First two episodes inaccessible to viewers in city, with some attributing censorship to umbrella protest scenes

Amazon’s big-ticket series Expats, set and filmed in Hong Kong, is not available for viewing in the city despite being billed as a worldwide release.

The first two episodes of the drama, starring Nicole Kidman and directed by The Farewell’s Lulu Wang, were released on Friday but listed as “currently unavailable” for viewers in Hong Kong. The series, based on a 2016 novel, The Expatriates, focuses on the lives of three American women in Hong Kong.

The production of Expats had been largely welcomed by authorities. In 2021 Kidman was controversially allowed to bypass the strict Covid quarantine rules in place at the time to film the series.

The unavailability of the first two episodes has been attributed by some observers to the setting of the penultimate episode, according to reviews, against the backdrop of the 2014 umbrella movement protests.