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 Generation Gap - David Chiang (1973) - Shek Pik Prison, Lantau

Despite not being featured in the rest of the film, the opening scene of this film shows Ling Xi (Chiang) running down the entranceway into Shek Pik Prison. You may remember from a few posts ago that a similar view was used briefly in Police Force as Fung Hak-on describes a gang member (Fung also has a brief role in this film as a thug who tries to beat up Chiang in the middle of the film).

The Magic Stone -Nancy Kwan (1966) - Town Island

A final post (for the time being at least) for The Magic Stone and it looks as though the boat wrecking scene was filmed on the north side of Town Island, in a small rocky bay looking towards an islet called Kwong Tau Pai (光頭排). The bay is south east facing and so open to the rolling waves that can come in during bad weather.

The Magic Stone - Nancy Kwan (1966) - Ninepin Islands

To be fair, a large portion of the footage in this film includes a lot of rather anonymous looking coastline, but I thought a brief glimpse of the Ninepin Islands was worth including. The boat was probably in the outer reaches of Port Shelter when this was taken, so not really that far from land. The Ninepins are 3 miles from the mainland of Hong Kong.

Yellow Emanuelle - Chai Lee (1977) - Mui Wo Ferry Pier

Continuing Emy's journey home, we are now transported to Mui Wo (aka Silvermine Bay) and its old ferry pier. I should add that the footage of the ferry arriving at Cheung Chau and the cut to this shot was done to imply we are in the same place. I believe this version of the pier only had a few more years to go before being replaced by the current, much larger, version. Anyway, the next post will make better sense as to why the film crew were in Mui Wo. For modern context, Mui Wo's public bike park is now located in this same spot.

Yellow Emanuelle - Chai Lee (1977) - Cheung Chau

George follows Emy home on the ferry and the establishing shots we have for Emy's distant outlying home island is the inner harbour of Cheung Chau. The shots are looking west as the "Man Choy" ferry (which used to do the Wilmer Street to Sham Shui Po ferry run) arrives at the dock.

Legacy of Rage- Brandon Lee (1986) - Town Island, Sai Kung

The film ending consists of some B&W images of Brandon and new-found son meeting Four-eyes on a remote pier next to a lighthouse/beacon. This one took some tracking down but I finally located it on the north tip of Town Island in Sai Kung, on the outer edges of Port Shelter.

Unfortunately there are no nearby pictures for comparison but if you want to search on GoogleEarth it's called "Doorhead Lighthouse" (門頭角燈塔), but whether this is the proper name or some local nickname, I have no idea. It's not the first time we have featured Town Island on the blog. Anyway, I think that just about wraps up this deep dive into Legacy of Rage.

Blade in Hong Kong - Terry Lester (1985) - Soko Islands

Continuing the opening montage and this time a rare shot looking out over the Soko Islands,just south of Lantau. These islands are now uninhabited but were once the location of a Vietnamese refugee camp - the traces of which can still be seen on Tai A Chau (second large island away from the camera in the screenshot below).

SPL - Donnie Yen (2005) - Cheung Sha Wan Beach, Lantau

Next up is the 2005 collaboration between Wilson Yip and Donnie Yen who would later go on to make a good film (and three not so good) about Wing Chun teacher, Yip Man.

The English title of this film is just an abbreviation of the initial sounds of the Chinese title 殺破狼 (saat po long or sha po lang depending on your Chinese preference of Cantonese or Mandarin) and it basically means to "destroy a wolf" albeit somewhat more poetically stated in the original Chinese.

The film's plot concerns the efforts of a policeman, Chung (Simon Yam), to bring down his arch nemesis, a triad leader called Wong Po (Sammo Hung) and the illegal methods he employs to achieve this. Along comes Inspector Ma (Donnie Yen) to inject  a bit of integrity back into his crew before realising that Wong Po is basically untouchable and he soon falls into the plan to bring Wong down by any means necessary.

The film kicks off (and ends) at Lower Cheung Sha Wan beach on Lantau Island. We've visited here before, although it was many years ago.

The Night My Number Came Up - Michael Redgrave (1955) - Flying Over Cheung Chau

A quick last post from this film and it is a brief shot of the plane as it leaves for its journey to Japan and is flying over Cheung Chau - in the complete opposite to where it should be going! The land mass in the distance is the Chi Ma Wan peninsula of south Lantau island. Cheung Chau's busy bay can be seen lower right.

Felicity - Glory Annen (1978) - Tai Shek Hau Tin Hau Temple, Cheung Chau

We shall exit Felicity, so to speak, with a quick trip back to Cheung Chau. This scene occurs after Felicity is reunited with her boyfriend (after he has had an accident during his sailing trip) and they go and sit on a waterfront somewhere to have a chat. Note the temple in the background because this was a real pain to find.

It turns out that this is the Tai Shek Hau Tin Hau Temple at the southern end of Cheung Chau's western coast. The reason it took me so long to find is that Cheung Chau, like the rest of the territory, has also undergone a fair bit of reclamation and this former waterfront location is now approximately 100 metres inland with Chung Hing Street running along the front. Here's how far away from the water it is now.

Felicity - Glory Annen (1978) - Cheung Sha Wan Beach, Lantau Island

In the last part of the film, Felicity is reunited with her beau on a deserted beach somewhere. Part of this scene was filmed in Hong Kong and I can only assume the shots involving the small brown hut he is staying in were shot back in Australia because the background terrain is too flat to be Hong Kong. So the first two images below show the Cheung Sha beach shot portion and the latter image shows what I am guessing is somewhere in Australia - the fact that the two of them go frolicking butt naked in the sea may have been the reason these later shots were done outside of Hong Kong (nudity is not allowed on Hong Kong beaches).

