CJ7 is the story of Ti Chow (Stephen Chow), a construction worker and widower. Ti is challenged both financially and emotionally in raising his 10 year old son Dickey played by the charming actress Jiao Xu. The two are extremely poor, barely scraping by in a little shack, eating rotten food, and culling family items like shoes or appliances from the city dump. Despite this Ti insists that strong character and a good education will be the key that allows Dickey to move up in life and out of poverty.
Dickey has a difficult time in school largely due to his lack of resources. The other kids tease him, teachers shun him, and he’s excluded from school activities due to lack of proper supplies (i.e. uniform, and running shoes for P.E. class)
All of this changes when Ti discovers a cute cuddly space alien (imagine a snot-bugger mixed with a Furby and you have a sense of what it looks like) and offers it to his son as a pet. Wacky CGI-Alien effects based hilarity ensues – well sort of.
Part of what makes the film such a challenging and even disturbing viewing experience is the almost mean spirited path that the material follows from this point forward.
We watch cycle of dysfunctional behavior tumble down through the film at every level. No matter what Dickey does to please his father, he fails and ends up reprimanded, until he becomes ever more desperate and finally resorting to cheating on school exams and eventually running away from home.
This is echoed in Ti’s strained relationship with his boss. We see it again played out in the school yard with the kids trying to vie for either Teacher or peer approval. And again with the school counselor trying to guide Dickey and possibly court Ti romanticaly. Finally we see it played out in the relationship between Dickey and CJ7 (Dickey names the alien after a popular toy that his friends have) and climaxes with Dickey throwing his new friend in a dumpster and “stabbing him to death” (albeit with a half eaten banana that the starving boy continues to eat even while beating the poor animal).
This cycle of abuse seems to be the emotional core of the movie, and to be sure there are long stretches of the film that are painful to watch. This is partially due to the ambiguous nature of CJ7. Is it a gadget or a pet? Even though he is referred to continuously as a “high-tech toy” his characterization is so life-like adorable that it’s very difficult as an audience member to think of it as anything other than a small “fantastic space dog” (as Dickey refers to him).
Digging into a toy with a drill to find the battery compartment is one thing, but when it is squirming and whining like a hurt puppy that turns the event into a completely different scene.
Chow really plays up all of the tragic aspects of the story (for example a scene in which a father beats his child in a busy toy store) and part of the problem is how sincerely these scenes are played. Yet there is always the sense that the audience is being emotionally manipulated. The characters eventually overcome their differences and a happy ending is reached, but it never feels truly earned.
This isn’t to say that the film isn’t funny, Chow is known as a comedic filmmaker, and in this respect he doesn’t disappoint. The interactions between the children and teachers in Dickey’s school (particularly the 2 or 3 play ground scuffles) are hilarious and easily as inventive as anything in Shaolin Soccer or Kung-Fu Hustle. Additionally the scenes involving CJ7 working its magic are delightful and magical (my favorite being the interstellar instruction manual that Dickey is subjected to).
A great deal of credit must go out to the cast, the acting all round is excellent. Especially Jiao Xu as Dickey. Every moment with her on the screen is engrossing, and you really do want to root for Dickey even when he’s acting in a way that is ugly and hateful. The other children in the school are wonderfully characterized with much of the humor coming from the kids acting in an adult manner while the faculty acts childish. All of this is done in a blissfully over the top style and yet remains completely believable.
The film is well shot, Chow and cinematographer Hang-Sang Poon give us some genuinely poetic images, I was particularly impressed with the images of the skeletal skyscrapers that Ti works on, and a stoplight outside their little shack. The editing/pacing is good and the film never lags.
In the end, my main problem with the film is that I wouldn’t feel comfortable taking a young child (ostensibly the target audience) to this film because of the darker tones.
For example, one scene in particular really bothered me: SPOILER ALERT
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Near the end of the film, Ti is killed in a freak accident at the construction site. Although the scene involving the accident is handled very tastefully, the aftermath, in which the adults try to decide how to tell Dickey is stretched out way too long, and when the final realization comes to the small child, it is devastating and heart wrenching. But still Chow forces us to experience Dickey’s emotional meltdown in excruciating detail.
Jiao Xu does a wonderful job, but the scene just doesn’t belong in this film…
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And if for no other reason, it is the above scene that kills this movie as a family film, in my opinion.
I would never subject my child (any child) to a scene like that any more than I would take him/her to a Scorsese film.
I have no problem with thought provoking material in kids’ films or even the Toy-Commercial feel of some of the CJ7 sequences (heck I want one of those dolls). I’m just not entirely sure that the laughs and charm are worth the depictions of genuine trauma.
Ultimately the film doesn’t know if it wants to take place in Pan’s Labyrinth or Narnia, and that conflict undermines what should have been an incredibly delightful experience.
How many people would have been upset if “Pan” had been marketed as “Narnia”?
I would recommend this film to Fans of Stephen Chow, or fans of international (or Asian) cinema, but I highly recommend that parents do a preview screening before taking young ones to it.
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