CJ7 (2008) Director - Stephen Chow: REVIEW
CJ7 (2008) Director - Stephen Chow Reviewed by: Darren Cenerini From Stephen Chow, the man who showed us that Shaolin monks can indeed play soccer, comes his first forray into the science fiction world, and it comes to us courtesy of an extraterrestrial mutt called CJ7. It's been four years since his last film, Kung Fu Hustle, was released, so it was high time that he and his crew got together and made a new film. As any Stephen Chow fan probably knows by now, the film is a comedy that has elements of cultures from different parts of the world. In this case, Stephen Chow has made a film that resembles Steven Spielberg's E.T. in theme and plot description, but in truth is a very different film. "We don't swear. We don't take what isn't ours, and we don't fight. We have our dignity". This is Ti's personal motto, which he has been teaching his only son Dicky since the day he was born. Ti is a poor construction worker, taking on the hardest jobs and the longest hours to provide food, housing and a good education for his son. Dicky (who is really the main character in the film, an odd change for a Stephen Chow film to not have himself as the main character) is generally fine with this, accepting that he has to wear shoddy sneakers his father has found for him in the local scrapyard, among other embarrassing quirks. However one day, the spoiled rich kid in Dicky's homeroom class brings CJ1, an advanced robot dog, to school. Dicky is immediately smitten with the toy, but his father cannot afford one for Dicky. Dicky makes a scene, and long story short his father goes scrounging for a toy to cheer his disappointed son up. Ti happens upon a mysterious, gelatinous green ball with a stem in the junkyard and brings it back for Dicky. Dicky unlocks the secret to the mysterious orb and is soon the proud owner of CJ7, an alien "dog" that looks like a combination of a Furby and Gumby. What follows is a series of life lessons for Dicky that all center around CJ7 and his sudden appearance into Dicky's otherwise normal (but unhappy) life. From the very first scene, the film was funny and lighthearted. Dicky, being a poor child, is often filthy by the time he arrives to school, much to the chagrin of his teacher Mr. Cao (played by Stephen Chow regular Shing-Cheung Lee). It's these sort of interactions between Dicky and his snobbish, upper class schoolmates that make most of the film's jokes work, especially during the incredibly long dream sequence near the middle of the film where Dicky, with the help of CJ7, exacts his revenge upon the teachers and schoolmates who've been bullying him. As usual, the characters are over the top versions of stereotypes (the mean boss, the paranoid clean freak teacher, etc) found in all of Chow's films, but it felt like everyone was right at home and comfortable with their roles. Jiao Xu, who plays Dicky is especially good in her body movement and delivery of punch lines, though there is a pivotal moment in the film where her performance had me laughing where I should have been feeling sad. No, that isn't a typo. Despite playing Chow's son, Jiao Xu is actually a little girl. This brings me to the other two negative points of the film. The first was the CG for CJ7 itself. For the most part it's good, especially when he is first "born". There's even some wide angle shots where he blends in quite well with the real world, but there are some scenes where the lovable little puff of fur and jello assumes a Kung Fu stance. These scenes are thankfully few and far between, as they are laughably bad and comparable to the "Dancing Baby" videos from a few years back. I'm not usually one to nitpick on things like this, but it was really out of place in certain scenes. My second complaint is the entire second half of the film. It's a mess. In a film about an extra terrestrial quadruped with magical powers that's supposedly come to keep a young boy company and teach him about love and life, there's surprisingly little of the titular character. It gets to the point where I actually forgot there was an alien creature being featured in this film. What's more is in typical Chow fashion, he spends too much time playing off of the comedy and then introduces a series of subplots and problems for the characters to overcome, only to have them either briefly mentioned once again in the film's conclusion, or have them quickly resolved in an "easiest way out" scenario. As an example, they very briefly touch on the romance factor with both Dicky and his father being interested in a female classmate and a gorgeous female teacher, respectively. And in both cases, these stories are mentioned once in a pretty random point in the film, and are never mentioned again until the final ten minutes of the film. If you're going to go through the trouble of even telling us about the love interest, shouldn't you elaborate on it a little more? Frankly we don't even know why our two bungling protagonists are interested in their loves at all. They just are. It's almost as if when writing the script someone reminded the writers that there should be a problem of some sort, so they quickly thought up a few ideas and then went back to writing the jokes. On the positive end of the spectrum, that's where the film truly shines. It's been a long time since I've laughed as hard as I did during CJ7. There's some wonderful slapstick contained in the film, as well as some genuinely hilarious conversations and situations. There's also quite a bit of self referencing, as recreations of scenes from Shaolin Soccer and Kung Fu Hustle are present. I guarantee that anyone who's seen Kung Fu Hustle will find the recreation of the famous "Buddha's Palm" scene quite funny. Stephen Chow fans will spot the familiar faces everywhere in the movie, and they'll easily spot the recurring themes as well (poverty, the "disfigured" or "different" female character, etc), which is always nice to see when the cast is as funny as these actors and actresses are. What I also found to be quite enjoyable was the very last shot of the film, which like it or not had me cheering and laughing, and I suspect will have that same effect on many others. All things aside, I can easily say I enjoyed CJ7 quite a bit. It's certainly not the best Stephen Chow film, but it is quite good and I'd recommend it to any avid fan of Asian cinema, or to any fan of Stephen Chow's. Although I did not enjoy the story for the second half of the film, the humor was consistent, which in a Stephen Chow film, is really what counts. While not as funny as God of Cookery, or entertaining as Shaolin Soccer, it does it's job at being a funny, family oriented comedy.
