Yao Yao Jiang: Why did Andy Lau take the role in 'White-Clad Heroes'? Has he hurt his core base this time?
From his early support for the 1989 pro-democracy movement to his later frequent public performances of "Chinese People," his role as Vice Chairman of the China Film Association, and his participation in co-produced films, Andy Lau's political stance and image have undergone significant changes. With the release of the Wuhan pandemic film "Heroes of the White Coat" in which he stars, his public image and reputation in Hong Kong, Taiwan, and mainland China are facing unprecedented controversy.
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Hello everyone, I am someone who loves to think and values logic. Recently, a film that had been shelved for nearly six years suddenly announced its release date. The title is "Heroes of the White Coat," which tells the story of the 76 days of the Wuhan lockdown in 2020, and it will be released nationwide on November 6th. The lead actor is Andy Lau.
[Text garbled: Breathing difficulties, strong following]
[Text garbled: In a trance, haven't used it for two days, believe you will come out] There are almost no positive comments in the comment section. Some say the scars have already scabbed over, so why pick them open again? Others left comments underneath in memory of Li Wenliang. There are also former medical workers who say that what they wanted was respect, not glorification.
Andy Lau, now 63 years old, is currently the Vice Chairman of the China Film Association. He has received a silver medal from the Hong Kong SAR government and has appeared on the CCTV stage to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the founding of the CCP. But 35 years ago, when students in Beijing were still holding their ground in Tiananmen Square, he once spoke out for them through a long-distance phone call.
[Text garbled: Walking inside is also very fierce, few brothers]
[Text garbled: Tianlong, my calligraphy can stir up my dancing] From that phone call to this "Da Bai" (white hazmat suit) outfit that left terrifying memories for the people across the country, why has Andy Lau become so shameless? Today, let's talk about it.
May 27, 1989, Happy Valley Racecourse, Hong Kong. By this time, martial law had already been declared in Beijing for a week, and students were still holding their ground in Tiananmen Square, refusing to leave. In Hong Kong, a concert started at 10:00 AM and lasted until 10:00 PM. A banner with white background and red characters hung in front of the stage, reading "The Entire Hong Kong Performing Arts Industry Supports the Beijing Student Movement." Two television stations and Radio Television Hong Kong broadcasted the entire event live. Estimates of the attendance vary widely; Ta Kung Pao said about 500,000, Sing Pao said nearly 800,000, and some estimated only 200,000.
This concert was called "Democratic Songs Dedicated to China," and it was led by Anita Mui. From preparation to the opening, it took less than a week. One of the hosts, Shum Kin-wah, later recalled that the stars who came to sing didn't even need to be invited; Teresa Teng called herself to ask if she could participate. That day, Andy Lau was not in Happy Valley. He was twenty-seven years old and already one of the most popular idols in Hong Kong. Later, the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China, known as the Alliance, compiled the full-day footage into a segment. Andy Lau's name appeared on the list in two of the segments. In the morning segment, he, Chow Yun-fat, Alan Tam, and others made long-distance phone calls to express their support. In the afternoon segment, he, Maggie Cheung, and others appeared on the large screen inside the venue. Over the course of twelve hours, this concert raised about one million. This money was later not delivered to the students. Lee Cheuk-yan of the Alliance took one million Hong Kong dollars of it to Beijing, where he was detained for three days and only released after signing a confession letter, and all the money was... Eight years later, in April 1997, Andy Lau released a new song called "Chinese People." When shooting the music video, he wore a white Chinese-style shirt and stood on the watchtower of the Great Wall, with flags fluttering all around. Five years later, he recalled to Xinhua News Agency that while singing, his eyes looked at the Great Wall, and in his mind, he thought of the sufferings endured by Chinese people for thousands of years, putting every ounce of his deepest breath into the recording.
The lyrics of this song were written by Johnny Yim, and the music was composed by Chan Yiu-chuen. Both of them are from Taiwan. In the same interview, he talked about his feelings before the handover. At that time, when he went abroad for work or travel, people often asked if he was British, which made his sense of identity unsettled all along. After the handover was put on the agenda, the people of Hong Kong were both excited and somewhat hesitant. He said he was among those with confidence. His dealings with the mainland began much earlier than the handover.
