Love Circles - Michelle Siu (1985) - Blue Pool Road, Happy Valley

Despite just driving up Shan Kwong Road, the next shot shows the car driving up Blue Pool Road instead.

Love Circles - Michelle Siu (1985) - Shan Kwong Road, Happy Valley

Apparently, whilst still showing us views of Salisbury Road, the car manages to turn up Shan Kwong Road in Happy Valley. Most of the buildings you can see here are still around including Paramount Mansion (on the right).

Love Circles - Michelle Siu (1985) - Murray Building, Central

So whilst Yo-yo changes her clothes in the back of the car on the way to her sister's place, she's managing to catch the attention of a local man (a Cliff Richard lookalike) who can apparently see what is happening on Salisbury Road in Kowloon from all the way over on Garden Road in Central. To be fair, judging by the size of his glasses, I'm not all that surprised. We know it's Garden Road because we can see the white-arched ground floor of the Murray Building in the background.

Love Circles - Michelle Siu (1985) - Salisbury Road, Tsim Sha Tsui

One of the roads we see on the journey home is Salisbury Road. In the first image you can see the Empire Centre through the windscreen and, in the lower image, the metal lattice work of the pedestrian flyovers that join the waterfront to Salisbury Road Garden (we were nearby not so long ago, in fact this was filmed/released the same year).

Love Circles - Michelle Siu (1985) - Kai Tak Airport, Kowloon

Part two of Kai Tak as Yo-yo exits the terminal building and is picked up by her sister's driver. I'll be honest - despite arriving via Kai Tak several times I don't remember this part of the airport as I would immediately go to the taxi line. Anyway, the sequence ends with a nice shot of the airport from the entrance/exit road. This section of the road has now been turned into Olympic Avenue.

Love Circles - Michelle Siu (1985) - Kai Tak Approach, Kowloon

I've just been reading the autobiography of Harry Alan Towers, Mr Towers of London, largely because I was looking for some behind the scenes anecdotes regarding some of the films I have covered on this blog (Towers was a producer responsible for The Million Eyes of Sumuru, Five Golden Dragons, The Vengeance of Fu manchu, and Black Cobra Woman). Sadly there wasn't much specific information about these productions however, I did also glean a couple of additional HK-shot movies from the memoir. It appears that in the latter part of Towers' producing career, he veered into the erotic/soft porn genre (hence Black Cobra Woman) and produced several movies in that genre. For two of them he returned to Hong Kong to shoot scenes. The first one, made in 1976, is called La fine dell'innocenza (Eng Title: Annie/Blue Belle) and I am trying track down a copy as I speak - there's one on ebay but it's a bit above budget. The other was was a production for the Playboy Channel made in 1985 and is called Love Circles. Thankfully much cheaper with the downside that I have to explain to my wife that I have it for "research" purposes.

The film appears to be about a variety of couples getting together around the world, with each liaison involving someone from the previous one. The one common factor is a packet of French cigarettes that is incidentally passed between the couples when they meet/depart with the pack finally returning to its original owner at the end of the film - hence the "circle" in the title. It was basically an excuse to travel the world on Hugh Hefner's dime and in return he gets a film to show on his TV channel. 

The Hong Kong segment of the film involves a flight attendant, Yo-yo, who helps out her twin sister, Ko-ko (the same actress, Michelle Siu, plays both parts), when she is being blackmailed by a journalist. If she doesn't spend the night with him, he will reveal the drug-related business of her husband to all the tabloid papers. So they hatch a plan to swap places at the crucial moment.

Anyway, now that you have recovered from the fact that this movie contains a plot beyond a repairman coming around to fix a broken washing machine, we can look at the establishing sequence for the Hong Kong section. It's our trusty old approach run by a plane into Kai Tak and despite the dodginess of the film as a whole, it's one of the better approach sequences I've seen over the years (similar but still inferior to Gambit and Golgo 13: Assignment Kowloon)

The Last Time I Saw Macao - João Rui Guerra da Mata (2012) - Ilha Verde, Macau

Well, there are still a few locations that I could include for this film, but I figure it's time to move on to something else so will make this my last post for the time being. It's just a brief shot of a very desolate looking Green Island. If you live in Hong Kong and ever wondered how the Green Island Cement Company (now one of the many companies held within the Cheung Kong/Li Ka-shing portfolio) got its name, well, it was originally set up here in the late 1880s. Once a small island containing a Portuguese army barracks, it's now joined to the peninsula by reclamation and slowly undergoing redevelopment. It's looking a bit desolate in the screen cap below but perhaps something else has been built here in the ten years since the film was made?

The Last Time I Saw Macao - João Rui Guerra da Mata (2012) - Caverna de Morcegos, Macau

The secret hideout of the mysterious gang that Da Mata is trying to find more information about is located inside a seacave and he takes a boat there. There's a brief reference to Macao (one of several) here as he notices a pair of stockings floating in the water and wonders if they are the same ones discarded by Jane Russell (there's scene in that film where she discards some stockings over the side of the ferry). Anyway, the exterior of the hideout is a real sea cave off the east side of Coloane and it's called the Caverna de Morcegos (second image) and we also see a bit of the rugged coastline there (a rare sight in Macau).

