Actor Anthony Wong has apologized to fellow movie star Jackie Chan after a speech he made at the Hong Kong Film Awards on Sunday was interpreted by netizens and media outlets as an attack on Chan.
In his speech on Sunday, Wong appeared to make a veiled dig at comments made by Chan in March that there was no distinction between Hong Kong and Chinese films by musing seemingly sarcastically about the “surprise” that movies from the city continued to be made.
In a post published on Wong’s Facebook page on Monday — that was picked up by local media outlets today — the actor said the speech was intended to “cheer Hong Kong cinema on” and that his comments were misconstrued by netizens and media outlets.
“Hong Kong cinema has been dead for years and not because of a single person. I predicted the decline of Hong Kong cinema more than a decade ago, even so I wanted to use the opportunity to speak a few words of encouragement.”
He also addressed a conspiracy theory among netizens that a segment of his speech was censored.
Wong said his purportedly censored remarks — questioning whether particular fellow attendee “represents a Hong Kong movie or a Chinese movie” — were never said, and completely made up.
He pointed to the “Mandela Effect” — which refers to when someone remembers an event in a particular way but then discovers they remembered it all wrong — to describe the spread of the false remarks circulating online.
Wong also said his comments had been politicised, adding that although he has spoken openly about his political views, he does not support Hong Kong independence.
“In a few hours, the online media distorted the message, freely interpreted it, even added to it, forwarded an excerpt that never existed, and it evolved into a living ‘Mandela Effect’,” he said.
“I may be incompetent, but I would not insult a senior on a happy and serious occasion.”
Wong explained that he wrote the speech a week before the ceremony and did not know who would be attending.
Quoting a Chinese idiom about a misunderstanding that resulted in a Jin dynasty statesman being executed, Wong said: “Although I did not kill Boren, Boren died because of me. Here, I have to apologise to Big Brother Jackie Chan.”
For his part, Chan has not appeared to address the controversy. Though, the pair are known to hold differing political views, with Wong giving implicit support to the 2014 pro-democracy rallies and Chan a professed supporter of the central government, it hasn’t stopped them from collaborating in the past.
The pair teamed up for the 2003 martial arts comedy The Medallion, while Chan is listed as executive producer of House of Fury, another Hong Kong martial arts comedy film starring Wong.
Wong even appeared in a film with Chan’s son Jaycee Chan in a romcom called 2 Young.
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