In 1982, he went to Hainan to shoot a film for the first time, staying for more than three months. He said it felt no different from Hong Kong and was very cordial. In 1995, while Hong Kong was still in British hands, he had already stepped onto the CCTV Spring Festival Gala stage, singing "Oblivious to Sorrow." He gave me 100 heartbreak...
send and I won't keep...
Sorrow." He appeared on the Spring Festival Gala a total of six times, and this was the first one. Before and after the handover, Hong Kong held a celebratory gala called "Glory of the Dragon." He stood on stage in all-white attire, accompanied by a waist drum troupe from Wangshen Village, Linyi County, Shanxi Province. The drummers were all farmers, and for many of them, it was their first time in Hong Kong. After the drumbeats played for several minutes, the song he started singing was still "Chinese People."
Three years later, in August 2000, he went to Lhasa. At a concert in the Lhasa Gymnasium called "I Love China—Affection Sent to Tibet," pianist Kong Xiangdong and a fourteen-year-old Tibetan boy played a four-hand piano duet, and Andy Lau sang "Loving You for Ten Thousand Years." During those years, while he was singing "Chinese People" on stage, his own film company off stage was constantly paying off debts. By the summer of 2002, the company was sued in court by shareholders again, and the opposing party applied for an injunction to make him stop all the films he had hands in, two-thirds of which was unfilmed for one of them called Infernal Affairs.
Why did I bring this trouble upon myself?
Did you ever have any self-doubt while doing this?
I doubted my ability to be a boss.
Affairs." On August 22, 2002, a company under CCT Telecom applied for an injunction in the Hong Kong court. This company was a shareholder of Andy Lau's film company, Focus Films, and it requested the court to ban Andy Lau from participating in any film production and performance. This lawsuit had been going on for several months. CCT Telecom stated that Andy Lau withdrew from the company's listing plan, causing them a loss of over 150 million Hong Kong dollars. They also wrote letters to various film production companies in Hong Kong, reminding them not to hire Andy Lau. In turn, Andy Lau pursued the company for 15 million Hong Kong dollars in unpaid salary owed to him. If the injunction were approved, the first to be affected would be Infernal Affairs, and the producing company Media Asia could only tell the outside world that it would not be affected. The script of this film was originally held in the hands of Andy Lau's own company, and because he was bogged down by lawsuits and could not shoot it, it was later taken over by Media Asia. Media Asia boss Lam Kin-ngok poured in money with only one condition: the male lead had to be Andy Lau.
This was not the first time he was driven into a corner by money. In the early 1990s, when he started his own business to make movies, "Saviour of the Soul" invested 20 million, and the box office only recovered 20 million, with the following few films suffering consecutive losses. By 1995, the company's losses exceeded 40 million, so he transferred the company to others and borrowed 20 million from Tiffany Chen, the wife of Charles Heung. He later said it took five or six years to pay off these debts.
In November 2002, both sides reached a settlement on the very day of the court hearing. Focus Films bought back the shares held by CCT Telecom, and the cost of the settlement was not made public. Infernal Affairs was saved, but the days of Hong Kong cinema did not get better. In 2003, the number of movies produced in Hong Kong in a year fell below one hundred for the first time. That spring, the SARS outbreak occurred, and Running Out of Time, which he was currently filming, was halted.
On June 29 of the same year, Beijing and Hong Kong signed an agreement whose full name is the Mainland and Hong Kong Closer Economic Partnership Arrangement, abbreviated in English as CEPA. We call it the Northbound Agreement. The clauses regarding films in it seemed like a generous gift to Hong Kong: Chinese-language films made in Hong Kong would not be subject to quotas upon entering the mainland after passing censorship. Co-productions between Hong Kong and the mainland would be distributed as domestic films, and their box office revenue split ratio was much higher than that of imported films. Co-production producers could get about 45%, while imported films only got around 15%. Written on the back of this generous gift were conditions: in co-productions, the mainland's main actors must account for at least one-third, and the plot must be related to the mainland.
In 2004, the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television issued another order stating that co-productions must have a Mandarin version, the final cut must be submitted to the mainland for censorship, and post-production should in principle be completed on the mainland. Director Peter Chan once said that co-productions were the only way out for Hong Kong cinema. Censorship examined not only the actors and the plot, but also the ending. Infernal Affairs is a case in point. In the Hong Kong version's ending, Lau Kin-ming, the triad mole in the police force played by Andy Lau, walks out of the elevator and continues to be a police officer. The mainland version shot an extra ending: as soon as he stepped out of the elevator, he was handcuffed. Mainland film regulations prohibited instigating crime, and bad guys had to be brought to justice. For the next decade or so, many Hong Kong films shot two versions.
