把台湾说成“国家”，《速度与激情9》主演深夜道歉丨John Cena apologizes for wrong remarks

导读 

《速度与激情9》在中国上映第五天票房已过9亿。然而这一数字如今极有可能面临戛然而止的风险，因为在5月24日夜间，“速9”主演之一的约翰塞纳被网友爆出言论不当。此前，约翰塞纳在中国台湾地区宣传电影时，将台湾说成“国家”，此言一出，满屏哗然。不少网友表示非常震惊，认为既然声称自己热爱中国，不会连台湾是中国一个省份都不知道。还有网友表示，能够站出来纠正自己的错误也是一种勇气，为此愿意继续支持他。

Fast & Furious 9 has made its debut in China after previously being delayed three times due to the pandemic. Today, the North American and European film markets are generally recessionary. The choice to premiere in China may have been a reluctant one, but it has set a record for a Hollywood blockbuster opening first in China.

The film grossed a whopping $317 million on its first day of release, and in five days of release, it has already grossed $900 million. So it seems that Universal Pictures made the right "bet". Meanwhile, John Cena, known to Chinese fans as the villain, is in big trouble.

When he was promoting the film in Taiwan previously, he referred to Taiwan as a country. "Taiwan is the first country to release this film......" said Cena, with no transliteration or paraphrasing in the process. Although he has many fans in China, he caused a lot of discontent with this statement.

As this spread on social media, John Cena was later made aware of his error so he apologized to Chinese netizens on the night of May 24, saying that he had done a lot of interviews to promote the film and that there was a mistake in one of them. He said he respected China and the Chinese people, so he was sorry for the mistake he made.

On May 24 at 15:10, Universal Pictures' official Weibo announced that Fast and Furious 9 had broken $900 million at the Chinese box office and also posted a photo of the two tough guys, Van Diesel and John Cena, as the main characters. But the subsequent revelation of John Cena's insulting remarks may have caused the film's producers a lot of trouble.

In stark contrast to its strong box office performance, Fast & Furious 9 has suffered the fastest word-of-mouth collapse of a film in the franchise's 20 year history. So far on Douban, nearly 80,000 fans have given the film a super low score of 5.5.

John Cena has been associated with China since his collaboration with Jackie Chan in the Hollywood blockbuster Project X-traction. Not only did he receive formal and systematic fight training in Tianjin, but he also learned Chinese as a matter of course, practicing Mandarin for five years in order to adapt to the Chinese culture and daily communication.

So, amidst all the praise from the media that his Chinese was "super smooth", John Cena's insulting remarks were confirmed. This double-standard operation is incomprehensible, as he used Chinese to promote his film but openly insulted China. Many Chinese fans and netizens have expressed their discontent by boycotting the film. Some others said they could take this apology and continue to support him because at least he admitted his remarks were wrong.

记者：商桢

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