Jackie Chan in CCTV New Year's Gala (Photo : CCTV+/YouTube)
Is Jackie Chan’s star waning at age 62? After his last movie, “Railroad Tigers,” yielded unimpressive box-office results be earning only $71.4 million during its first 10 days of showing in Chin and got ratings of 6.1 in IMDB and 5.2 in Rotten Tomatoes out of 10, now his performance at the CCTV New Year’s Gala also got mixed reviews.
What’s on Weibo named Jackie Chan and Dancing Pineapples as the worst dancing and singing performance at the CCTV New Year’s Gala on Friday. The website described his rendition of the song, accompanied by sign language, as “somewhat cringeworthy.”
Sign Language
Jackie Chan and students from the mainland, Taiwan, Hong Kong and ethnic minority groups stood in front of a very large Chinese flag while singing “Nation.” The use of sign language got the approval of netizens, but since their number came after viewers had seen a lot of big flags, dancing minorities and China’s message of national unity, their song was seen as another opportunity to spread the communist propaganda.
But some netizens like the performance by Jackie Chan. Some even wrote that it was their favorite act that night celebrating Chinese New Year.
The website also cited singers Lay and Boran Jing for the performance of “Being Healthy Song” wherein they wore tiger suits and dance and swung as pineapples and mushrooms. The worst song act, according to social media comments was Han Hong’s song “Millenial Night.” She is a songwriter who has mixed Han and Tibetan ethnicity and very popular on Weibo with more than 13 million followers. However, her lip-synching the song caused Han Hong to be the butt of online jokes.
Too Nationalistic
Since the government-owned station has been airing the New Year’s Gala since 1983. However, it has always been criticized for praising the Communist party and being too nationalistic. Deutsche Welle noted that the night’s main celebration were the 11 Chinese astronaut who placed their hands in clay molds which would be displayed later in a museum.
