The Last Time I Saw Macao - João Rui Guerra da Mata (2012) - Po Sang Pawnshop, Canton

Yeah, I know, I normally leave the locations alone if they venture outside of Hong Kong and Macau (although I did do a few in Taiwan some years back, if you remember) but I figured I would include this one for completeness because it's not clear in the film that we have actually left Macau and I wanted to make sure no one turned up there hoping to find this one. Although, fat chance of anyone getting into Macau (or HK for that matter) anytime soon thanks to COVID.

This is the location of the second murder as the main antagonist - recognisable only by his booted feet and gloved hands (because, remember, we don't get to see anyone from the waist up) - kills someone in the storage tower of one of Canton's more famous pawnshops 寶生大押 ("bou sang dai at"). For those interested, it's located, more or less, at the junction of ZhongShanQi Road and RenMin North Road in Li Wan District. See the location pin at the bottom of the post for an more accurate marker (assuming the different GPS systems between China vs rest of world hasn't messed it up).

Not Macau!

The Last Time I Saw Macao - João Rui Guerra da Mata (2012) - Outer Harbour Area, Macau

As da Matta makes his way from Hong Kong to Macau, we are given the background to his journey via voiceover as his ferry passes by a few recognisable landmarks on its approach to the ferry terminal. First up is the conical shape of the Macau Science Centre. Next along is the Rocks Hotel before we get to the jumble of buildings that occupy this part of the peninsula. Interesting for me is the fact that the old volcano and Chinese temple/fort that stood at the north end of Fisherman's wharf were still there in 2012. I had assumed these had been torn down much earlier. The Hotel Legend Palace now stands on that location. We've seen the volcano before on the blog in a brief sequence from Invisible Waves whereas the hotel that replaced it was one of the locations seen in the 2018 UK TV show, Strangers (aka White Dragon). The Science Centre was seen in Now You See Me 2.

The Last Time I Saw Macao - João Rui Guerra da Mata (2012) - Fabrica de Panchoes Iec Long, Taipa

The next film on my list is a Portuguese arthouse film made by João Pedro Rodrigues and João Rui Guerra da Mata in 2012. A Última Vez Que Vi Macau (Eng: The Last Time I Saw Macao) centres on an unseen protagonist whi is retruning to his childhood home (Macau) from Portugal to help out a friend who is in trouble with some shady characters. The majority of the film uses footage that is really more documentary-like in the way it has been filmed, with a plot narration by the central character (called Guerra da Mata - hence why I have put that director's name in the main title of the post, I assume it was him providing the narration and physical presence) as he negotiates his way around his old, but now unfamiliar, childhood home in search of his friend. The protagonists and antagonists are only ever seen from the waist down, if at all, and much of the plot moves forward through the narration and an overlaid soundtrack of other characters. I suspect, although can't confirm, that some of the onscreen characters that do appear, had no idea they were being filmed but were incorporated into the plot via the overlaid dialogue/soundtrack.

The film begins in the middle of a wargame as a bunch of kids are running around a derelict site shooting BB pellets at each other, only for one of them to be killed by a real gun. This is the incident that sparks da Matas friend, Candy, to send him an email asking him to come to Macau.

The wargame scene was shot inside the walls of the Fabrica de Panchoes Iec Long in Taipa. In some shots you can see the old concrete protectve walls that stood between the various buildings (I assume they were there to limit to damage of any explosions that may occur during the firecracker production process. You can see some of the buildings featured in the screencaps below on João Botas' excellent Macau Antigo blog.

Painted Faces - Sammo Hung (1988) - Avenida de Almeida Ribeiro, Macau

The last post for Painted Faces (short but sweet) as the troupe head back to the school and blag their way onto a bus by pretending to be the (multiple) sons of one of the company's bus conductors. One of the roads featured on their trip home (before they are caught and make their escape) was filmed in Macau and was shot along the well-used Avenida de Almeida Ribeiro. This is the go-to road in Macau for production companies wanting a more historical Hong Kong (or Shanghai) feel. I think the opening of the scene starts on the waterfront (due to the presence of some distinctive arched verandahs that were common there) however, I've left that location out because I couldn't confirm 100%.

The screen cap below is looking west along the road from the waterfront junction, but Andi has also included a screencap from a few seconds later as the bus passes the Lee Kum Kee building.

It wouldn't surprise me if the whole bus ride sequence was shot in Macau in its entirety because the logistics of ferrying a full size double-decker bus between HK and Macau might've proved difficult.

Painted Faces - Sammo Hung (1988) - Sacred Heart Church, Sai Kung

After the boys have picked up the rice from the jetty and stopped off to buy toys, they walk back into town past the a rather strikingly coloured church before being set upon by a bunch of local school boys, including their neighbour's son, and a fight breaks out.

This scene was actually shot in Sai Kung in front of the Sacred Heart Church. There is a real school right next door called the Sung Tsun Catholic School and it can be seen in the background of the scene.

