Living here in Hong Kong, it’s hard to tell what the outside world is thinking about EXPATS. Amazon dropped the first two episodes of the six-part miniseries on January 26^th and right away it garnered attention from the big media outlets in the West for the wrong reason. The series, starring Nicole Kidman, was filmed here in 2021 during the height of covid and Kidman’s quarantine-free arrival on a private jet at a time when the rest of us had to endure three weeks of lockup, assuming we were lucky enough to secure a seat on one of the very few commercial flights that were still coming into Hong Kong at that time, did not go down well with my fellow citizens. Now, adding insult to injury, Amazon has decided not to air the show here, presumably because it doesn’t want to run afoul of our National Security Law. You see, the series is set in 2014 during our pro-democracy protests and that’s something our government does not want us to see lest our young people, at least the ones who aren’t sitting in jail or who have exiled themselves to safe havens overseas, get any unsavoury ideas. But Hongkongers are nothing if not a resourceful bunch and we have ways of getting around roadblocks and firewalls. Many people here have VPNs and, not that I’m advocating this, torrenting is not an uncommon activity.

EXPATS is created and directed by Lulu Wang (THE FAREWELL), and is based on Janice Y.K. Lee’s novel, “The Expatriates”. The story centers around a group of well-heeled expatriates in Hong Kong, their trials and tribulations, and their intense but fleeting friendships. Kidman (BEING THE RICARDOS; BOMBSHELL) plays Margaret Woo, a mother of three whose husband, Clarke (Brian Tee, TV’s CHICAGO MED), has been transferred to the city from the US. They’ve lived in Hong Kong for a number of years now and are quite comfortable here, although Margaret would prefer to return to the US and resume her career there. As the series opens, they are still dealing with the loss of their youngest child, Gus, from the year before. Margaret’s closest friend is Hilary Starr (Sarayu Blue), who is also her neighbour. Hilary’s marriage to husband David (Jack Huston, ANTEBELLUM; BEN-HUR) is on the rocks for no shortage of reasons. Mercy Cho (Ji-young Yoo), is a young Korean-American woman who ekes out a living doing catering gigs around the city. A graduate of Columbia University, she clearly comes from money as all her friends are well off and she feels at ease hanging out with the rich and fabulous.

Speaking as a long-time expat in Hong Kong, I can tell you that EXPATS is complete crap. Lee’s bio says that she was born here before moving to the US to go to school. That was apparently when she was 15. I read online that she proudly says that because she’s fluent in Mandarin, she knew what was going on here. Sure. I’m fluent in Mandarin too and I’ve lived here for 32 years. I can tell you that a lot goes on here – in Cantonese, I might add, not Mandarin – that I don’t know about. I can also tell you that as a gweilo (“foreign devil”), I have a lot more privilege than Lee, as a Korean, would have had when she lived here as a child. The bottom line is that Lee knows eff-all about life as an expat here and that’s plainly evident in the first two episodes. In the first, we learn that although Margaret lives in a luxury flat on the Peak, she loves rubbing shoulders with the unwashed masses in Kowloon. After a difficult evening of sipping champagne and nibbling on canapés at her husband’s 50^th birthday party in their flat overlooking the city, she and Hilary decide to jump into Hilary’s car and have her driver take them down the hill and across the harbour for a late night bowl of noodles at a cha chaan teng (a Hong Kong-style diner). There, they decide to take off their shoes and dance around singing karaoke to Blondie because… that’s what all us expats do? The second episode has an equally idiotic scene. In a flashback to happier times, Margaret is a guest at a junk party but this is no ordinary flat-bottomed boat. It’s a three-storey yacht complete with a hot tub because… we all have them here? During the party, Mercy, who also happens to be there, decides to jump into the water. All the other guests are aghast at such plebeian behaviour. Oh, please. Lee has clearly never been at a junk party. That’s what we do. We drink lots of alcohol, eat lots of unhealthy food and jump into the water. (We also put life jackets on our high-spirited young children but that’s another matter.) When Mercy comes back on board, she is completely shunned by her snooty friends. Only Margaret is there with a towel to help dry her off. And so begins their relationship, which will no doubt play out in upcoming episodes.

As much as I think this series isn’t worth the doggie doo that my domestic helper has to pick up after my precious designer pooch does her business on the sidewalk (unlike Margaret’s domestic helper, mine knows her place in the world), I’m going to continue watching EXPATS right to the end just so that I can laugh at a how misrepresentative it is of expat life here.

EXPATS is streaming now on Amazon Prime. Episode 3 will air on February 2^nd.

Thanks for reading but don’t be a lurker! If you liked what you just read, here are some suggestions:

Sign up to receive my movie reviews in your inbox automatically
Share this review on your Facebook page
Leave me a message telling me what you thought of my review or the film
Bookmark the site and visit often
Like my Howard For Film Facebook page
Watch my reviews on my YouTube page
Check out my Howard For Film magazine on Flipboard
Tell your friends about the site