Hong Kong 73 - Yueh Hua (1974) - View from Hotel Lisboa

The group are staying at a hotel and return to their room after hitting it big. I can't say for sure if the room is real or a set, but the view from the window is definitely the view you would have seen from the original Hotel Lisboa block back in the 1970s. It's a view that disappeared in the 1991 when the second hotel block was completed. The initial image shows a close up of the top of the St Paul's Church facade peaking out above the main block of the neighbouring "Colegio Mateus Ricci". That angle gives us a triangulation point that points all the way back to the Lisboa.

I'm not sure what the long yellow building in the second image is, but I believe it was removed to make way for the visual atrocity that is known as the Grand Lisboa. This latter construction, that I used to refer to as "Stanley Ho's catheter", is the main reason for the lack of a view today, but it was also blocked by the second, round block of the Lisboa mentioned earlier.

In the lowest image, Ching Li has the Club Militar behind her head. It's painted a pastel red colour these days and has had a bit of a facelift. Despite the mess that is the Cotai Strip, Macau in general has a bit more veneration for its built heritage.

So, is it a real hotel or just a studio set with back projection? I'm still unsure.

Expired - Ryan Kwanten (2021) - View over the Lisboa, Macau

Another nice aerial shot, this time we are looking down upon the original Lisboa Hotel and Casino, and the great big shiny egg-shaped ground floor of the more recently built (I say recent, but it's been completed for nearly 20 years) Grand Lisboa.

Karate from Shaolin Temple - Kazuma Kenji (1976) - Lisboa Hotel, Macau

Musashi goes to Macau with Reiko, not knowing that she is actually the girlfriend of Wu. The first Macau location we are shown is the famous Lisboa.

Challenge of the Tiger - Bruce Le (1982) - Casino Lisboa, Macau

Another of the famous Macau landmarks we see is the Hotel/Casino Lisboa. This is the original casino/hotel built by Stanley Ho and Henry Fok (and others) when they had the gambling monopoly. It's rather gaudy exterior seems quite restrained these days compared to its increasingly ridiculous neighbours (including the completely stupid looking Grand Lisboa).

Detonator II: Night Watch - Pierce Brosnan (1995) - Casino Lisboa, Macau

A brief scene set inside the Casino Lisboa/Hotel Lisboa in Macau starts with a view of its rather colourful neon lit entrance. I must admit that despite the tackiness of it all, I actually quite like the quirky design of the place and it's infinitely more stylish than the new Grand Lisboa that sits across the road and was built in the shape of a giant golden lily flower.

The Streetview grab below shows us that the lights outside have since been changed but the place is still going strong - not surprising given the amount of dodgy activities that happen inside, and I'm not talking about the gambling.

Kung Fu Killers - Grant Page (1974) - Hotel Lisboa and the Macau-Taipa Bridge, Macau

A nice (but would be better in HD) view of the Lisboa Hotel - Stanley Ho's famous landmark hotel/ casino situated at the southern end of the Macau peninsula. I actually quite like the kitsch decor even though it's not to everyone's taste.

As the camera pans south (i.e. to the right) we get a glimpse of the Macau<->Taipa Bridge or to call it by its official Portuguese name - the Ponte Governador Nobre de Carvalho. Although I believe at the time of this filming, the bridge had yet to open to the public. Taipa is in the far background.

Noble House (Mini series) - Pierce Brosnan (1988) - Lisboa Hotel, Macau

Continuing with a whistle-stop tour of Macau, we now see the regal Rolls Royce rolling past the very famous Lisboa Hotel and Casino. This was Stanley Ho's centrepiece of his gambling monopoly in Macau and I have to admit I find the garish colours and circular-styling quite appealing. This casino is still around although since the Ho clan lost their monopoly, Macau has just grown into a huge gambling territory with casinos and resort hotels popping up all over the place (though largely centred on a piece of reclaimed land between Taipa and Coloane called The Cotai Strip).

I have actually been in this casino back in 1996. It was interesting to see the various games such as fan tan and big/small, but the thing you really have to watch out for is that almost every floor is saturated with young Chinese prostitutes all doing the rounds. They rent rooms for the day and then head downstairs to ply their trade. Not the most salubrious of places to spend your time for many reasons. Just to the left of this shot is the location of Ho's new Grand Lisboa stands. It wins the prize for being the most gaudy, over-the-top, garish piece of architecture ever seen and truly ruins the Macau cityscape.

What we can see in the above picture though is the old statue of Joao Maria Ferreira do Amaral which stood at the centre of the roundabout in front of the hotel. Ferreira do Amaral was a bit of a thorn in the side of the Chinese and it's common knowledge that the statue was eventually removed (and shipped back to Portugal) so as not to piss off the Chinese when they retook Macau in 1999.

To be honest, the modern version of the roundabout is a complete mess as you can see courtesy of Streetview below (yes, that gold thing on the left is the Grand Lisboa...)