In 'Expats,' Lulu Wang centers not only the lives of women but a changing Hong Kong
LOS ANGELES — I still remember ugly crying after watching Lulu Wang's breakthrough feature, "The Farewell," with my dad, an immigrant.
I saw myself in Billi, a Chinese American woman trying to make sense of her bicultural identity as she wrestles with a family secret — her grandmother, Nai Nai, is about to die, and everyone knows except her. "The Farewell" was an ambitious project; there are few U.S. films with an all-Asian cast where much of the dialogue is not in English. But Wang stuck with the integrity of her story and that bet paid off.
Wang's work caught the attention of one of Hollywood's biggest stars, Nicole Kidman; her production company, Blossom Films, optioned Janice Y. K. Lee's New York Times bestseller, "The Expatriates," and she was looking for someone to adapt it. They connected and Wang was eventually brought on board to write and direct on "Expats," a six-part limited series premiering this week on Prime Video.
When I meet with Wang in the restaurant of the London Hotel in Los Angeles, it's just weeks out from the premiere of the series. Moving from the critical success of "The Farewell" to "Expats" has brought Wang a new weight of responsibility, but she carries it with a sense of duty.
"In 'The Farewell,' the fears that I had were, 'Am I properly representing my family?'" Wang says. "This felt the same thing, but on a much larger scale because now my family was in the city of Hong Kong."
