Badvertising: Jackie Chan’s Woolworths Ad

For years, western celebrities have been able to make a quick buck by flying to Asia and making shameful adverts that they hope nobody will ever see.

That’s all a bit one-sided, which is why we should rejoice to the heavens the fact that Asian megastar Jackie Chan has decided to come to England to make his own shameful advert, this time for Woolworths.

Jackie Chan’s taste has always been questionable to say the least - not only does he have a Hasselhoffian collection of sincere pop CDs to his name, but he also thought The Tuxedo was a decent career endeavour. But nothing Jackie Chan has ever done really comes close to the sheer brain-denting craptitude of his Woolworths advert.

The thing we can’t get our heads around is that at no point did Jackie Chan or any of his people decide that the Woolworths ad was a bad idea. Not when Jackie Chan realised that he’d be starring opposite two animal puppets that looked like they were sewn together by a blind, web-fingered sweatshop orphan. Not when he realised the script made zero sense whatsoever. Not even when he realised that he’d be kissing his credibility goodbye in an advert to promote some 70p T-shirts.

It just doesn’t add up, which is why we think one of the following has happened: 1) Jackie Chan has fallen on really, really hard times, 2) That’s actually a copyright-infringing Jackie Chan double in the advert or 3) The CEO of Woolworths has Jackie Chan’s children tied up in a basement somewhere. Whichever one is true, Jackie Chan should be proud that we haven’t lost so much faith in a celebrity so quickly since, well, since ever.