“[But I think that] it is the power of the company, instead of Chan’s representation that decides the life and death of a business.”

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Dong’s comments came after Chinese media suggested Chan had proved to be a curse for mainland manufacturers’ brands because a number of companies had struggled after he represented them.

Chan, a well-known film star in China and around the world, has been a popular spokesman for mainland brands for years – endorsing a wide range of products from DVD players, shampoo to motor vehicles.

However, it appears that Chan has not brought the same level of success to all the businesses he represented to match his box-office clout in hit films such as both the Rush Hour and Kung Fu Panda series and The Karate Kid.

In one of the most high-profile examples quoted in the mainland media reports, BaWang, a herbal shampoo and hair-care brand that Chan first advertised in 2008, suffered a drop in sales after Hong Kong-based Next Magazine claimed in 2010 that using its products could cause cancer.

The accusation, although quickly denied by both BaWang International and China’s State Food and Drug Administration, was a blow to the Guangzhou-based company, whose revenues have continued to fall since then.

The latest figures issued by BaWang show that its sales dropped by 21 per cent in the first 11 months of last year compared with the same period the year before.

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The claims led to BaWang filing a HK$630 million defamation case against the magazine in Hong Kong. The verdict has yet to be given.

In 2011, food brand Synear, which produces savoury and glutinous sweet dumplings that Chan has promoted on the mainland, was ordered to pull one of its products off the shelves of stores after Beijing’s quality watchdog found traces of Staphylococcus aureus, which can cause painful skin infections.

Japanese car company Mitsubishi – which Chan has represented in China for years – said in February that it will recall more than 23,000 Pajero SUV vehicles on the mainland from September in response to safety concerns about its airbag inflators.

In the mid-1990s, Chan was hired to represent an educational computer-like machine, made by Guangdong company Subor Electronics Technology. But as market shrank, the company was split into four parts in 2004.

Dong said Gree Electric had spent more than 10 million yuan (HK$12 million) on hiring spokespeople to promote its products.

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Chan was replaced as the firm’s spokesman by Dong herself in 2014 – a move that Dong said would help to cut costs and allow more money to be invested in developing its own smartphone brand.

According to official figures, Gree’s revenues in 2010 increased by more than 40 per cent year on year after Chan was hired as a spokesman for the brand. It saw year-on-year increases of 37 per cent in 2011 and 19 per cent in 2013.