vehicular ferry over to Kowloon-side. Sadly we don't get to see the ferry name but one of the good things about these ferries is that they are still utilised as harbour tour/banqueting boats.

Note: there is still a regular vehicular service between North Point <> Kwun Tong. It's utilised by trucks carrying cargo that is banned from being taken through the cross harbour tunnels including anything explosive/poisonous/flammable etc.