On Thursday night, the latest installment in the Transformers film series had its world premiere in Hong Kong — a city where, eight months ago, director Michael Bay was blackmailed for thousands of dollars and later assaulted with an air-conditioning unit while working on the movie.
No hard feelings, though.
“The background,” Bay told TIME, when asked what struck him most about the city, gesturing at the skyline of Hong Kong Island from the red carpet. “And the people. The people are great.”
The film’s crew and cast (which includes Mark Wahlberg, Stanley Tucci and Kelsey Grammer, all of whom were present for the premiere) first traveled to Hong Kong and mainland China for a few weeks last fall to film Transformers: Age of Extinction. It’s the fourth film in Bay’s billion-dollar franchise, and an effort to appeal to — and capitalize on — China’s burgeoning cinema audience. The series has already enjoyed unprecedented success in the country. Its third film set national box-office records when it opened in the summer of 2011 — ultimately grossing $163 million, the highest of any market outside North America.