Hongkong actress Sharon Chan has been dropped from upcoming drama Flying Tiger 3 after an old Instagram Story of hers resurfaced. Last November, the actress had posted a drawing that showed two children wearing black T-shirts, yellow hard hats and face masks. One of the kids is being embraced by a Christ-like figure while the words ‘Child, are you tired? Come to me!’ runs across the top of the pic.

Her posting of the drawing has been widely seen as her way of supporting the Hongkong independence movement protests, as the outfits the two children are wearing look a lot like the clothes that the protesters wore during the demonstrations. It's not known why Sharon's months-old IG Story has resurfaced again but Chinese netizens were outraged and demanded that the actress explain herself.

It was then reported that the actress had been dropped from the cast of the upcoming Flying Tiger 3. Even though she had attended the lensing ceremony of the drama last month, she's since been replaced by actress Alice Chan. When contacted by the media, Sharon denied that she was dropped from the show, instead saying that she “decided to pull out due to safety concerns and considerations for [her] son”. She attributed her decision to the “changing COVID-19 situation”, and declined responding to other questions that the media had about her social media post.

Alice was also approached to comment on the situation, but would only say that she was doing what TVB told her to do, and that she's “unsure of the details”.

Industry watchers have mentioned that the producers of the Flying Tiger franchise were likely to have been pressured to drop Sharon from the roster as the project is a collaboration between Shaw Brothers, which TVB owns, and Chinese streaming platform Youku. According to reports, there was a fear that Chinese netizens, who have since called for a boycott of any projects Sharon is involved in, could have ended up boycotting Flying Tiger 3 completely.

So considering that this issue arose before filming officially started, it would make more sense for them to replace Sharon with another actress, since they wouldn’t have to reshoot any of the scenes.

Photos: PBE Media