Lou Lim Ioc Garden, Macau - Now and Then

I recently spent a very brief afternoon in Macau - I was on a 3-day trip to neighbouring Zhuhai and quickly popped in with the family to get some snaps of a few places for these comparison posts. First up is Lou Lim Ioc/Ieoc (last word is pronounced Yeoc, Macau romanises Cantonese "Y" sounds to "I") Garden. I have previously written "Ieoc" on my posts of this place, but I notice the official spelling is "Ioc".

The place is free to enter - as are most of these locations in Macau, and you can either go in through the main vehicle gateway on Estrada de Adolfo Loureiro (see the first images below for Game of Death) or enter through the tea museum (Casa Cultural de Chá de Macau) on Avenida do Conselheiro Ferreira de Almeida. It's worth a look if you have the time and benefits from aircon on a hot day.

This location has been used copious amounts of times for both local and foreign movie productions. Perhaps the most famous local movie is Drunken Master where the venue stands in for Jackie Chan's kung fu school. Sadly, the main building was closed when we were there but I was still able to get this general picture of the area where Dean Shek tortures Chan with some rigid horse-stance training. The building in the background is not the main house, but a smaller annex building within the garden. I couldn't quite recreate the further back/higher angle of the movie because there are plants obscuring the view, so this is the best comparison for the time being. Andi has a more comprehensive Drunken Master post over on his blog.

Drunken Master (1978)

One of the main foreign productions to feature the garden more extensively is China Cry, released in 1990. The garden and its buildings stand in for the pre-war Shanghai home of Julia Nickson's character, Sung Neng Yee. The following moon gate is located on the left side of the building seen in the images above.

Moon gate/arch

This is a view of the rear of the main house

also the rear, but on the other side

The pavilion and bridge is located in the NE of the garden

Perhaps one of the better-known "foreign" movies shot here is the 1978 travesty that goes by the name of Game of Death. A film most Bruce Lee purists would rather was consigned to the bin. The only real change I noticed between 1978 and now, and even since the last time I visited about 10 years ago, is that the lily pond has been completely cleared of the lilies, so now it's just...a pond.

It looks like they still have the same wrought iron gates in place 

This is the same area where the main fight scene takes place

Okay, not the best match for the angle, but you get the idea

For the final comparison I've tried to replicate another view, this time from Tai Pan. The difference here is forty years - Tai Pan was released in 1986. In the film, this is the extravagant home of the main character, Dirk Struan (Bryan Brown). Quite a few scenes were shot here but in parts of the garden that have since been renovated/changed. This shot shows the side rear of the main property.

My Wife is a Gangster 3 - Shu Qi (2006) - Austin Road West, Kowloon

The film's final scenes, as Aryoung heads out to stop her Korean gangster love interest from leaving, was shot at the bend on Austin Road West. It's the same spot where SPL filmed a year or so previously, right in front of where the ICC building stands. Obviously the area has changed massively since this was filmed though with the addition of the waterfront art park, M+ museum etc.

My Wife is a Gangster 3 - Shu Qi (2006) - Freder Centre, Ma Tau Kok

Aryoung catches up with the gang boss on the roof of the Freder Centre at the top end of Ma Tau Kok. We've seen it before, quite some time ago, as a Police Station on the Strangers miniseries. The wasteland in the background is the cleared out former Kai Tak Airport site. Suffice to say that wastleand is now full of malls, new residential developments and Hong Kong's brand new (as of April 2025) Kai Tak Sports Park.

My Wife is a Gangster 3 - Shu Qi (2006) - Yau Kung Tong, Yuen Long

Aryoung heads to the wedding of a rival gang member in order to confront and kill their boss. This was all filmed at the oft-used Yau Kung Tong in Ha Tsuen in east Yuen Long District. It's one of the Tang Clan's ancestral halls and goes by the full name of 廈村鄧氏宗祠 (ha tsuen dang si jung chi - which basically translates as Ha Village Tang Clan Ancestral Hall - you can see why I usually shorten it to Yau Kung Tong, which I believe is an acceptable alternative name).

Quite a few films have been shot here over the years.

My Wife is a Gangster 3 - Shu Qi (2006) - Lei Yue Mun

Aryoung finds out about her father's attemtpted assassination and returns to Hong Kong to be with him. He is convalescing in a beachside hut in Lei Yue Mun. The concrete structure that Shu Qi is standing on was part of the infrastructure that was used when the area was being quarried (quarrying stopped here circa 1970). It's all abandoned now and just left to rot.

My Wife is a Gangster 3 - Shu Qi (2006) - Times Square

Much of the middle of the film solely focuses on South Korea. But back in Hong Kong, we see a brief scene as the rival triad boss (played by Ken Lo - Jackie Chan's former long suffering real-life bodyguard) orders his assassins to go to South Korea to track down Aryoung and kill her.

The view from the window was taken from the north facing side of Times Square. It's not the first time a South Korean co-production has used an office in this building for a scene (see Beyond Hypothermia).

My Wife is a Gangster 3 - Shu Qi (2006) - Shek Kip Mei Street

A young woman, supposedly Aryoung (although we don't know it's her because her face is obscured) goes into a local barber shop and executes the triad boss that had previously humiliated her at the meeting. This was filmed at a real life establishment called "彩虹南昌髮型屋" and was located on the ground floor of Block 16 of the Shek Kip Mei estate on Shek Kip Mei Street. You can just make out the sign for the adjoining former Shek Kip Mei Post Office on the right.

This block and its adjacent ones (Blocks 15, 17 and 18) were demolished soon after the film was shot and by the time I moved to the area in 2012 the site was just sitting empty. However it now has two gigantic replacement high rises standing there - Mei Pak House and Mei Hei House. I made a comparison photo a few years ago that can be seen on Gwulo here (Block 16 on the right handside of the original image is where the hairdressers was located).

My Wife is a Gangster 3 - Shu Qi (2006) - Grandview Terrace, Siu Lam

The triad boss, played by Ti Lung, has a rather palatial mansion up in the hills in the New Territories. The building they used is part of the rather opulant Grandview Terrace - a luxury estate with large spacious mansions within. The address of the property seen on film is 1003 Kwun Fung Street. I have no idea who lives in this property, but let's just say you would need to be pretty rich to live up here, even by Hong Kong standards. The establishing shot begins with a view from the house's rather expansive terrace, looking down onto the sea between here and Lantau Island in the distance. The structure in the first image is the Hong Kong Observatory Terminal Doppler Weather Radar Station.

My Wife is a Gangster 3 - Shu Qi (2006) - Victoria Harbour

I haven't had a foreign production for a while given the bounty that is available on the Shaw/Celestial Youtube channel, so here is My Wife is a Gangster 3 (Korean: 조폭 마누라 3). This is a South Korea/Hong Kong co-production starring Shu Qi as the rebellious daughter of a Hong Kong triad boss (played by Ti Lung). During a "gong-sau" (a triad meeting between rival groups) she is pressurised into performing a sword routine for the rival boss and her performance is marred by the rival gang members throwing broken glass for her to stand on. She seemingly takes revenge on the boss and has to leave Hong Kong for South Korea to escape further recrimination. It's here where she is looked after by her father's Korean gang associates and the film is basically a comedy based on the apparent lack of communication between both sides as assassins head to South Korea to try and kill her.

The film opens with some nice night time shots around the harbour.