Amazon filmed 'Expats' in Hong Kong, but people there couldn't watch it
At the height of Hong Kong's Covid restrictions, the government gave Nicole Kidman and several others a rare exemption from the weeks-long hotel quarantine travelers needed so they could film a series about the malaise of privileged expats.
That Amazon Prime series, “Expats,” starring Ms. Kidman, aired its first two episodes last week in what it described as a global release. For viewers in Hong Kong, they appeared as 'currently unavailable'.
The reasons are unknown. Amazon Studios declined to comment. A spokesperson for the Hong Kong government said it had facilitated the filming of some street scenes in “Expats” but would not comment on the “operational arrangement of individual companies.”
The show is released after several years of transformation in the city, a Chinese territory. Hong Kong was largely closed off to the world during three years of pandemic restrictions, and speech and dissent have been severely restricted after a mass protest movement was crushed in 2019.
Based on the novel 'The Expatriates' by Janice YK Lee, the show follows three American women living in the freer Hong Kong of 2014. Street protests demanding more democratic elections occupied the city's main roads for months that year. Scenes from the show show demonstrations of that move, known as the Umbrella revolution.
In 2019, Hong Kong was again wracked by months of mass protests, which sometimes turned violent, and the following year Beijing imposed a national security law on the city. In 2021, authorities passed a law allowing censors to ban the showing of films deemed “contrary to national security interests.”
Although the censorship law does not directly apply to online streaming, episodes of other shows with politically sensitive statements are noticeably absent from streaming services in the city. Two episodes of “The Simpsons” – one ridiculing government censorship efforts and another referring to “forced labor” in China – are not available on the Disney+ streaming service in Hong Kong.
Tenky Tin Kai-man, the former chairman of the Federation of Hong Kong Filmmakers, suggested that producers may have decided not to release 'Expats' in Hong Kong to avoid running afoul of local laws on portraying protests.
In a interview with the BBCthe show's director, Lulu Wang, said she worked with legal teams to determine which protest-related elements could be shown and that the protest scenes were filmed in Los Angeles. She said she was concerned about any impact the production could have on Hong Kong residents working on it.
“You also have to do it responsibly, and there are so many people working on it who live in Hong Kong,” she said. “But it was very important for me to capture this specific moment this year in Hong Kong very accurately.”
When “Expats” was filmed, travelers to Hong Kong had to quarantine in a hotel for weeks. Ms Kidman and four crew members were granted, the government said at the time, an exemption to carry out 'designated professional work', which it described as necessary for the local economy.
The Special treatment angered residents, which saw it as unfair and an example of the kind of privilege the show said it would explore. The exemption was also criticized at the time by Hong Kong lawmakers, including Michael Tien, who publicly questioned why Ms Kidman should receive special treatment.
On Monday, Mr Tien said it did not matter that the show was inaccessible in Hong Kong, as the hope was that Ms Kidman's star power could raise Hong Kong's status elsewhere.
“It is more important that the series is streamed abroad than in Hong Kong,” he said on Monday.
The city's top leader John Lee has launched a campaign in recent years to “tell Hong Kong's story well” and has been trying to lure celebrities to the city since pandemic restrictions were lifted in 2023.
Dominic Lee, a lawmaker who heads a nongovernmental online coalition seeking to challenge criticism of China, said Monday that the government should have done more to determine whether Hong Kong would be portrayed in a flattering light before granting quarantine exemptions .
Mr Tin, of the Filmmakers Federation, said he had asked people associated with 'Expats' for an explanation for its absence in Hong Kong, but had received no response. “Since the film was shot in Hong Kong, Hong Kong audiences also want to have a chance to watch it,” he said.