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)