The Last Time I Saw Macao - João Rui Guerra da Mata (2012) - Rotunda Dr. Carlos A. Correa Pães D'Assumpção, Macau

Some rather sad looking shots of the Year of the Tiger decorations on Rotunda Dr. Carlos A. Correa Pães D'Assumpção on Taipa. This is the morning after the fireworks and the previous evening's goings-on with Da Mata and Cindy. In the background is the former (now closed) Hotel Casino New Century. The bust that can be seen (in image 1 on the right) is of the good Dr Carlos Augusto Corrêa Paes d'Assumpção himself, a famous local lawyer and politician.

The Last Time I Saw Macao - João Rui Guerra da Mata (2012) - Centro para Idosos da Casa Ricci, Macau

Just behind the Igreja de Santo Agostinho is the Largo de Santo Agostinho where the Macau Caritas organisation is based in Casa Ricci. It's a Catholic social services centre and Caritas also has a large presence in Hong Kong.

The Last Time I Saw Macao - João Rui Guerra da Mata (2012) - Igreja de Santo Agostinho, Macau

There's a brief sequence, whilst everyone is doing their new year prayers and watching the fireworks, of a couple of kids messing around on the bollards in front of St Augustine's church. The church is just up the slope from this location. This pair cracked me up with their antics. It's great candid footage.

The Last Time I Saw Macao - João Rui Guerra da Mata (2012) - Fortaleza da Guia, Macau

It doesn't really feature in the story other than as some background filler for the night time fireworks towards the end of the movie, but there are a few shots of the Guia Lighthouse. The bottom image was filmed from outside the Escola Leng Nam (Ling Nan Middle School) on Estrada dos Parses.

The Last Time I Saw Macao - João Rui Guerra da Mata (2012) - Largo do Cais, Macau

The story moves on a few metres to the Largo do Cais - the main square on Coloane where the old ferry pier is located (these days Taipa and Coloane, formerly two separate islands, have been merged via the Cotai Strip). As with the rest of the film, the footage appears to be candid stuff of the locals going about their business, incorporated into the story via the post-production soundtrack. In this case we are led to believe that the shop owners here are all members of the mysterious gang that has been after Da Mata and his friend Cindy throughout the film.

If you have been following this blog for a while you may recall this same area stood in for Brasil many years ago for the opening scenes of Largo Winch. You can see the same blue/green corrugated iron shack in both films (image 3).

The Last Time I Saw Macao - João Rui Guerra da Mata (2012) - Estrada de Lai Chi Vun, Macau

The story moves to Coloane and we get a nice overview of the shipyards that back onto Estrada de Lai Chi Vun (top image).

The Last Time I Saw Macao - João Rui Guerra da Mata (2012) - Largo do Pagode do Bazar, Macau

Next up is the square in front of the Hong Chan Kuan Temple (康真君廟). Here we see the leather-gloved bad guy sit down with the birdcage as he watches the local aunties doing their dance whilst some workman construct what I suspect to be a bamboo tent for the Chinese New Year opera performances.

The Last Time I Saw Macao - João Rui Guerra da Mata (2012) - Vila de Nossa Senhora, Macau

The Vila de Nossa Senhora are a cluster of old houses located on Coloane. Nearby is the Igreja de Nossa Senhora das Dores (Our Lady of Sorrows Church), the Catholic church that used to use the houses for the treatment of local lepers. The houses had been sitting, rotting and falling apart for many years but were quite distinctive with their verandahs - smaller versions of the houses that make up the Taipa Houses Museum on Taipa. It seems that someone in the Macau Govt took note and they have recently undergone some renovation and decoration (looks like one might now be a cafe, but I'm not sure as I have never been and currently can't go).

They can be seen (pre-renovation) after Da Mata has found the cave-like hideout of the mysterious gang that are after him and Cindy. Although there is another brief shot later in the film which features the view from the church looking up towards the houses (last image).

The Last Time I Saw Macao - João Rui Guerra da Mata (2012) - Cemitério Protestante, Macau

So the bad guys have a rendezvous in the Protestant Cemetery in Macau where they exchange the mysterious bird cage. This is one of the better known cemeteries for tourists because it contains the tomb (tomb, or just a memorial? I don't know actually) of George Chinnery (see middle image) who was a famous landscape painter in the far east with many well known pieces painted in India, Hong Kong, as well as Macau.

The Last Time I Saw Macao - João Rui Guerra da Mata (2012) - Cemitério São Miguel Arcanjo, Macau

The bad guys meet up in a cemetery to exchange the mysterious bird cage, but the establishing shot for that scene (in next post) includes shots of a different cemetery, the St. Michael the Archangel Cemetery, or Cemitério São Miguel Arcanjo as it's known in Portuguese. A few of the headstones from this cemetery also feature in the closing stages of the film (see bottom two images).