Crime Lords - Wayne Crawford (1991) - Argyle Street, Mongkok

Another of the few, brief, real locations where the actors (or in this case, actor) shot a scene. I wonder of part of the issue was the fact that filming permits were required at this time. I believe it's only recently that the requirement for filming permits has been dropped in Hong Kong unless the filming would require some sort of crowd or traffic control and the police would need to be used. I could be wrong of course, but it may explain why so many of these films that bothered to come all the way here to shoot, did very little other than distant street shots and establishing shots. Feel free to educate me in the comments if you know better.

Anyway, in this scene LaGrane is trying to track down his wayward partner and stops to use a phone box located at the junction of Argyle Street and Nathan Road. The first image is looking west down Argyle Street and you can just see a distant floating dredger's crane at a time when the old typhoon shelter was still around.

Crime Lords - Wayne Crawford (1991) - Canton Road, Mongkok

Another of the street-level locations actually featuring the actors is Canton Road. The identifying feature here is the blocky building on the left of the screen. This is the Mongkok Market building that, I believe, is currently being (or has already been) demolished.

Crime Lords - Wayne Crawford (1991) - Lion's Club Pavilion, The Peak

No scenes were shot here but there is a view from the Lion's Club Pavilion on the Peak thrown in as a bonus. If the general view wasn't recognisable enough to see where this was shot from, then the shot of the carved, stone lion of the balustrade is a strong clue.

Crime Lords - Wayne Crawford (1991) - Sai Yeung Choi Street, Mongkok

After the two are released from the police station, they run after the Chief Inspector who has just released them in the hope that he can help them find the crime kingpin they are after. I believe this to be the view looking down Sai Yeung Choi Street from the front of the police station. For once some movie geography is the same as reality. It was a lot busier at this section back in the early 1990s it seems. These days it doesn't get as much traffic.

There are some signs worth noting here that also give away the location. In the last image you can clearly see the large red sign that says (r-l) 九龍表行. This is the Chinese name for the Kowloon Watch Company (gau lung biu hong) which is still located on the corner of Sai Yeung Choi Street and Nullah Road. Further on is a black and white vertical sign that says (top to bottom) 麗聲戲院. This is the Chinese name (lai sing hei yuen) for the former Royal Theatre which was located where the Pioneer Centre now stands on the right hand side of the image. I believe it closed in 1990 which would mean this may have been the last time this old sign (it was located on the venue's rear side) was captured on film.

Crime Lords - Wayne Crawford (1991) - Empress Hotel, Tsim Sha Tsui

It's only a brief glimpse, but it appears that the hotel the main characters are staying at is the Empress Hotel in Tsim Sha Tsui. This was shot just a couple of years before the place was torn down and replaced by Empress Plaza (no doubt the landowners felt there was more money to be made in office and retail space as opposed to hotel rooms). You may or may not recall that this was the same hotel seen in Narazumono about thirty years previously. There's also a brief glimpse of Mody Road as LaGrange (Crawford) tries to chase after Russo (Martin Hewitt).

Crime Lords - Wayne Crawford (1991) - Mongkok Police Station

For some bizarre reason that I haven't yet fathomed out, the pair are arrested for being victims of a robbery and are taken into police custody. On their release, they walk down the steps at Mongkok Police Station. This is the building in Mongkok facing on to Prince Edward Road West, although it has definitely had the entrance remodelled since this film was made.

Crime Lords - Wayne Crawford (1991) - King Yin Lei, Wanchai

No scenes were shot here, sadly, but there is a nice view of King Yin Lei as one of the opening Hong Kong shots just after the Kai Tak sequence. It's a panning shot, so I've stitched it together to create a single image.

Crime Lords - Wayne Crawford (1991) - Kai Tak Airport, Kowloon

Just when you think you have run out of foreign movie productions...next up is a straight-to-video travesty directed by and starring Wayne Crawford. Shot in 1990 and released in 1991 it is the ridiculous story of two inept LA cops who bungle a raid on an illegal chop shop and decide to go to Hong Kong to capture the criminal boss behind it all (played by the ever excellent James Hong) to redeem their tattered reputations. The story is just stupid, even a bit crass in places, and the acting (with few exceptions) is pretty poor.

Actually, it appears that not much was actually shot on location, a few street scenes with the main actors, and most of the proper close up stuff is done in places dressed up to look a bit "Hong Kong-ish". But despite that there are quite a few establishing shots also worth including, so many thanks to Arnaud Lanuque for bringing it to my attention. Someone has kindly uploaded it to Youtube. The first is the requisite shot of a plane landing at Kai Tak to show where the story has moved to.