Andy Lau quickly adapted to these rules. In 2004, he starred in Zhang Yimou's House of Flying Daggers, which grossed 153 million in the mainland. That year, the total box office for all of China was 1.5 billion, and this single film accounted for one-tenth. That same year, he also starred in Feng Xiaogang's A World Without Thieves, with a budget of 45 million and a box office of 120 million. Of course, he also hit a wall. Also in 2004, Jiang Hu, which he co-starred in with Jacky Cheung, was submitted for review as a co-production, but failed to pass because it was too bloody and too dark.
Later, a story about him began to circulate on the mainland internet. It claimed that on June 5, 2006, he went to Japan to hold a fan meeting, refused to speak Japanese, refused to sing Japanese songs, and told the Japanese that music has no borders, but musicians have borders, and hereafter when introducing him, they should not say he is a Hong Kong singer, as he is first and foremost a Chinese person. After saying this, he sang Chinese. This story is still being passed around today. However, the earliest version that can be found is a Sina blog post from 2009, with no year and no venue. The date June 5 did not appear until 2015 in a celebrity review article on Sohu, also without a source. In Japan, no reports about this fan meeting can be found. What can be found is another performance. On October 8, 1996, Andy Lau held a concert in Nakano, Tokyo. At that time, Hong Kong was in a fierce uproar over the Diaoyu Islands; just over ten days earlier, Hong Kong Diaoyu Islands defender David Chan Yu-cheung had drowned in the waters off the Diaoyu Islands. The setlist for this concert included a Japanese song. In the summer of 2006, he did indeed go to Japan again to promote a film he starred in that was released in Japan, and accepted interviews with Japanese media. Who wrote that story earliest cannot be found, but it has been circulated on the mainland internet for over a decade and has always been treated as evidence of his patriotism.
On May 2, 2008, the Beijing Olympic torch was passed to Hong Kong. It was drizzling that day, and the entire route was packed with people wearing red clothes and holding national flags. Andy Lau ran the fourth leg, making him the first artist to take the stage in the Hong Kong section. He told reporters that he felt very nervous this time, and being selected as a torchbearer was a recognition of artists. On the same day, along the roadside where the torch passed, a few people holding banners supporting Tibet and demanding human rights were surrounded and cursed at by the crowd, and some hid in police cars. Police said they rescued eight people. Democratic Party Legislative Council member Lee Cheuk-yan told foreign reporters by the roadside that China no longer tolerates critics. He was the same Lee Cheuk-yan who took the donations from that concert in Happy Valley to Beijing nineteen years ago and was detained for three days.
Ten days later, a massive earthquake struck Wenchuan, Sichuan. Andy Lau took the lead in organizing the Hong Kong entertainment industry. At 2:28 PM on June 1, exactly the moment the earthquake occurred, the charity show began, and more than two hundred artists sang continuously for over seven hours. During this past month or so, through both the torch relay and the earthquake, he stood at the very front.
On September 28, 2014, Hong Kong police fired tear gas at the protesting crowds around Admiralty. This matter began more than a year earlier. In early 2013, Benny Tai Yiu-ting, a legal scholar at the University of Hong Kong, proposed a plan: if Beijing did not grant Hong Kong genuine universal suffrage, citizens would go to occupy the streets of Central, using civil disobedience to force the government to make concessions. This plan was called Occupy Central with Love and Peace, abbreviated as the Umbrella Movement.
On August 31, 2014, the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress made a decision regarding the election of the Chief Executive of Hong Kong. Candidates were required to obtain support from more than half of the nominating committee, and ultimately, there would only be two to three candidates. This committee has historically been dominated by pro-Beijing figures. Many Hong Kong people said that in such a universal suffrage, the candidates were still pre-selected by Beijing. In late September, university students began a strike, and a group of students rushed into the square in front of the government headquarters. In the early hours of the 28th, Benny Tai announced the official start of Occupy Central, and the police began firing tear gas. A total of 87 canisters were fired, and citizens opened umbrellas to block the tear gas and pepper spray. This movement was later called the "Umbrella Movement."
