Shen Teng plays a "paper man" in "Hotel Transylvania", netizens question false advertising

On March 19, eight new films were released in the Chinese mainland film market. The comedy "Hotel Impossible" which was said to have a special appearance by Shen Teng attracted a lot of attention. However, a few days later, the film's score on Douban was 3.0, with almost all one-star negative reviews.

The comedy "Hotel Transylvania" is directed by Feng Yiping, Liu Junmeng, and Hao Xinyue, starring Huang Cailun, Zhang Huiwen, He Zijun, Gao Ye, Zhang Chen, Sun Zhenni, Tao Hai, and Shen Teng as a special guest. During the promotion process, the film crew has always emphasized that Shen Teng is a special guest, and Shen Teng's name is also placed after the two leading actors Huang Cailun and Zhang Huiwen in the poster.

The box office of Hotel Transylvania on its first weekend was over 17 million, as many viewers said they were tricked into going to the theater by the "special guest appearance" of Shen Teng. It turned out that Shen Teng played a paper alien from outer space, and his body was just a human-shaped stand. All the shots together only lasted 2 minutes. There were no lines, no real person appearances, and the "Teng content" could be said to be 0.

Netizens joked that "Shen Teng redefines special performance", and the topic immediately became a hot search. Some people said: "Refund the ticket money!" "What the hell? The acting is awkward and the plot is speechless" "Isn't it too much to suspect false advertising?"

Others angrily expressed: "The amount of Teng is so low that you have to use a microscope to find it, so don't push him out to sell dog meat under the guise of sheep meat." "I can assume that Shen Teng sent a group of photos to the crew after taking them, and then the props team made a card and then made a 'guest appearance' in this movie."

Recently, "Hotel Transylvania" director Liu Junmeng issued an apology. Regarding the incident that "Shen Teng's special appearance was actually just a few photos", he said, "Mr. Shen Teng's guest appearance was based on our many years of friendship. He originally wanted to show it in the form of an easter egg. His role was very small and was by no means a leading actor as misleadingly stated in the publicity." This Weibo post is no longer visible.

In his apology letter, the director wrote that he had repeatedly mentioned this to the producer and distribution team, who were fully aware that "perhaps out of a desire for box office revenue, they chose to exercise Party A's final decision-making power, ignoring our opinions and going their own way." The promoter of Hotel Transylvania has not yet responded to the incident.

Some lawyers believe that, judging from the comments of netizens, Shen Teng himself did not actually appear in the film, but only appeared in the film as a human-shaped stand, that is, the publicity claimed that he appeared in the film, but he did not actually appear in the film, so the film producer is suspected of false publicity. "The film producer should adhere to the principles of objectivity and truth when promoting the film. If Shen Teng did not personally participate in the film, it should not be divorced from reality and mislead consumers into thinking that a 'traffic star' participated in the film and use this as a publicity gimmick."

The lawyer pointed out that the film producers promote the film through official (micro) websites and other channels in the form of posters, pictures, texts, etc. This behavior should generally be regarded as advertising behavior in law. If it constitutes false advertising, it should be handled in accordance with the provisions of the Advertising Law.