Lulu Wang, the director of “The Farewell,” is the brains behind Amazon Prime’s “Expats,” which is an adaptation of Janice Y. K. Lee’s 2016 novel “The Expatriates.”
The drama series introduces us to the personal and professional lives of a diverse group of women living in Hong Kong, where marriages, deaths, and life events are joyfully recreated in public and friendships are deep but fleeting.
Before long, a single encounter sets off a series of events that drastically affect the women’s lives. The series, which stars Nicole Kidman, Brian Tee, Sarayu Blue, Jack Huston, and Ji-young Yoo, accurately depicts the commotion and hustle of a Chinese city to viewers, primarily through the congested streets where the main characters attempt to find their place amid the chaos of Hong Kong.
The viewer becomes curious about where “Expats” was filmed because of the eye-catching and boisterous cityscape shots. The majority of “Expats” is filmed in Hong Kong, China. In particular, Baltimore and Los Angeles County in Maryland and California are the shooting locations.
Principal photography for the first season of the drama series reportedly began in August 2021 and lasted more than 500 days before wrapping up in December 2022.
The setting of Nicole Kidman’s most recent production is Hong Kong, but residents of the city are unable to view it, which has raised questions about censorship in a place where civil freedoms are rapidly eroding.
On January 26, Amazon Prime streamed the first two episodes of the six-episode drama series “Expats,” which centers on expat women.
Hong Kong viewers, however, are unable to view it and are instead presented with the statement, “This video is currently unavailable to watch in your location.” After the city was rocked by anti-government protests in 2019, the city tightened its restrictions on political communication.
Expats Filming Locations
Hong Kong, China
The production crew chose to shoot a significant portion of the film on location in the Chinese Special Administrative Region because the majority of the tale takes place in Hong Kong. The filmmaking unit is set up in different parts of Hong Kong’s streets and neighborhoods to record key moments against appropriate backdrops.
A few significant sections, for example, focus on the Ladies Market area on Tung Choi Street, Victoria Harbour, and Temple Street. Additionally, one of the well-known production settings is the historic Mido Cafe, located at 63 Temple Street in Yau Ma Tei.
The show offers us a glimpse into the realities of Hong Kong’s domestic assistants’ lives and how different they are from those of their employers, in addition to the city’s tall buildings and contemporary architecture.
Despite the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, Nicole Kidman was spared from the standard quarantine regime, which caused quite a controversy during the first season of “Expats.”
Kidman, who plays Margaret, talked candidly with The Guardian about her difficulties while in Hong Kong for the filming schedule. She clarified, saying, “I made the terrible mistake of traveling to Hong Kong by myself without my family.” I couldn’t simply board an aircraft and travel to them.
And I was inaccessible to them. That had an impact on my performance to the extent that it had an impact on my mental health. However, it was similar to the ‘Big Little Lies’ narrative of domestic abuse. People go through this, in my opinion, and it is my responsibility to act as a conduit and present it in all of its raw authenticity.
Additionally, Kidman stated, “If I’m not connecting artistically to the way life is, in all its glory and pain, then I’m not serving the reason I work as an actor.”
Baltimore, Maryland
There are rumours that the “Expat” actors and crew members also visit Baltimore, which is located in north central Maryland on the Patapsco River.
Several landmarks and cultural sites, including Fell’s Point, the Emerson Tower, the Washington Monument, and the Lafayette Monument, can probably be seen against the urban backdrop of the filmed sequences.
Los Angeles County, California
The “Expats” production crew even camps out in Los Angeles County, including the county seat of Los Angeles, to shoot the movie.
Nicole Kidman and the other members of the crew were observed filming important scenes in Santa Clarita during the first season’s filming schedule. Long Beach was transformed into a movie set in May 2022 when a party scene for the drama series was filmed on a yacht.