Talk about a reverse cultural takeover.

China Marvel held a fan event for Avengers: Infinity War at Shanghai Disneyland on Friday, April 20.

Hollywood darlings Robert Downey Jr, Tom Hiddleston, Tom Holland, and Mark Ruffalo, as well as directors Anthony and Joe Russo attended the event.

But instead of walking away from the event feeling starstruck, attendees are embarrassed and have been apologising profusely on behalf of China as it turned out to be an almost complete fiasco.

Avengers actors were sidelined

The list of complaints is long, which included issues such as being disorganised with a lack of crowd control.

But the core issue is the sidelining of the Marvel stars at their own event by unnecessary Chinese talent who had been pushed to take centre stage.

Chinese artistes take centre stage

According to Shanghaiist, although the Chinese fans had waited for hours -- many of them camped out overnight at Shanghai Disneyland -- they had to endure performances by Chinese talents who not only had nothing to do with Marvel, but also had little interest or knowledge of the Marvel films.

Throughout the event, the stars and the directors of the Marvel film stood by the side of the stage and clapped politely for the local stars, such as singers Joey Yung (容祖儿), Jane Zhang (张靓颖), Eason Chan (陈奕迅), Zhang Jie and Aaron Yan (炎亚纶).

However, fans did notice that Robert Downey Jr was visibly annoyed at being pushed to the side several times during the event.

The star had spent 50 minutes meeting Chinese fans and signed autographs for them on the red carpet before the event.

Fans horrified by Eason Chan's behaviour

Just when fans thought that things could not get any worse, Hong Kong singer Eason Chan had to top it all off with possibly the most cringe-worthy moment of the event.

During his speech, he said:

"What are they called? Superman? Oh, superheroes. Superhero, whatever."

While Chan spoke in Mandarin, the last two words were spoken in English.

The cultural divide was clear as the word "whatever" is considered annoying and too flippant in polite conversation.

After the event was over, Chan posted an apology on his Instagram page, but it was deleted shortly after.

Many fans were also irate at Chan's stealing of the centre position -- which they think should belong to Robert Downey Jr. -- while the Hollywood actors and directors were standing to the side.

[related_story]

Chinese fans flooded Robert Downey Jr's

Mortified Chinese fans later flooded Robert Downey Jr's Instagram post of the event with heartfelt apologies.

Many of them explained that China is "not all like this" and they hoped that the actor would come to China again.

They also took to Weibo, China's largest microblogging platform, and demanded the organiser, Marvel China, to apologise to the actors, causing the hashtag "Marvel China must apologise" to trend for the day.

Avengers: Infinity War opens in Singapore on April 25, and May 11 in China.