If Nicole Kidman and director Lulu Wang wanted to make a TV series about Hong Kong that could come perilously close to being banned in the Chinese territory, then they have succeeded with Expats.
The new Amazon series pairs outrageous privilege with personal tragedy against a backdrop of political unrest in what was once one of the world’s great cities.
Brian Tee and Nicole Kidman in Expats.Credit: AP
Kidman and Wang both faced criticism for filming the series based on Janice Y.K. Lee’s 2016 book The Expatriates in 2021. Kidman bought the option to produce the book not long after it was released, but the restless and thriving Hong Kong depicted in Lee’s pages no longer exists.
Beijing wiped out democracy through draconian national security laws in 2020. Up to 140,000 people left the city between that year and 2022 alone. Holding up blank pieces of paper can now get you arrested. Libraries have been purged of books with “bad ideologies”.
How could an adaptation of a book about a privileged bunch of drunk foreigners swanning around boat parties on Hong Kong harbour possibly grapple with the political turmoil now faced by thousands?
Wang attempts to tackle this criticism by ramming the pro-democracy movement into the series in episode five. We see TV news reports about a smattering of student-led protests blocking roads that evolved into the Umbrella Movement of 2014. Fictional pro-democracy protestor Tony and his mother grapple in Cantonese with the question that has since torn many Hong Kong families apart: “How do I look my children in the eye and tell them I didn’t fight for Hong Kong.” In the Mong Kok shopping district, fictional business owners complain that “Hong Kong is dying” – a phrase heard regularly on the street, but rarely on screen.
Tony [left], a protestor in the Umbrella Movement in Expats. Credit: Amazon Prime
These are brave decisions from one of the few major productions to tackle the city’s political upheaval, particularly when it might see the series forced out of one of its key markets.
Nicole Kidman’s controversial Hong Kong series Expats takes on political turmoil and privilege
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26.01.2024
If Nicole Kidman and director Lulu Wang wanted to make a TV series about Hong Kong that could come perilously close to being banned in the Chinese territory, then they have succeeded with Expats.
The new Amazon series pairs outrageous privilege with personal tragedy against a backdrop of political unrest in what was once one of the world’s great cities.
Brian Tee and Nicole Kidman in Expats.Credit: AP
Kidman and Wang both faced criticism for filming the series based on Janice Y.K. Lee’s........
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