When Amazon Prime announced that its latest miniseries blockbuster, Expats, would not be available in Hong Kong, some Western media outlets went ballistic, blaming the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region’s administration for “censorship”.

But they were all wrong. The miniseries was never banned in Hong Kong.

According to Hong Kong’s Office for Film, Newspaper and Article Administration, the Film Censorship Ordinance only regulates the exhibition of films. It does not apply to streaming services or internet platforms. Therefore, it was not subject to any censorship controls.

Amazon Prime, which claims to have about 300,000 subscribers in Hong Kong, has refused to comment regarding its decision not to make the miniseries available in the city. Of course, it has every right to decide where to allow streaming rights, but its decision to exclude Hong Kong has generated significant publicity for the film.

The TV miniseries, produced by Nicole Kidman’s Blossom company and Amazon MGM Studios, portrays an expatriate family in Hong Kong coping with a personal tragedy in troubled times. The plot follows the abrupt disappearance of the youngest son of Margaret Woo (played by Kidman) during a nighttime market escapade. This unfurls against the backdrop of the 2014 “Occupy Central” movement in Hong Kong. Part of the miniseries was shot in Hong Kong, while most of it, including the riot scenes, was shot in Los Angeles.

Expats director Lulu Wang told BBC Radio 4 on Jan 22 that they “shot most of the political stuff in Los Angeles”, and also used news footage to represent the 2014 protests.

“It was very important to me to be able to show this particular moment in this year in Hong Kong very accurately,” she said. That remains to be seen. Accuracy is in the mind of the beholder.

The Associated Press said, “Kidman’s latest project is set in Hong Kong, but people who live there are blocked from seeing it, prompting speculation about censorship …”

Similar anti-Hong Kong views were floated by an article carried by NextShark.com and Yahoo, which claimed that “the inaccessibility of Expats in Hong Kong is raising suspicions of censorship …” 

Not one of these media outlets bothered to check with the Hong Kong authorities if the miniseries had been censored, preferring instead to apply the old journalistic adage, “Don’t let the facts get in the way of a good story.”

Besides the Western media jumping to the wrong conclusion about “censorship”, the miniseries itself became embroiled in controversy. Local media referred to it as “tone deaf” and out of touch because the author of the novel The Expatriates on which the miniseries is based on, Janice YK Lee, is the daughter of Korean immigrants who left Hong Kong for the United States with her family when she was 15 years old.

Kidman’s exemption from the city’s then mandatory 21-day in-hotel quarantine regime was also criticized as she arrived by private jet accompanied by bodyguards on Aug 12, 2021, while the Hong Kong authorities responded that the quarantine exemption was granted “for the purpose of performing designated professional work, taking into account that it is conducive to maintaining the necessary operation and development of Hong Kong’s economy”. Residents objected to what they considered grossly unfair treatment, and internet users also reacted negatively. Several lawmakers expressed concern over the exemption inside the legislature. Responding to the controversy, the HKSAR government denied that the exemption violated existing policies, as the crew were fully vaccinated and complied with quarantine exemption requirements identical to those made available to bankers at that time.

The Sydney Morning Herald called for Amazon to explain its Hong Kong no-show announcement publicly. At the same time, Australia’s Channel 9 network said the production had been dogged by various scandals, ranging from the “political appropriateness” and context of the story to Kidman’s quarantine exemption.

International media have found the production similarly distasteful. Time magazine delved into the Kidman-Expats saga for a treatise on “white privilege”. It cited an example of how the production team had sought to unnecessarily “orientalize” a Hong Kong street market by bringing in Chinese props such as lanterns and scrolls.

The author is a former chief information officer of the Hong Kong government, a public relations and media consultant, and veteran journalist.

The views expressed are not necessarily those of China Daily.