One of the more baffling mysteries in modern entertainment is why the 2018 blockbuster “Crazy Rich Asians,” a rom-com that grossed $239 million worldwide on a $30 million production budget, didn’t get a sequel. We maynever know the answer, but eight years later, the Hong Kong-set soapy drama “The Season” offers a spiritual — if not literal — successor to that film’s escapist cosmopolitan fantasy.
“The Season,” which was created by Yalun Tu and will air on Hulu in the United States, is not based on any underlying IP. Nevertheless, the plot recycles many tropes familiar from not only “Crazy Rich Asians,” but countless stories about the wealthy and their insular, corrupt worlds. Our designated audience surrogate is token outsider Cola Pierce (Jessie Mei Li), an aspiring banker from Michigan taken under the wing of self-made financial adviser Carrie Shen (Celina Jade), who sees a kindred spirit in a fellow interloper. Once Cola has a foot in the door of Hong Kong’s inner sanctum, Carrie introduces her to an array of familiar archetypes: Andrew Fung (Chris Pang), the boorish playboy; Madeline Wong (Yvonne Chapman), the young widow plagued by rumors about her husband’s death; most importantly, Christopher and Fiona Hext (Toby Stephens and Karena Lam), the golden couple who act as the dual suns around which their many satellites revolve.
The chief selling point of “The Season” is not the novelty of the setup. Nor, quite frankly, is it the caliber of the writing and acting; many line deliveries are stilted, while the high-flying events around which most episodes revolve are given clunky names like “1920s Shanghai Gala” (exactly what it sounds like) or “White Collar Knockout” (a charity boxing match). Instead, the appeal of “The Season” lies in the specificity with which the show depicts its singular backdrop.
Christopher’s family “practically invented colonialism,” and the man himself freely admits his social set’s lifestyles are funded by “fortunes built on opium and subjugation.” (Cola has an ulterior motive for insinuating herself with the Hexts rooted in a more recent wrong done to her family.) But while “The Season” — which takes its name from the summer boating season, when the lucky few swan among Hong Kong’s islands on opulent yachts — is aware of the city’s ugly past, the show also revels in the present shaped by a nexus of global trade. Characters toggle freely between English and Cantonese. The skyline of lush mountains and dense skyscrapers, one of the most telegenic on Earth, is practically a character in itself. And “The Season” doesn’t limit itself to Hong Kong’s upper crust: Scenes play out in noodle shops, at the racetrack and, in the case of Cola’s first big test, at a seafood market on the beachy Lamma Island where the camera lingers on tanks of live abalone.
The detail “The Season” brings to its portrait of Hong Kong’s quasi-aristocracy complements the comforting predictability of its twisty plot to make an ideal kickoff for summer TV. In 2024, Lulu Wang’s “Expats” took a probing, cinematic eye to the enclave, including the immigrant labor that sustains its elite. “The Season” is lighter and more larger-than-life, exploring the class divide through Cola’s tragic backstory rather than a realist portrait of figures like the Hexts’ loyal house manager Gloria (Xyza Cada). As Christopher works to sell a glitzy hotel with Carrie’s help and Madeline carries on an ill-advised affair, our eyes keep drifting over their shoulders to the well-appointed apartments and bustling restaurants where they spend their time. The key is that we’re always looking, even if it’s mostly at the scenery.