Painted Faces - Sammo Hung (1988) - U Lam Terrace, Sheung Wan

As the boys make their way home from the rice collevtion at the jetty, they stop to buy toys at a hawker stall. The stone steps in the background lead up to U Lam Terrace from Rozario Street. The stone balustrade of the steps has had a bit of a clean up since the movie was made and it also looks as though someone - not very skilled - has tried to repair parts of it much in the same way that the Spanish lady tried to restore that painting of Jesus a few years back. For a better view of how the steps used to look then you can view an image from 1996 on Gwulo that shows a better match to how it looked when the movie was shot.

Painted Faces - Sammo Hung (1988) - Tak Wan Tea House, Central

The tea house where Uncle Ha (Lam Ching-ying) and Master Yu go for a drink is the 得雲茶樓 or Tak Wan teahouse. If you want to see exactly where it was located then the best image to view is one of HK Man's now/then comparisons over on FLICKR. You'll see that it's location was more or less where there is now an empty part of the pavement in front of Grand Millenium Plaza on Queen's Road Central. In fact, if you look at the lower image below, through the restaurant window you can see the bend in Queen's Road Central as it turns south at the junction with Wellington Street and Bonham Strand.

Painted Faces - Sammo Hung (1988) - Lai Chi Kok Amusement Park, Kowloon

The "Seven Little Fortunes" perform regularly on stage at the Lai Chi Kok Amusement Park (荔園).
Luckily it was still around when the filming took place (although it eventually closed in 1997 and the land has since been filled by a large housing development). I can't vouch for the interior stage shots or the later wax museum scenes as Master Yu and Master Cheng (Cheng Pei-pei) have a rather awkward heart to heart, but the main entrance and funfair appear to feature the real thing. The sign in the first image below was the neon sign over the entrance, but in this shot it's filmed from the interior area of the park, so the writing is the wrong way around.

Painted Faces - Sammo Hung (1988) - Shing Wong Street, Sheung Wan

We were here just a few posts ago for Tokyo Gang vs Hong Kong Gang. This is the location where the boys are teased and called "bald headed pigs" by the local school boys before being splashed with water. The troupe is led along Wing Lee Street before they turn up the steps on Shing Wong Street as they are sprayed with water.

Painted Faces - Sammo Hung (1988) - Tung Chi College, Kennedy Road

Our first film of 2022 is a film that I only recently saw, relatively speaking, seeing as it was made back in 1988 and I remember seeing clips of it during Jonathan Ross's now famous episode on Son of the Incredibly Strange Film Show featuring Jackie Chan (filmed circa 1989).

Painted Faces (the Chinese name is 七小福 - chat siu fook - the name of Jackie Chan's former opera troupe, remember them?) supposedly details the daily life of the opera troupe beginning from when Jackie joins them in the early 1960s. Sammo Hung recreates his real life master, Yu Jim-yuen, and the savage beatings they all took when they did stuff wrong or were caught being naughty.

In reality, I believe the opera school was located in Yau Ma Tei in Kowloon but, for the film's setting, the production crew instead utilised an old disused building located in Wanchai.

The building's address was #6 Hau Fung Lane, although later the official address of the place appears to have been changed to 15a Kennedy Road. This weird discrepancy in locations is because it was one of several multi-storeyed buildings/houses that were constructed next to the steep and high terrace that supports Kennedy Road in the Wanchai mid-levels. All these buildings had entrances on Kennedy Road on their top floors (such as the two doors away - #15 - that appeared on this blog previously as a ballet school in Emmanuelle 2) as well as entrances on their ground floors in the steep area behind Queen's Road East. This building had a long staircase connected the top floor with Kennedy Road and I believe this is the one that can be seen in image 3 below.

According to the information on Gwulo.com, the building's former identity was as a Japanese-owned hotel called the "Chitose Hotel" before the war but was later taken over by Tung Chi College circa 1946. One of the comments provides some more recently taken pictures of the site before it was completely annihilated. That link shows it was also used for a film called Shogun & Little Kitchen (伙頭福星 1992) showing it was still around a few years after Painted Faces. In fact, if you keep scrolling on the link, you'll see the author also had already identified the location for Painted Faces as well (using much better Bluray screencaps as well) and so had beaten me to it by quite a few years. Sadly I wasn't aware of this when I started looking. Such is life.

I'm not sure when the building was demolished (historical captures made on Google Streetview in 2009 show it to have already gone) but the whole hillside was cleared to make way for the very controversial Hopewell Centre 2 project that is still dragging on over 10 years after it started. The sole survivor of this redevlopment process (because there was an public uproar when it was threatened) has, so far, been the nearby Nam Koo Terrace which can actually be seen in the background of one of the screencaps below.

This was the lower ground entrance to the college

The building viewed from Hau Fung Lane

Nam Koo Terrace can be seen in the background, left of frame

View of the terrace from the path that runs up from Ship Street

Looking down from the terrace. This path still exists, for now.