Above: Cheung Sha beach with Sha Tsui in the background 

Not Hong Kong (most likely Australia given the origin of the film)

Felicity - Glory Annen (1978) - Cheung Chau, Outlying Islands

The girls get together again and this time head out on a boat for Cheung Chau.

Strangers - John Simm (2018) - Ngong Ping Village, Lantau Island

In the last post from Strangers (well, there are a couple of key locations that I haven't been able to find yet), the final Hong Kong scene in the last episode (Episode 8) was filmed at Ngong Ping village on Lantau. Obviously the first image is part of the Po Lin Monastery complex. The second image is where the scene was shot and is a small ornamental circular viewing point near to the cable car station.

Strangers - John Simm (2018) - Ma Wan New Village, Tung Chung

After the abortive attempt to find out more about the property recently sold by their dead wife, Jonah and David head out to Lantau Island for a coffee. The venue is a small cafe called CoCo Cafe that is in Ma Wan New Village. I can ony assume it has this name because it was built to rehouse those people displaced by the bridge development on Ma Wan island when the airport was being constructed. According to Open Rice the place has closed down, which seems a bit of a shame. Can anyone confirm?

The Valiant Ones - Roy Chiao (1975) - Town Island, Sai Kung

The last part of the film, which includes both the final battle between the heroes and remainder of the pirates (led by Sammo Hung) and the grave scene, was filmed on Town Island (伙頭墳洲). Again, this is not a straightforward place to get to and it seems that much of the filming time would have been spent aboard various boats getting moved around from one place to another.

The final sword battle with Sammo Hung's pirate leader was filmed on a sliver of beach at the very south of the island and it is the location I've marked on this post's location marker label (found at the bottom of the post). It's also a location that was used earlier as the Wu's made their way, under escort, to the pirate HQ. Those are the images you can see immediately below.

Seen from the direction of the water, this is also the same location used for the aforementioned final sword battle between Pai Ying and Sammo Hung. Who knows how long it took to film this particular battle, but you can see by comparing the two images below that it goes from very sunny to overcast, so it's possible it took a few days.

Finally, the last sequence we see in the film is of the fallen heroes' graves on a hillside overlooking the sea. It's a panning shot filmed moving to the right and was shot on the hillside above the previous beach battle location. The first image gives a nice view back towards Basalt Island (left) and Bluff Island (on the right). The final shot is looking westerly with Ung Kong on the left and Jin Island on the right in the distance.

This hilltop area is now occupied by a drug rehabilitation centre and so, I suspect, access for film buffs would be highly restricted, if not impossible. However, the serious film fan would probably be able to hire a boat past this part of the island. Trips like this can easily be arranged from Sai Kung waterfront for the right price (it's a fair distance so probably won't be cheap).

The Valiant Ones - Roy Chiao (1975) - South Ninepin Island, Outlying Islands

Another brief shot from the "being escorted to the pirates" sequence is a good example of how far King Hu was willing to go just to capture a few seconds of film. As the Wu's are being escorted by the pirate (played by Bee Chan) to the pirate lair, they walk along a cliff face in front of another sea arch. However, this one is actually located on one of Hong Kong's most remote islands - the Ninepins. The arch you can see behind the actors is located on the south island and, actually, there is a Tin Hau Shrine on the hill above it. It was once a stopping off point for fisherman headed out to sea looking for some good luck.

There is no other way to get here but by boat across 3 miles of open sea. It's a crossing best left for a calm and still day (believe me, I've done it a few times on dive boats and it can get rough).

Les Fruits de la Passion - Klaus Kinski (1981) - Cheung Chau, Outlying Islands

In case you doubt my willingness to try and make this blog as complete a record of HK film locations as possible, I present to you Les Fruits de la Passion. It's a French/Japanese co production starring Klaus Kinski as some rich dude who makes his mistress join a brothel in order to show her devotion to him. Probably one of the worst films I've ever watched for this blog (and don't forget I covered T.N.T Jackson a few weeks back).

Anyway, the first few scenes show various people arriving by boat on a small waterfront somewhere. I initially figured it to be Sai Kung - a place that has been on quite a few films here already - but on closer examination realised it was in fact Cheung Chau.

The scene also ends with a brief glimpse of a temple front. It's the Pak Tai temple on Cheung Chau - quite recognisable despite the poor film quality. It looks like that stone incense urn is still there.

Ein Sarg aus Hong Kong - Heinz Drache (1964) - Sha Chau, Outlying islands

Once at sea, our baddie escapes but not before setting his own junk alight with the heroes inside. We've moved a fair distance from Aberdeen at this point because the burning junk scene was filmed near Tuen Mun in the waters around what is now known as the Sha Chau and Lung Kwu Chau Marine Park.

The angle might be a bit confusing but we are actually looking east in the top two screen shots. The triangular island on the left in the top picture is actually nameless but is the northernmost islet in this small cluster around Sha Chau. Sha Chau itself is split into two parts joined by a submerged sandbar. The middle picture shows all the constituent parts of Sha Chau - they look separate but are actually all connected by what looks like a beach or tombolo. I guess this is enough for the responsible people to classify it as a single island.

The lower picture shows the view over towards the north Lantau coastline. The hill on the left of that picture is actually Lantau Peak with Nei Lak Shan the slightly smaller one in front of it.

Les Tribulations d'un Chinois en Chine - Jean-Paul Belmondo (1965) - Cheung Chau

Well, in case you hadn't guessed it already, the fictitious "Sey Chang" is in fact Cheung Chau. I've only been to Cheung Chau a couple of times and haven't really properly explored, however, I believe there are still a few recognisable houses along the waterfront. It's probably a good excuse to head over there one day again. Anyway, here are the pictures.

 I think a few of the houses in this shot are still around including far left and far right.