The Ghost - Julie Lee Wah-yuet (2001) - Kai Tak Airport

When the main, supposedly Hong Kong-based, characters eventually leave for Los Angeles, the movie gives us some footage of a Dragon Air plane taking off from Kai Tak airport. Another big clue that we are watching library footage because the old airport had closed down two years prior to this movie being made. What happened to Dragon Air? Well, it was taken over by Cathay Pacific and rebranded to Cathay Dragon, and then the Covid pandemic saw a complete end to its operations in October 2020 when Cathay restructed their services following what was essentially the closing down of Hong Kong that year.

The Ghost - Julie Lee Wah-yuet (2001) - Wanchai Waterfront

In what I suspect is a direct continuation of the earlier waterfront footage - although this sequence is shown later in the film - we see some more aerial views of the Wanchai waterfront. This time Wanchai "proper" as we pass Central Plaza and the Grand Hyatt Hotel.

The Ghost - Julie Lee Wah-yuet (2001) - Causeway Bay Waterfront

Some more library footage, this time it's a nice aerial shot of the Wanchai waterfront around Causeway Bay. The white building in the centre of the top image is the now demolished Excelsior Hotel.

The Ghost - Julie Lee Wah-yuet (2001) - Prat Avenue, Tsim Sha Tsui

Some generic neon signs are always useful when you want to pretend your film is taking place in Hong Kong, so here is a brief view we get in the film before the camera suddenly edits to a street in Los Angeles (or wherever it was filmed). The large red sign at the top says (reading r-l) "奧運桌球會" which is basically a sign for a table tennis club that used to be located on Prat Avenue. This is a view of Hong Kong that no longer exists because the Govt had a blitz starting about ten or so years ago and removed all the old, and very cool looking, signboards all over the territory.  

The Ghost - Julie Lee Wah-yuet (2001) - Victoria Harbour

Welcome to the wonderful world of dodgy B-movies, not that I have ever really strayed too far from there. This one is utterly bizarre because despite its obvious low budget, it has a plethora of well-known actors who were already quite well known at the time including Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa, Michael Madsen, Brad Dourif, James Hong, George Chung, and Michael Paul Chan (I was a big The Closer fan). I suspect someone was calling in some favours somewhere. Oh, and of course no US movie with Asian gangsters is complete without the amazing and ubiquitous, Al Leong!

The premise is that a gang war is taking place in Hong Kong and a female Triad assassin, Jing (played by Hong Kong Cat III star, Julie Lee Wah-yuet), is tasked with putting a rival gang boss, who also happens to be Chief of Police, Chang (Tagawa), in his place. Chang wreaks his revenge and Jing has to flee to the US to escape his wrath.

What follows is a pretty awful movie to be honest, although the choreographed fight scenes and stunts actually show some potential. What is fairly hilarious though is that Hong Kong is shown via stock footage, but the film makers also threw in what looks like some stock footage of Shanghai showing trolley buses and the distinctive green uniform outfit of the mainland Chinese national police force, which they then have to stick on their US-based actors for continuity purposes. Oh boy.

The Chinese title for this movie (I guess it was released here because of the main star being local) is 霹靂女殺手 (aka Thunderbolt Female Killer). Oh, and I forgot to mention the double leg amputee kung fu master (no, not joking) played by someone called Henry Smalls. That bit reminded me a little of The Crippled Masters. 

You can watch the whole film here: https://youtu.be/yYcQ2VV8Rtg?si=dsuPDH-NjlCGt7Wp

Anyway, despite not being actually filmed in Hong Kong, I figured it was worth including the few shots of stock footage for completeness. The opening shot is this panning shot of the harbour.