CJ7 (2008) Director - Stephen Chow Reviewed by: Darren Cenerini From Stephen Chow, the man who showed us that Shaolin monks can indeed play soccer, comes his first forray into the science fiction world, and it comes to us courtesy of an extraterrestrial mutt called CJ7. It's been four years since his last film, Kung Fu Hustle, was released, so it was high time that he and his crew got together and made a new film. As any Stephen Chow fan probably knows by now, the film is a comedy that has elements of cultures from different parts of the world. In this case, Stephen Chow has made a film that resembles Steven Spielberg's E.T. in theme and plot description, but in truth is a very different film. "We don't swear. We don't take what isn't ours, and we don't fight. We have our dignity". This is Ti's personal motto, which he has been teaching his only son Dicky since the day he was born. Ti is a poor construction worker, taking on the hardest jobs and the longest hours to provide food, housing and a good education for his son. Dicky (who is really the main character in the film, an odd change for a Stephen Chow film to not have himself as the main character) is generally fine with this, accepting that he has to wear shoddy sneakers his father has found for him in the local scrapyard, among other embarrassing quirks. However one day, the spoiled rich kid in Dicky's homeroom class brings CJ1, an advanced robot dog, to school. Dicky is immediately smitten with the toy, but his father cannot afford one for Dicky. Dicky makes a scene, and long story short his father goes scrounging for a toy to cheer his disappointed son up. Ti happens upon a mysterious, gelatinous green ball with a stem in the junkyard and brings it back for Dicky. Dicky unlocks the secret to the mysterious orb and is soon the proud owner of CJ7, an alien "dog" that looks like a combination of a Furby and Gumby. What follows is a series of life lessons for Dicky that all center around CJ7 and his sudden appearance into Dicky's otherwise normal (but unhappy) life. From the very first scene, the film was funny and lighthearted. Dicky, being a poor child, is often filthy by the time he arrives to school, much to the chagrin of his teacher Mr. Cao (played by Stephen Chow regular Shing-Cheung Lee). It's these sort of interactions between Dicky and his snobbish, upper class schoolmates that make most of the film's jokes work, especially during the incredibly long dream sequence near the middle of the film where Dicky, with the help of CJ7, exacts his revenge upon the teachers and schoolmates who've been bullying him. As usual, the characters are over the top versions of stereotypes (the mean boss, the paranoid clean freak teacher, etc) found in all of Chow's films, but it felt like everyone was right at home and comfortable with their roles. Jiao Xu, who plays Dicky is especially good in her body movement and delivery of punch lines, though there is a pivotal moment in the film where her performance had me laughing where I should have been feeling sad. No, that isn't a typo. Despite playing Chow's son, Jiao Xu is actually a little girl. This brings me to the other two negative points of the film. The first was the CG for CJ7 itself. For the most part it's good, especially when he is first "born". There's even some wide angle shots where he blends in quite well with the real world, but there are some scenes where the lovable little puff of fur and jello assumes a Kung Fu stance. These scenes are thankfully few and far between, as they are laughably bad and comparable to the "Dancing Baby" videos from a few years back. I'm not usually one to nitpick on things like this, but it was really out of place in certain scenes. My second complaint is the entire second half of the film. It's a mess. In a film about an extra terrestrial quadruped with magical powers that's supposedly come to keep a young boy company and teach him about love and life, there's surprisingly little of the titular character. It gets to the point where I actually forgot there was an alien creature being featured in this film. What's more is in typical Chow fashion, he spends too much time playing off of the comedy and then introduces a series of subplots and problems for the characters to overcome, only to have them either briefly mentioned once again in the film's conclusion, or have them quickly resolved in an "easiest way out" scenario. As an example, they very briefly touch on the romance factor with both Dicky and his father being interested in a female classmate and a gorgeous female teacher, respectively. And in both cases, these stories are mentioned once in a pretty random point in the film, and are never mentioned again until the final ten minutes of the film. If you're going to go through the trouble of even telling us about the love interest, shouldn't you elaborate on it a little more? Frankly we don't even know why our two bungling protagonists are interested in their loves at all. They just are. It's almost as if when writing the script someone reminded the writers that there should be a problem of some sort, so they quickly thought up a few ideas and then went back to writing the jokes. On the positive end of the spectrum, that's where the film truly shines. It's been a long time since I've laughed as hard as I did during CJ7. There's some wonderful slapstick contained in the film, as well as some genuinely hilarious conversations and situations. There's also quite a bit of self referencing, as recreations of scenes from Shaolin Soccer and Kung Fu Hustle are present. I guarantee that anyone who's seen Kung Fu Hustle will find the recreation of the famous "Buddha's Palm" scene quite funny. Stephen Chow fans will spot the familiar faces everywhere in the movie, and they'll easily spot the recurring themes as well (poverty, the "disfigured" or "different" female character, etc), which is always nice to see when the cast is as funny as these actors and actresses are. What I also found to be quite enjoyable was the very last shot of the film, which like it or not had me cheering and laughing, and I suspect will have that same effect on many others. All things aside, I can easily say I enjoyed CJ7 quite a bit. It's certainly not the best Stephen Chow film, but it is quite good and I'd recommend it to any avid fan of Asian cinema, or to any fan of Stephen Chow's. Although I did not enjoy the story for the second half of the film, the humor was consistent, which in a Stephen Chow film, is really what counts. While not as funny as God of Cookery, or entertaining as Shaolin Soccer, it does it's job at being a funny, family oriented comedy.