Tear gas did not drive people away; instead, it caused more people to take to the streets. The main roads in Admiralty, Mong Kok, and Causeway Bay were occupied for 79 days. Beijing and the SAR government did not retreat a single step, and the movement eventually ended without success. A few days after the tear gas was fired, Andy Lau posted a short article on his fan website, "Andy World Club," titled "Peace in Hong Kong." He said that Hong Kong people love Hong Kong, and while striving for their demands, they should look out for themselves and the public. He wrote a sentence that was later repeatedly quoted: No tear gas, no violence, no verbal abuse. He reminded students and protesters that their families were worried about their safety.
At noon on October 4, he posted another article titled "Please Protect Peace in Hong Kong." The day before, anti-Occupy protesters in Mong Kok had rushed into the occupied area and injured people. His second post began by saying that what he had feared most had actually happened. He implored the police to do their utmost to protect the safety of students and citizens. In both articles, he did not state whether he supported or opposed Occupy Central. That same week, Tony Leung publicly stated his support for all Hong Kong people peacefully expressing their demands and criticized the government for using excessive force against peaceful assemblies. Chow Yun-fat told reporters that the police were wrong from the first day. On October 21, the Communist Youth League Central Committee launched a poll on its official Weibo, asking netizens how to boycott "unscrupulous artists" who supported the occupation. The list included Anthony Wong, Chapman To, and Denise Ho. Andy Lau was not on the list.
Four years later, on October 2, 2018, the day after National Day, an organization called the "Our Hong Kong Foundation" posted a three-and-a-half-minute short film online titled "Let the Next Generation See." The Our Hong Kong Foundation was founded by former Chief Executive Tung Chee-hwa. Tung Chee-hwa's position at the time was Vice Chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference. In the short film, Andy Lau did not appear on camera; only his voice was heard, discussing issues such as land supply, housing, and construction. He started from Hong Kong in the 80s and 90s, talked about today's housing difficulties and land scarcity, and then said that among various suggestions, he felt that reclaiming land to build an artificial island off the coast of East Lantau seemed to be a more feasible solution. Finally, he said that as long as it is worth doing, one should seize the opportunity and do it immediately.
More than a week later, Chief Executive Carrie Lam formally proposed this reclamation plan in her Policy Address, calling it "Lantau Tomorrow Vision," which aimed to reclaim 1,700 hectares of land. On the foundation's Facebook page, the short film received over a thousand angry emojis in less than a day, which later rose to about 3,300, roughly the same as the number of likes, and there were over a thousand comments. Some netizens dug up old news: more than a month earlier, he had just become an ambassador for the Ocean Park Conservation Foundation, helping to promote the use of no plastic straws. Netizens said that the straws everyone saved would be just enough for him to reclaim land.
Hong Kong people used to love calling him the "People's Chief Executive." This nickname was a compliment, originating from a movie. In 2003, Sandra Ng filmed "Golden Chicken 2." The final scene was set in 2046, where Andy Lau appeared, having been re-elected as Chief Executive of Hong Kong for eight consecutive terms, promising citizens free medical care, free education, and no taxes for life. During the 2012 Chief Executive election, a social networking site held an entertainment poll asking netizens who they wanted to be Chief Executive, and Andy Lau received 32% of the vote, ranking first. Since Hong Kong people could not elect the Chief Executive, they regarded this popular star as the Chief Executive in their hearts.
This time, many people online said that he had broken his own image as the "People's Chief Executive." Comments appeared one after another, and the most common two words were: "What a pity." Andy Lau only said one sentence to the English-language South China Morning Post, stating that the voice-over was voluntary and that he felt the proposal was positive and pragmatic. The foundation came out to explain for him, saying that he had carefully read the research materials beforehand and that he had lived in the wooden hut areas of Diamond Hill as a child, having a personal understanding of the housing problems of the poor.
On October 10, Carrie Lam mentioned him at the policy address press conference. She said that the criticism of Andy Lau online was very unfair, that she admired his courage to express his opinions, and she wished his concert at the end of the year success. She said that she and Andy Lau were from the same generation and both came from grassroots backgrounds. On October 20, Carrie Lam mentioned him again at a seminar at the University of Hong Kong, saying that both she and Andy Lau had recently become targets of cyberbullying. Current affairs commentator Chung Kim-wah said that public figures being criticized does not count as being bullied. Legislative Council member Claudia Mo retorted, asking who exactly was bullying whom.
