There is probably no way you can remake Ebola Syndrome. Certainly not in Hong Kong.

For starters, any movie where the protagonist screwed someone’s wife, got beaten up by the husband, urinated on by same wife, then lost it and massacred everyone while the daughter was watching, is not going to fare well with today’s investors.

Not to mention pouring gasoline on said daughter and trying to burn her alive, all within the first seven minutes of this abomination.

Horrendous as it is, such depiction of sex and brutality still fell within the tolerance of censors. At least that’s the case in the old days. Sadly, since last year’s government crackdown on democratic dissent, freedom of expression in Hong Kong has never been the same.

A recent incident involving the Caped Crusader might help shed some light: October last year, organizers of a screening of The Dark Knight received a notice from The Hong Kong Government Office for Film, Newspaper and Article Administration, deeming the movie too violent for outdoor viewing. Ironically enough, parts of Nolan’s sequel were actually shot in Hong Kong with cooperation from the authorities, who at the time saw it as positive PR.

However, to say that Ebola Syndrome has become taboo because of obscenity and gore would merely be scratching the surface.

Surely, an anti-hero plagued with deadly disease spitting venom at innocent bystanders is not the best idea during the pandemic. Especially when Hong Kong has just abolished strict hygiene policies: back then facemasks was a must, restaurants had seating limits and the infected were banned from public areas through a surveillance app in everyone’s phone. But hypochondriasis is just the zeitgeist of our times, commonly shared by the West World. This alone just couldn’t explain why a remake of this film would be dreaded by China.

To solve our little mystery, perhaps we should listen to “Ah Kai” himself. On February 1, 2020, right after the World Health Organization declared Covid an international emergency, actor Anthony Wong wrote on his Facebook page: “It’s looking more and more like Ebola Syndrome (the film I made). Hup gau ngo.”

Wong, of course, played the lead in the film and “hup gau ngo” was his catchphrase, which roughly translates to “dicking me around”. This Cantonese profanity was uttered a dozen times in the movie and has since become a popular quote. According to the director Herman Yau, it also embodies the theme of his film, though what that is exactly he wouldn’t say.

So what does it all mean? And why is that political taboo?