Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom - Harrison Ford (1984) - Avenida de Almeida Ribeiro, Macau

Okay, so here is one that I can take a bit more of the credit for finding and it's the location of the car chase that immediately follows Indiana Jones' escape from Club Obi Wan as his car is pursued by Lao Che and his gun-toting henchmen.

What follows are brief glimpses of one of my favourite roads in Macau - Avenida de Almeida Ribeiro - or known locally as San Ma Lo (lit: new road). It's my favourite road because its lined with those great looking shophouse buildings on either side of the road - that's probably why the film makers thought it would be a good double for Shanghai (although I'm not sure how prevalent they were there).

So in no particular order we can start with the following screen grab which shows the baddies car driving past our first location. It's where the cars first pull onto San Ma Lo at the junction with Travessa do Mastro. It looks slightly different these days (no thanks to the truck obscuring the view in Streetview) but there are still some clues in there to make the match including the shape of the building on the right.

The next one is quite easy to spot because the building behind the car hasn't changed much at all, although now it is home to a company (or person?) called Kuong Weng Wong. Look at the Streetview grab below and you can see the same shop on the left, by the open space.

Next up is a building that I actually once wrote a post about on my old blog and will (at some point in the near future) post it up again. It's the Cheung Tai Dai On pawnshop (Casa De Penhores) with its very distinctive arched front facade. It's unique along this road and so made it very easy to spot. You can see the lower part of it in the screen grab below (to the left of the car) and I have tried to match the angle on Streetview without much success.

Never mind, here is a closeup of it from a stitched photo I did a few years back. Sorry for the bend but that's just the old camera lens distorting it.

Actually, it was this building that initially helped me to figure out which road this filming was done on. I did read somewhere (I think an old Rough Guide from 1996) that the car chase was filmed on Rua De Felicidades, however, once I saw this building on  screen I knew that it wasn't correct. Some filming may have been done on that smaller road but I have to be able to positively identify anywhere.

Moving on to the next bit and we see a shot of Indy's car going up the road with a nice long row of shophouses in view. Believe it or not, some of the decor on the front of these shops can still be seen. In the screengrab below, the shop that is directly next to the Indy's car has a (what looks like) diamond pattern above the columns, and the one next to it (further away) has a striped board that can still be see.

So, we can see the same striped pattern on the fourth shop down on the right and the diamond pattern one shop closer to us. The cow on the modern Streetview corresponds to the shop second up from the right on the screen grab. If you look close enough under the cow you can see the same vertical grooves that can be seen on the film.

Finally, our last shot was taken a bit further on but looking back up the other way down the road. Look closely and you can see the same shops I just described, but now behind the baddies car in the background (well, at least the stripey- and diamond-patterned ones).

So it isn't too great a leap to get an almost similar angle on Streetview below - although the picture below does include a bit more. The red lettered column in the film grab above is actually the first grey column on the left (under the yellow horizontal banner).

Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom - Harrison Ford (1984) - Pensão Sun Sun Hotel, Praca De Ponte E Horte, Macau

I recently read (and reread) the autobiography of Vic Armstrong and despite knowing him as Harrison Ford's stunt double, I also discovered that Vic had basically been involved in a whole plethora of films that I can remember seeing as a child. From the original Indiana Jones trilogy, to Krull, A Spaceman and King Arthur, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, Dragonslayer, Superman, Star Wars and many many more. Anyway, because Vic is a great guy and always has time for his fans on Twitter here are some of the scenes from Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, filmed in 1984. This film is on this blog because the initial Shanghai car chase was filmed in Macau.

Sadly, I can't take any credit for locating the following location because the background was given to me by a very helpful chap by the name of Ventsislav Doychev (https://twitter.com/VenDoychev). To cut a long story short I had offered to find out where Club Obi Wan was and failed miserably, only to have Ven come back to me a few months later with all the information on a platter. So a big thanks to Ven for letting me know.

The opening scenes in Temple of Doom involve Indiana Jones (Harrison Ford) trying to do a deal with the evil Lao Che (the awesome Roy Chiao) at Club Obi Wan in Shanghai. Jones gets poisoned for his troubles and then shot at before jumping out of the window of the club and making off in a car whilst being chased by the baddies.

The good news was that the location has been identified (by Ven), the bad news is that building used for Club Obi Wan has gone. The only clue was an old photograph - purportedly taken by one of the production crew when they were doing a location scout - that shows the building concerned (I have no idea whose photo it is so if you know please comment so I can correctly attribute).

The green building at the back was the one converted into Club Obi Wan for the purpose of filming. It may not be too obvious from that photo but some closer inspection of the screen captures reveal the same windows, balcony railings and green colour of the walls. So, what and where was it?

The building was actually a hotel called the Pensão Sun Sun Hotel and it was located near to the inner harbour along Praca De Ponte E Horte. Can you see the building in the foreground? It didn't look so great back in 1984 when the film was made/released, but following the Macau Govt's sprucing up of old buildings it now looks pretty nice. It was once a Government godown (i.e. warehouse) that was used to store, amongst other things, opium. Below is the recent Streetview taken at the best angle I can get to match.

As you can see the Pensão Sun Sun Hotel has been replaced by another building. It's still a hotel on the site but now it's the Best Western Sun Sun Hotel.

So anyway, here are some of the screencaps.

These shots shows the chaps (actually it was Vic Armstrong and his wife Wendy Leech doing the stunts in place of Harrison Ford and Kate Capshaw) falling down the side of the building and through some awnings before catching hold on to a building on the opposite side of the road (in this case it was the slimline Rua Do Bocage next to the hotel).

Now, sadly, the row of balconies you can see in the background of the above screenshots has also disappeared, however, it does appear that the stunt was done so that they landed on an awning sticking out from the nice yellow building that is still around. Here is a modern Streetview of Rua Do Bocage.

The small door on the right is pretty much the same position that the Club Obi Wan Main door was at during filming.

And finally, this is how it looks today (I know which one I prefer and it's not just because it was featured on the film).