March 20, 2008

CJ7: A Story of a Boy and his Alien

Back in 2005, Stephen Chow's KUNG FU HUSTLE, was fantastic, fun, over the top and a great answer to the growing crop of films like MATRIX RELOADED in which extensive CGI and martial arts were coming together to give audiences more eye candy, often at the expense of creativity and enjoyment.

Chow's latest film, CJ7, according to the comedy auteur himself, draws inspiration from no less than Spielberg's classic boy and his alien flick E.T. Unfortunately, while the film contains plenty of the silly and somewhat surreal CGI antics that made his previous films so fun, CJ7 also makes frequent forays into cruelty and tragedy, that keep the film from springing into anything as cohesive as it's alien star's gooey green body.

In CJ7, Chow plays uneducated laborer Ti, who is struggling to send his son, Dicky, to an expensive private school so that the boy will have a good future. All the money Ti brings in goes to tuition, leaving him to scrounge around the dump for shoes, clothes, and even rotten apples for the boy. Dicky, naturally, feels extremely out of place at the school, where he is mercilessly teased by the other rich boys and even some of the teachers because of his poverty.

When a new robot toy dog is all the rage at school, Dicky dreams of getting one so he can show his classmates he's just as good as them. Ti of course can't afford the toy and presents his son with an strange glowing orb he finds at the dump. The orb turns into the titular CJ7, and Dicky is delighted to have something that will help him show off to the other kids at school. The subsequent events don't exactly match up to his expectations, and at this point the film hits a low point with surprisingly angry behavior from the boy and an extended poop joke.

While Chow definitely deserves credit for making some unexpected and definitely un-Hollywood choices for how his story unfolds and how his characters behave, these choices tend to undercut attempts to add a refreshing or edgy twist to the story. They leave the film feeling uneven and uncomfortable at times.

There are many elements that work well in the film. The film features a wonderful gender-bending performance by Chinese actress Xu Jiao as young Dicky. The young girl displays great energy and is thoroughly convincing as a rambunctious young boy. The CGI CJ7 initially seems a disturbing mishmash of green goo, furball, and big puppy dog eyes, but the creation's charm and evident love for his boy are winning and also extremely cute.

This movie definitely has several memorable moments, some very good and some very bad. It's not as purely enjoyable as Chow's previous films, however, it's still a decent effort and likely, some will appreciate the poop and misery of the film a bit more than others.

CJ7 opens today, March 21, 2008 at the Inwood