'Champagne thriller': Hong Kong high society unravels in new show The Season

In The Season , Hong Kong ’s elite boating scene is all about polished surfaces: champagne flutes, waterfront glamour and carefully managed reputations. But the pleasure of the six-part thriller lies in watching those surfaces begin to crack.

Created and showrun by Yalun Tu, the series is now streaming on Viu across Asia, the Middle East and South Africa. It follows a group of wealthy friends in Hong Kong’s high-society summer season, where a glamorous trip descends into betrayal, hidden agendas and power plays.

With its sun-drenched setting, ensemble cast and interest in the secret lives of the wealthy, comparisons are easy to make: the series has already been likened to The White Lotus and Crazy Rich Asians , but the cast have found their own description.

“What did we come up with? A fun champagne thriller,” says Jessie Mei Li, who plays Cola Pierce, a newcomer to Hong Kong with an agenda of her own.

Chris Pang, who plays hotelier Andrew Fung, agrees. “That's how we describe it,” he says. “We’ve created a show that’s quick, fun, with the glitz and glam of Hong Kong, rich people and maybe some poor people, intrigue and thriller vibes.”

Mei Li adds that the show is also funny and “a beautiful showcase of Hong Kong as well”.

Hong Kong has long been represented on screen through action cinema, kung fu films and crime thrillers. The Season places the city’s contemporary elite at the centre of the drama.

“It’s an interesting mix between a western-style drama and a Hong Kong-style Asian drama at the same time,” Mei Li says. “It holds both of those qualities in one.”

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Jessie Mei Li says The Season goes beyond wealth and glamour

Pang says the show feels distinct from the “golden era of Hong Kong cinema” he grew up watching, including Infernal Affairs and the Young and Dangerous series.

“This is very much modern Hong Kong,” he says. “The themes we’re dealing with, the social class, showing off the glitz and glam, all that feels new.”

The series takes its name from the social calendar of Hong Kong’s financial elite, where parties and leisure gatherings are often another form of networking. As Mei Li explains, “the season” is where “lots of the elite finance people come together and don’t talk about business but, really, they’re only talking business”.

Tu’s own experience working in finance in Hong Kong helped shape the show’s world, she adds.

“It’s a world that many people don’t get to see,” she says. “It's lavish, but it’s grounded in that reality because our showrunner experienced it himself.”

The result is a series that uses wealth as a backdrop rather than the main point. The Season moves through boats, parties and polished interiors, but the cast say the show is more interested in what those surfaces are hiding.

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For Mei Li, that was central to understanding Cola. One stage direction in the script stayed with her. Her character receives bad news, but in the following scene, “all anxiety and worry is carefully masked” as she walks through the office.

“I had an idea of this character who had all these bubbling emotions and desires that she had to keep hidden all the time,” she says. “Maintaining this persona and facade was interesting, because it’s like, wow, you’re having to keep so many different threads and thoughts going.”

Toby Stephens, who plays billionaire Christopher Hext, says that idea is not limited to the rich. “What’s fascinating about it is that, if we’re honest, we’re all hiding all kinds of things, and we give the impression of being one type of person.

“Someone can give you the impression of being pulled together. They seem so calm, but underneath they’re a bag of nerves and they’ve got all kinds of things going on in their life.” As the episodes unfold, he says, the drama “unpeels these layers”.

Jessie Mei Li says The Season is set in a glitzy world, but is ultimately about human stories. Photo: Disney / Hulu Info

For all its glamour, Mei Li says The Season is not simply an “eat the rich” satire.

“A lot of the time it is about taking characters down and satirising them,” she says. “Whereas I feel like our show is set in this incredibly glitzy world, but it’s also about human stories, people and their relationships.”

Pang agrees. “What I love is that we set the scene, but that’s never the point of the series,” he says. “It’s just the world we exist in.

“What we get to explore are these beautiful characters and their flaws, and the secrets they’re hiding. It’s really a character-driven story. It’s just set in the world of the rich.”

Glamour masks secrets, flaws and hidden agendas in The Season. Photo: Disney / Hulu Info

Stephens is blunt about the cost of that world. “I wouldn’t want to be any of these people because I don’t think it’s a happy life. I think it’s a life filled with problems.

“Yes, it’s wonderful having money, but it’s a huge burden as well.”

He adds that beneath the privilege is “a hollowness” and “a massive amount of pressure to keep up appearances”.

That contradic…