All About Ah Long - Chow Yun Fat (1989) - Mandarin Oriental Hotel, Singapore

Porky goes to spend the weekend with his mum at a local hotel. Except that for some reason the director, Johnnie To, has pulled the wool over our eyes and gone all the way to Singapore (a 3.5 hour flight from Hong Kong) to capture these scenes at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel on Raffles Avenue.

Why was this done? The only explanation I have is that To wanted a hotel with a vast interior that he just couldn't find in Hong Kong. I'm sure a HK film aficionado may be able to provide the real reason. But anyway, the exterior scenes as Ah Long drives Porky to the hotel front, as well as the lobby scenes when Porky goes to meet Sylvia, were all filmed in Singapore. I've included them here just for completeness.

There is also a later scene where another switch is done as Sylvia looks out over Happy Valley and then the next scenes shows a view from the roof of this hotel (bottom image). I'll include that again when I cover the Happy Valley location.