At the end of 2018, Andy Lau held twenty concerts at the Hong Kong Coliseum. December 28 was the fourteenth show. He sang three songs, stopped, and said he really couldn't sing anymore. The fans in the audience shouted: Andy, don't cry. He had caught the flu, and the remaining seven shows were all canceled. In January of the following year, the Hong Kong Leisure and Cultural Services Department did not approve his request to reschedule the shows for the end of the year, and about 80,000 fans had to get refunds. He told his fans that he looked forward to seeing them on stage next time. The next time he was under the spotlight of all of Hong Kong was in the summer of 2019. In June 2019, in order to oppose the amendment of the Fugitive Offenders Ordinance, millions of people in Hong Kong took to the streets one after another; this was the Anti-Extradition Law Amendment Bill Movement. By July and August, the street conflicts became increasingly intense.
I told him that the Hong Kong entertainment industry began to take sides. On June 30, Tony Leung, Alan Tam, and Kenny Bee appeared at a rally supporting the police. On August 4, Jackie Chan, Jordan Chan, William Chan, and Jackson Wang reposted "I am a flag bearer" on Weibo. Andy Lau was not on these lists. On the same day, August 4, Andy Lau's manager announced that the fan birthday party originally scheduled for August 24 was canceled. The manager only said it was because of some issues. Newspapers in Singapore and Malaysia noticed that he had not said a single word about this movement.
Three days later, on August 7, the National Film Administration announced the suspension of mainland films and personnel from participating in that year's Golden Horse Awards in Taiwan, without giving a reason. It was widely believed that this was related to the previous year. At the 2018 Golden Horse Awards ceremony, Taiwanese director Fu Yue said she hoped Taiwan would be treated as an independent entity. The stars from the mainland in the audience did not even attend the celebration banquet that night. Once the Film Administration's ban was issued, four Hong Kong co-productions that had already signed up withdrew, one of which was "The White Storm 2: Drug Lords," starring Andy Lau and Louis Koo. The withdrawal was a decision made by the film companies; Andy Lau himself did not say a word. He spent his birthday that year on stage during his concert tour in Singapore, with over 10,000 fans.
On May 28, 2020, the National People's Congress passed a decision to formulate a national security law for Hong Kong. The next day, a joint statement was issued, signed by 2,605 people from the Hong Kong cultural and entertainment industry and 110 organizations, supporting the NPC's prompt legislation. Leading the way were Jackie Chan, Alan Tam, Eric Tsang, and Emperor Group boss Albert Yeung. Many mainland netizens went to check this list and found that Jacky Cheung, Andy Lau, Aaron Kwok, and Leon Lai—the Four Heavenly Kings of Hong Kong—were none of them on it. Chow Yun-fat, Kelly Chen, and G.E.M. were also not on it. We did not find any reporters asking him why he did not sign. Andy Lau rarely appeared in public that year anyway. In June, he posted a twenty-minute video on his official website, saying that the concerts had been canceled repeatedly due to illness and the pandemic, and that he was at home accompanying his wife and daughter, learning to draw online with his daughter. On June 30, the Hong Kong National Security Law took effect.
In August 2020, someone broke down the changes in Andy Lau over these years. His name is Joshua Wong. During the 2014 Occupy Central movement, he was one of the student leaders at the forefront; he was only seventeen. Joshua Wong said that Andy Lau's voice-over for the land reclamation plan in 2018 was an endorsement for Tung Chee-hwa, Vice Chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference. He had shifted from his 2014 stance to Beijing's side. More than three months later, Joshua Wong was detained. To this day, he has been in prison for nearly six years.
On the evening of June 26, 2021, at 7:00 PM, the CCTV Variety Channel aired a special program called "A Tribute to the Century—A Large-scale Symphonic Poem and Painting Celebrating the 100th Anniversary of the Founding of the Communist Party of China." The program used fourteen artworks to string together four exhibition halls. In the fourteenth segment, Andy Lau and Na Ying sang "Pearl of the Orient." He wore a suit, Na Ying wore a cheongsam, and the two stood on the left and right with the night view of Shanghai in the background. The painting displayed during this segment was an oil painting titled "1997: Hong Kong Defense Handover." The next segment was Zhang Yixing singing "Song of the Seven Sons." When Hong Kong returned in 1997, Andy Lau and Na Ying had sung this song together on CCTV. Four years later, the two swapped the order of their singing and the colors of their clothes from that year.
