Nicole Kidman's latest project is set in Hong Kong, but people who live there are blocked from seeing it, prompting speculation about censorship in a city where civil liberties are shrinking fast. The first two episodes of Expats, a six-episode drama about expatriate women, were released on Amazon Prime on Jan. 26. But when viewers in Hong Kong try to watch it, they instead get a message saying that "this video is currently unavailable to watch in your location." Hong Kong hardened its controls over political speech after anti-government protests rocked the city in 2019, the AP reports.
In 2020, China passed a National Security Law that criminalized political activities, such as protesting for independence, in Hong Kong. Since then, hundreds of activists have been arrested or driven into exile, while opposition-leaning media have been forced out of business. Expats is based on a book by Hong Kong-born American writer Janice YK Lee, and is directed by China-born American director Lulu Wang. The first episode includes a brief scene in which people at a rally chant, in Cantonese, "I want real general elections." The trailer for the show also features a crowd holding umbrellas, a reference to the 2014 Umbrella Movement, when protesters demanded the right to choose the city's leader.
Previously, Disney removed an episode of The Simpsons that included a reference to "forced labor camps" in China from its Disney Plus streaming service in Hong Kong. In both cases, it's not clear whether authorities were involved in the decision to pull the content or companies acted on their own. In June 2021, the city's government changed the Film Censorship Ordinance to give them the power to remove films which include "portrayal, depiction, or treatment of any act or activity which may amount to an offense endangering national security." A spokesperson at Hong Kong's Culture, Sports, and Tourism Bureau said the government was not commenting on the issue.
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