by PHILIP J. CUNNINGHA
A comment by the female star of the Disney film Mulan, supporting
Hong Kong police crackdown on democratic protests has led to a massive
boycott of the film in Hong Kong.
An upcoming film about a filial daughter who fights against the odds to make it in a man’s world is now fighting against the odds to avoid falling victim to a massive boycott because the star had the temerity to express her point of view. This was an unpopular point of view, at least in Hong Kong, where calls for a boycott of Mulan ring the loudest. Conversely, that criticism immediately gained some two million “likes” on the Chinese mainland, where only half the story of the Hong Kong protests is being told.
The box office stakes are high on both sides of the Hong
Kong-mainland divide, and Disney, which has high hopes for Mulan in the
Asia market and globally, will have to artfully thread the needle eye of
public opinion as it prepares for the release of the live action film
in March. Now that publicity for the film has been unwittingly hitched
to partisan politics, it will require an extraordinary effort to
maintain support on both sides of the Shenzhen River that divides the
former British colony from the Chinese mainland.
It started when Mulan star and lead actor, Liu Yifei, made a
flippant comment on a social post last summer, stating her support for
the Hong Kong police in the early days of the Hong Kong-China conflict.
The reaction on social networks was fast and unforgiving; the entire
film, representing years of work and millions of dollars investment was
suddenly stigmatized by a single remark. Specifically, it put the film
at risk of bombing in Hong Kong, a geographically small, but in this
case at least, an economically and culturally significant film market.
The controversy arose at a time when Hong Kong airport was
besieged by angry protesters against Chinese policy to impose a new
extradition law in Hong Kong. A reporter named Fu Guohao, in Hong Kong
at the behest of the Chinese state-run Global Times, was forced to
undergo a humiliating interrogation and taunting by protesters at the
airport who felt the police were hostile to their protest. Fu was
ganged-up on by a youthful, quick-fisted mob that suspected him of
affiliation with the Hong Kong police, based on the shirt he was
wearing. The beleaguered mainlander cried out, “I support the Hong Kong
police. You can beat me up now.”
The video,
shared widely on television and the internet, showed Fu Guohao being
showered with abuse. It looked to be a set-up, at least in the way he
played to the camera, but he took some hard knocks and the video went
viral.
The Chinese-American star “Crystal” Liu Yifei, who played Mulan
in the film, added her voice to the kerfuffle, as did millions of
others, posting her reaction to the incident online. What’s more, she
made her comment in reaction to the provocative video on a People’s
Daily-linked site.
“I, too, support the Hong Kong police. You can all attack me now.”
And attack they did. Liu has been a photogenic lightning rod of
anger for Hong Kong protesters ever since, racking up hateful posts on
the internet for one hundred days running with no end in sight.
The gentle-looking Liu Yifei, perhaps still feeling a bit in character as a woman warrior after playing Mulan, shared her
indignation about the injustice of the August 18, 2019 mob action
against the Global Times reporter with the English words, “What a shame
for Hong Kong!”