Variety magazine in the United States noted that during the 1997 event, the audience scanned by the camera waved both national flags and Hong Kong flags; this time, the stage was filled entirely with national flags, without a single regional flag. That night, Andy Lau was the biggest star in the show, yet on Weibo, he only trended for a single search.
Half a year later, on December 31, 2021, the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference held a New Year tea party in the CPPCC auditorium. Xi Jinping, Li Keqiang, Wang Yang, Wang Huning, Zhao Leji, Han Zheng, and Wang Qishan all sat in the audience. As usual, Xinhua News Agency's official report only had one line: cultural workers performed wonderful programs, and finally the whole audience sang together "Unity is Strength," without listing a program. In photos taken by mainland netizens, Andy Lau wore a burgundy suit and combed his hair back. Alongside Taiwan singer Angela Chang and others, he sang a rendition of "The Bund of the Orient" on stage. That night, Angela Chang posted on Weibo that this was a performance of great significance. Andy Lau was not a member of the CPPCC; that day, he was invited to perform. He did not sign the joint petition for the national security law. A year later, he attended the gala celebrating the centenary of the founding of the Party. Half a year later, he stood once again before the seven members of the Politburo Standing Committee. Signing is a political statement; up in the imperial court, singing an old song for the top echelons of the CCP is far more than just a simple commercial performance.
A true
can have a Hong Kong identity
and say to everyone, I am Chinese. In June 2022, on the eve of the 25th anniversary of Hong Kong's return, Xinhua News Agency published an exclusive interview titled simply "Andy Lau the Chinese." The article wrote about his birth in a rural area of Tai Po, returning from overseas
before leaving the country, frequently asked by scholars whether he was British, and wrote about how he stood on the Great Wall in 1997 singing "Chinese," and how these years he has promoted the integration of Hong Kong and mainland cinema. Words, he said he could earnestly say to everyone, I am Chinese. This person. This exclusive interview was reprinted in full by the official website of the Liaison Office. A few weeks later, at the gala for the 25th anniversary of the handover on July 1, he, Nicholas Tse, and William Chan sang "Chinese" together, topping Weibo's trending search list.
On January 29, 2024, the China Film Association held its 11th National Congress in Beijing. In its own introduction, the China Film Association writes very clearly: it is a people's organization led by the Chinese Communist Party, and a bridge and bond connecting the Party and the government with the film community. Big belt. The congress elected new leadership, with Chen Daoming as chairman, and twelve vice chairmen including Wu京, Huang Bo, Guo Fan, and Andy Lau. He is the only Hongkonger among the twelve. In photos of the venue taken by Hong Kong reporters, he wore a black suit and white shirt, smiling as he voted, with Wu Jing walking behind him. He Jing. He held the 80-year-old actor Li Xuejian, like a student supporting a teacher. Master. On the night following the closing of the congress, he entered Dong Yuhui's livestreaming room together with director Ning Hao. Speaking about his election, he expressed hope that Hong Kong cinema would further align with the mainland.
Half a year later, on July 1, the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region government awarded him the Silver Bauhinia Star. The citation specifically noted his election as vice chairman of the China Film Association. In the summer of 2024, he launched a concert tour. From July 5 to September 9, he held thirty-six consecutive shows across eight cities in the mainland, with a total attendance of about 360,000. Hong Kong's Coliseum only scheduled twenty shows, waiting until the end of the year. On those four nights in Chengdu, 52,000 people attended, with 65 percent coming from out of town. The Chengdu municipal government announced that these four nights drove consumption of 300 million yuan, with each audience member spending an average of over ten thousand yuan.
That autumn, the tour arrived in Taipei. Originally scheduled to perform four consecutive shows at the Taipei Arena starting October 31. However, Super Typhoon Kong-rey struck Taiwan, and the show on the 31st was called off by the venue management, rescheduled to noon on November 2. On the 2nd, he performed two shows in a single day. The real premiere was on the evening of November 1. As soon as he took the stage, he said, It's been eleven years, I've missed you. The audience shouted back, missing. Shouted, wanting to sing until the tenth song, a giant dragon was danced behind him, and the big screen in the background was covered in simplified Chinese characters. He sang "Chinese." This song is a fixed repertoire for his tour this time, scheduled as the tenth song at every stop, sung both in the mainland and in Taipei.
