Yalun Tu’s guide to The Season’s Hong Kong filming locations

Yalun Tu, showrunner of the PCCW revenge drama The Season, offers a rare insider's view of Hong Kong’s wealthy elite. As a former investment banker, Tu possesses first-hand insight into the specific social dynamics and character types you’ll grow to love, hate, or – as Tu hopes – understand.  

Available to watch on your next Cathay Pacific flight, The Season follows the arrival of newcomer Cola (Jessie Mei-Li of Shadow and Bone) who arrives with a grudge to settle among the city’s most powerful circles. For Tu, who has previously spoken to us about his experience of writing in Hollywood, the show was both a homecoming and a surprising rediscovery of Hong Kong. 

“It was strange because I got to come back to see all these places I used to know so well. But instead of thinking of them as places I’d like to live in or have dinner at, I was now thinking this is a place where I should shoot a scene,” Tu says. “The process was like taking a city I knew,  called home and loved, and then looking at it through a very different lens. It was very exciting, but also very surreal.” 

The glamour of St Barth’s and the French Riviera is familiar territory for the goings-on of the rich and famous. But what interested Tu in particular was Hong Kong’s own theatre of wealth: the summer boating season, where the city’s elite retreat to their superyachts while an unseen network of workers keeps their insular world running.  

It’s this tension that most captivated Tu and gives the series its edge. And as Cola moves through this rarefied circle and clashes with her moneyed adversaries, Hong Kong becomes more than just a backdrop – refracted through the camera lens, it emerges as a character in this high-stakes drama. 

“When I set out writing The Season, the whole mantra was that I wanted a story that could only take place in Hong Kong,” Tu says. “When people think of Hong Kong, they think of Victoria Harbour and the skyscrapers, those prevailing images. But again, you can be in boats on the water, on outlying islands, in a cha chaan teng, or at a Michelin-starred restaurant.” 

“There was so much of the canvas of Hong Kong that we tried to put into our show,” he continues.  

Working with various local production teams and drawing on his own knowledge of the city, Tu discovered that what once felt aspirational had subtly shifted: Hong Kong moves at the same lightning speed as the glass and chrome skyscrapers that appear on the skyline every year. He shares a few of The Season’s filming locations in Hong Kong below to visit on your next trip – some of which may surprise you. 

Hong Kong filming locations for The Season 

Ping Pong 129 

Formerly a ping pong hall, behind an inconspicuous red door you’ll find one of Hong Kong’s most striking gin bars. Shelves stocked as high as its soaring ceilings, red neon signs adding a retro touch, and a curated art collection create a ready-built shooting location.  

In The Season however, Ping Pong 129 has been given a facelift, as Tu explains: “Our team was able to change it into this crazy underground after-hours club. It’s really fun to go to Ping Pong, check out that place and then see what it looks like in our show because it’s very different.” 

129 Second Street, L/G Nam Cheong House, Sai Ying Pun, Hong Kong 

Rainbow Seafood 

After swanning through the waters on their pristine white yachts, the cast winds up at an unusual lunch stop: Lamma Island institution Rainbow Seafood . Known for serving serious seafood at affordable prices, its plastic chairs and red tablecloths are as humble as it gets. In the show, however, it becomes the setting for a lesson in power, as one character observes: “Lunch on Lamma has nothing to do with the food. What matters is where you sit.” 

“I’ve always loved Rainbow Seafood. There’s a big lunchtime event there in the pilot which I took from my old Goldman Sachs days. The scene is an example of wealthy people showing off their status, so there’s this element of satire,” Tu says. 

Ocean Park 

A family-friendly theme park might sound like a strange addition to this list, and Tu felt similarly when Ocean Park was first proposed as the setting for a lavish murder mystery party. In fact, he called it “insane”. As the characters dine at long, sweeping tables in the heart of the aquarium, it quickly becomes clear that money is simply no obstacle – to the material things, at least. 

“We have characters who are so well-to-do that they could conceivably rent out an entire theme park. I remember going there on Halloween night where they transform the whole park, and I thought, what if we could do our own version of that and make it really special?” Tu says. “I went from ‘there’s no way we can shoot there’, to ‘we 100 per cent have to shoot there’. Luckily, the team was able to make it happen.” 

The Season is available to watch on Cathay Pacific’s inflight entertainment until January 2027.