Reporting from Beijing — Judging from billboards and television commercials in China, film star Jackie Chan has never met a product he wouldn’t endorse. Travel the country and you’ll see the Hong Kong native’s handsome visage hawking electric bikes, anti-virus software, even frozen dumplings.
But although the Chan name has translated to big bucks at the box office, not every product he touches turns to gold. In fact, when news broke last month that an anti- hair-loss shampoo he promoted allegedly contained carcinogens, Chinese cyberspace and media were buzzing about the “Jackie Chan curse.”
Consider the auto repair school that Chan plugged to aspiring Chinese mechanics: It became enmeshed in a diploma scandal. Another of his sponsors, a maker of video compact discs, went bankrupt and saw its manager jailed for fraud. An educational computer that Chan pitched to children called the Subor Learning Machine flopped. And a cola he quaffed named Fenhuang fizzled.
More recently, an air-conditioner brand that Chan promoted was hit by a report that one of its units exploded. Media wags couldn’t resist invoking the Jackie jinx.
“He has become the coolest spokesperson in history,” said an editorial in Oriental Guardian, a Nanjing newspaper. “A man who can destroy anything.”
Full story: Jackie Chan ‘curse’: Items Chan endorses sometimes fail big-time – latimes.com