Legislator Wang Ting-yu of the Democratic Progressive Party posted online, first scolding the organizers for holding a concert even on a typhoon day and disregarding the safety of the staff, and then stating that Andy Lau stood with a pro-CCP stance on issues such as the anti-extradition bill movement in Hong Kong and military threats against Taiwan, and was also the vice chairman of the China Film Association, making him not worth a single glance. Another DPP legislator, Wang Yi-chuan, said this was a very Chinese design, and added that he had never heard this song before. Taiwanese netizens quickly dug up that the lyricist of "Chinese" and the composer Chen Yaochuan are both from Taiwan.
On November 1, Chiu Chui-cheng, chairman of the Mainland Affairs Council, stated that after review, Andy Lau had made no remarks harming Taiwan, so he was approved to perform according to procedure. Premier Cho Jung-tai said that culture and art are best without political stance. That same day, Wang Ting-yu changed his tune, saying that pro-communism aside, that was their country's business.
Beijing did not let the matter stop there. On the night of November 2, CCTV Video posted on Weibo saying that Andy Lau sang out the pride of the Chinese people. On mainland Weibo, some netizens left comments calling him Comrade Lau, saying that united front propaganda still has to rely on him. November 3 was the last show in Taipei. He asked the audience, it is the last show, will you miss me? The fans in the audience spelled out words with light boards, and he burst into tears on the spot. Two days later, CCTV released an image card with the matching text We are all Chinese, calling on netizens to relay and repost it. On November 13, the Taiwan Affairs Office of the State Council held a regular press conference, and an official reporter specifically asked about Andy Lau. Spokesperson Zhu Fenglian criticized him, using the titles of six songs in one breath in her response: Chinese People, Descendants of the Dragon, Chinese Heart, Chinese Language, China in the Lights, and Love My China.
A year later, on the night of November 9, 2025, the 15th National Games opened in Guangzhou. At 8:43, Xi Jinping announced the opening of the games. Tens of minutes later, 15 giant kapok flowers rose into mid-air, and Andy Lau walked onto the stage wearing a white Tang suit to lead the singing of Chinese People. Behind him, only the theme song of the opening ceremony remained. More than a month later, the brand theme song Extraordinary for Huawei's Ultima brand was launched, sung by brand ambassador Andy Lau.
At this time, the anti-epidemic movie he finished shooting five years ago was still sitting in the archive without being released. On February 23, 2020, one month after the lockdown of Wuhan, Andy Lau's fan club posted a new song on Weibo called I Know. The song was an anti-epidemic song from Fujian, and he rewrote the lyrics to sing it. In the music video, most of the footage shows the departure of the medical team from Fujian aiding Hubei. That same month, Wuhan doctor Li Wenliang died of COVID-19 infection. More than a month earlier, he had been reprimanded by the police for warning classmates in a WeChat group about a disease similar to SARS, accused of spreading false statements. That autumn, Shenzhen started filming an anti-epidemic movie titled Fighting Epidemic Angels, directed by Herman Yau, who directed The Shock Wave, and the producers included the state-owned China Film Co., Ltd. On November 22, some netizens ran into Andy Lau on the streets of Shenzhen wearing protective suits and medical caps while filming. In December, the film wrapped up, having taken only a little over a month to shoot. By then, Wuhan had been out of lockdown for more than half a year. The filmmakers probably thought this film could be released soon.
