People walk through a market crowded with shoppers in the Kowloon district of Hong Kong (Photo by ISAAC LAWRENCE / AFP) (AFP / Isaac Lawrence)

Hong Kong actor Liu Kai-chi reduced to selling clothes for a living? No, it's footage of him on the film set of an upcoming movie

This article is more than one year old.
Published on October 29, 2020 at 10:17
2 min read
By AFP Hong Kong

A video of Hong Kong actor Liu Kai-chi standing in a clothing booth has been viewed hundreds of thousands of times in Weibo, Facebook and Douyin posts that claim it shows Liu selling clothes for a living despite his successful acting career. The claim is false; the video actually shows Liu on the film set of an upcoming movie called Ladies Market.

The video was published on Weibo here on October 25, 2020. It has been viewed more than 18,000 times.

Screenshot captured on October 28, 2020, of the misleading Weibo post

The post’s simplified Chinese caption translates to English as: “#LiuKaichi# My God, it's really the TVB's golden supporting actor Liu Kai-chi. Why is he selling clothes now?”

Liu Kai-chi is a Hong Kong actor who has been working for Hong Kong broadcasting company TVB for decades.

The video has also been viewed hundreds of thousands of times alongside similar claims here, here and here on Weibo; here, here and here on Facebook; and here, here and here on Douyin, the Chinese version of video-sharing app TikTok.

The claim is false.

L&P Entertainment Ltd., the agency representing Liu, published a statement on Weibo here on October 26, 2020, saying the claim about the footage is false.

Screenshot of the Weibo statement

“Recently, some media platforms such as Douyin have seen posts about our artist Liu Kai-chi reduced to selling clothes on the street to make ends meet,” part of the traditional Chinese statement reads.

“We hereby declare that the video shows movie filming titbits. And film staff can be seen from the clip working nearby!”

A keyword search found that the scene shown in the footage is from Ladies Market, a Hong Kong film that has not been released. A trailer can be seen on YouTube here.

In the trailer, Liu can be seen wearing the same striped shirt that he is seen wearing in the footage shared in the misleading social media posts.

Below are four screenshots of the trailer showing Liu in the same shirt:

Screenshots of the trailer showing Liu in the same shirt

Signs seen in the footage shared in the misleading posts also show that the film set was located in Hong Kong’s Mong Kok neighbourhood. The exact location can be seen on Google Maps here.

Is there content that you would like AFP to fact-check? Get in touch.

E-mail