Things have rarely gone smoothly when it comes to hunting down filming locations from the Indiana Jones franchise. I ran out of time to go to Kairouan in Tunisia which was used to represent Cairo in ‘Raiders Of The Lost Ark‘ (1981). As much as I tried to locate the “Sankara Stone Shrine” of “Mayapur Village” in Sri Lanka I just couldn’t find the exact spots. When I went to Royal Cultural Hall in Westminster (London) it was closed so I never got to see the interiors which doubled up as Berlin Airport in ‘Indiana Jones & The Last Crusade‘ (1989). The Treasury in Petra (Jordan) may have been easy to locate (it is a world heritage site after all!) but I failed to ascend the rocks in the right place and missed out on the view looking down on the Treasury which featured in the film. The Venice church where Indy finds an important clue was eventually found but it took a while as I lost my way many times among the maze of canals and alleyways in the city of water.

It will therefore come as no surprise that my time in Macau didn’t go as well as hoped  either. In ‘Indiana Jones & The Temple Of Doom‘ (1984) this Special Administrative Region (SAR) of China is the location for the “Shanghai” car chase following Indy (Harrison Ford) and Co’s escape from Club Obi Wan as their vehicle (driven by Short Round) is pursued by villain Lao Che (Roy Chiao) and his henchmen.

After leaving the Ruins Of The Church Of St. Paul, I headed towards the coast passing the Hong Kung Temple and thought I was easily on track to locate a couple of other Indy locales first. However, with a poor sense of direction, no wifi, a basic map and no detailed map signboards, I just could not find the relevant streets which followed the initial escape from Club Obi Wan.

I eventually gave up on the “Shanghai” street scenes as I didn’t consider them too essential as they were shot at night and I was there in daylight over three decades later!  Plus, they didn’t actually seem that interesting, even by my standards!! Club Obi Wan was a different matter altogether. As a big Star Wars fan I was keen to see this place which was an in-joke for producer George Lucas. I already knew beforehand that it now looked nothing like on screen but I was still keen to find it. I nearly gave up on this one too though as I lost my way a few times and a torrential downpour for well over an hour held me up.

Having found myself back at Senado Square I managed to get some free wifi and located the hotel on my maps app and rushed off into the rain to try and find it. With some curved hilly lanes it yet again wasn’t plain sailing but eventually I got there.

The Best Western Sun Sun Hotel was my reference point for finding the area that was used to portray Club Obi Wan. It was under reconstruction but that mattered not as the place I was interested in lay just beyond it. Rua Do Bocage is the little road to the side of the hotel and it is on that corner where Club Obi Wan first appears as Jones and “Willie” (Kate Capshaw) jump out of the window of the club on the back of a failed deal, some poisoning and plenty of gun-fire.

A long time has passed since filming took place in the Summer of 1983 so a lot has changed. The door on the right under the red thing is just about in the same position that the entrance door of Club Obi Wan was in.

Huge thanks to Phil (via VenDoychev) of the excellent Hong Kong (& Macau) Film Stuff website as this post couldn’t have been made without copying referencing his post about this area of Macau.

Click here to read ‘TF Top 5……Indiana Jones Filming Locations’