Over the next two years, the epidemic did not end, and the zero-COVID policy became increasingly strict. In the spring of 2022, Hong Kong's fifth wave of the epidemic broke out, and Andy Lau was in the mainland shooting Ning Hao's The Movie Emperor. He posted a video on his official website thanking the frontline epidemic prevention workers and telling the people of Hong Kong to wear masks well and reduce gatherings. His foundation bought 2,000 packs of rapid test kits and sent them to community centers in Hong Kong. That spring, too many people died in Hong Kong. At the end of February, the Hospital Authority announced that the public hospital mortuaries were full, and dozens of remains could only be left in the emergency room waiting to be transported away. In early March, according to statistics from the website Our World in Data, Hong Kong's COVID-19 mortality rate was the highest in the world. Most of those who died were elderly people over 70, and at that time, only 30% of elderly people over 80 had finished their vaccinations. By mid-March, the queue at funeral homes was booked until April. By late April, this wave of the epidemic killed more than 9,000 people in Hong Kong. On March 17, Andy Lau's godfather, Lau Shan-mook, died of COVID-19 infection at the age of 95. His daughter, actress Alice Lau, later told Hong Kong media that at that time it was corpses piled on top of corpses, and not even a single coffin could be found. Andy Lau was not in Hong Kong, but he used his connections to find a coffin and asked someone to help handle the funeral arrangements. On April 3, the old man's funeral was held at the Hong Kong World Funeral Parlor.
That year, Shanghai was locked down for two months. At the end of the year, a building in Urumqi caught fire, killing ten people inside and triggering protests across the country, which later came to be called the White Paper Movement. The zero-COVID policy subsequently ended. Fighting Epidemic Angels was never released. In May 2023, the title White-Clothed Retrograders appeared in the filing records of the National Film Administration. In August 2025, there was news that it was scheduled for release on August 23, but there was no follow-up afterwards and no explanation was given. In April 2026, in the annual report of China Film Co., Ltd., the 18th item on the film list read: White-Clothed Retrograders, feature film, unreleased. In October of this year, it was finally scheduled for release. The trailer was titled Seventy Days and Nights, and the promotional slogan read, Seventy-six days, ten million people, life or death on the line. There was also another line at the end, Use a movie to properly say goodbye to the past. Andy Lau played a medical professor in the film, and together with his doctor wife played by Yang Zishan, rushed to the frontline in Wuhan.
After the release date was set, under a Weibo post asking for a reason to watch it, someone replied that they guessed only Andy Lau's fans would go see it. There was another comment saying that because they had experienced it, they didn't want to watch it. On Douban, someone wrote five characters: "The event has expired." The movie won't be released until November 6th. Whether the film includes Li Wenliang, who was reprimanded, or the Wuhan residents who shouted "It's fake!" at the central inspection delegation, is currently unknown; none of this is mentioned in the promotional materials. His agency has already announced that there are no plans for mainland concerts in 2026. He himself said that after finishing his concert tour in 2028, he wants to be a real director for once.
We have talked about Zhang Yimou before; he went from being a banned director to the chief director of the Olympic opening ceremony. Andy Lau took a different path; he was never banned. After that phone call in 1989, he still went to the Great Wall to sing and still appeared on the Spring Festival Gala. In 2014, he was not among the artists named by the Communist Youth League. In 2019, he didn't say a word. He did not sign the petition for the National Security Law in 2020. We searched through all the public information we could find and did not find him criticizing Hong Kong protesters, nor did we find him saying he supported the National Security Law. The only thing he handed over was the phrase "I am Chinese." He has been singing this for nearly thirty years, from the Great Wall in 1997 to the National Games last year. For Beijing, this is more useful than a signature. When Jackie Chan comes out to shout slogans, everyone knows it's a political statement. Andy Lau sang "Chinese People" in Taipei, and tens of thousands of people in the audience sang along. Not two days later, CCTV used this incident for propaganda against Taiwan, and the Taiwan Affairs Office spoke up for him at a press conference. The rewards Andy Lau received are obvious: thirty-six concerts in the mainland, Vice Chairman of the Film Association, Silver Bauhinia Star, and lead singer at the National Games opening ceremony. The cost has also begun to appear. In 2018, Hong Kong netizens said he had shattered his image as the "unofficial Chief Executive." In 2024, a Taiwanese legislator called him a pro-CCP artist. This October, under the trailer where he wears a white coat, mainland netizens left comments commemorating Li Wenliang.
Seven years ago, his voice reached Happy Valley over the phone; that day, hundreds of thousands of Hong Kong people were singing for the students in Beijing. This November, he will be in the cinema, taking mainland audiences through those seventy-six days in Wuhan all over again.
That's all for today. If this episode is valuable to you, please like, turn on the notification bell, and share. You are also welcome to subscribe to this channel. Friends who are able can join as members to support our small channel. I am Yao Yao Jiang, who loves to think and values logic. See you in the next episode.