Ballad of a Small Player - Colin Farrell (2025) - Sok Kwu Wan, Lamma Island

Doyle wakes up from his medical episode and is being tended to by Dao-ming on a small floating hut in the middle of Sok Kwu Wan (Picnic Bay is the English name for this place). They then spend the next few days (?) recuperating and bonding until Dao-ming mysteriously disappears again. Doyle then finds her huge stash of cash hidden in bags sunk in the water beneath the hut.

The Seventh Sin - Eleanor Parker (1957) - Aberdeen Harbour

The next location appears during the opening credits only and it's a view from Shek Pai Wan Road across the western entrance to Aberdeen Harbour towards Lamma Island in the distance. Before all the redevelopment and reclamation in the area changed everything, there used to be a layby on the Shek Pai Wan Road, just to the north of where the Dairy Farm cold storage facility is now located. The angle of view from this layby - how Magazine Island lines up with Lamma in the background - matches the view we can see below so I think whoever was responsible for the HK footage in this film just pulled over in a car and set up the camera at the side of the road. The layby has long gone thanks to the widening of the road. There's a similar view, but not quite from the exact same location, in Kill a Dragon. 

Once again the Google location marker is messing me around and refuses to be placed where I want it to be, so if you click on the location marker below you have to imagine the location as being on the main Shek Pai Wan Road, directly north of the west side of the cold storage facility.

Hong Kong 97 - Robert Patrick (1994) - Magazine Island, Aberdeen

A final post for this film - at least until I can sort out a few elusive locations - and a nice image of a junk sailing past Magazine Island at the western entrance to Aberdeen Harbour. The name stems from the fact that there is a building on the island that was once used by the British military for storing explosives. It looks as though film camera was located on the harbour's western breakwater. The chimney's at the back are the HK Electric power station over on Lamma Island.

Ferry to Hong Kong - Curt Jurgens (1959) - Round Island nr Repulse Bay, Hong Kong

In a linking shot that supposedly portrays the ferry (named the Fa Tsan in the film) as it paddles its way into Macau, we see a quick glimpse of Round Island (Chinese: 銀洲) that looks to have been taken from the Repulse Bay Road - from the angle I would estimate somewhere near to the where it gets joined by Belleview Drive. I'm not familiar with the 1959 version of the road so have no idea if there were lookout spots around there. I suspect there was though.

In fact, that may possibly be part of the road we can see on the right hand side. Either that or a pathway or terraced garden. Either way, we can see Round Island on the left behind the tree (look closely and you can also just see the tip of Tau Chau sticking into the edge of the screen), the headland that disappears into the distance is in fact the south eastern coast of Lamma Island and the closer, green hillside behind the road (or whatever it is) is in fact the side of Middle Island.

Unfortunately for me there are no great comparisons to be found using GoogleEarth because much of the roadside is now covered in trees (which is a good thing) obscuring the view out to sea. But below I have included a Streetview picture taken from the much lower Seaview Promenade. You don't get quite the same awesome angle, but at least to get to see the bit I am writing about.

And, of course, clear days like the one we see on the film only really happen in the summertime, so I guess the Streetview was a wintertime affair.

The Protector - Jackie Chan (1985) - Shum Wan, Lamma Island

JC fans will know that there are in fact two versions of The Protector. There's the US version released internationally (that even did a stint at my old local Odeon Cinema back in Coventry when I was a schoolboy - though sadly I was too young to get in thanks to its 18 certificate) and the rewritten HK version that JC did because he was so pissed off at James Glickenhaus, the director. Due to the rewrite a bunch of scenes got chopped from the HK version and the following scene is one of them. It's when JC and gang go to meet Moon Lee's uncle on his junk only to find he has been killed and the boat set on fire (in the HK version he is found at a dockyard and Bill Wallace turns up again for another rumble). Here is a grab from the scene in the US version when they go to the bay and find uncle's boat on fire.

Check out the rock formation on the left hand side. This is important because it was key to identifying the location. So here is the same location today complete with the rock formation - although my camera hasn't stretched it the way the film's camera has (plus I was slightly further around as you can see by the angle).