I love this director, Steven Chow ("Kung Fu Hustle" and "Shaolin Soccer"), and I was expecting a better film. Watching "CJ7" was extremely painful. This film surprisingly evoked nationalistic pride in being an American and having different values. This is not the "E.T." feel good movie nor is it an interesting and beautiful, gut-wrenching movie like the Swedish movie "My Life as a Dog", although it had tried many attempts to redeem itself. The characters are mean and self-serving, promoting the value of "being useful" over common sense logic such as "self reliance".
***WARNING!!!***SPOILER ALERT***DETAILS OF MOVIE BELOW*** CJ7 starts out with a very sad tale of a mother-less child who lives in a dump with his father who is a construction worker. The father spends his hard earned money on a private school that he can't afford and forgoes basic necessities such as food, shelter, and clothing so his son can go to this school and have the opportunity to learn. The father never studied in school and constantly reminds his son that they are poor because he is uneducated and can't get a better job.
The son, Dickey, is ridiculed at school because he comes to school dirty, his shoes and school uniform is from the dumpster, and it is obvious that he is poor. Nonetheless, like all humans, we all yearn to be accepted.
One day, the child who bullies Dickey, comes to school with a very cool toy, a robotic dog named "CJ" and evokes jealous from Dickey. Later while Dickey and his father are watching cartoons in a storefront window, Dickey runs off inside to the toy store and screams for the "CJ" toy. The father feels awful for spanking the boy to let go of the toy and shame that he cannot buy the toy.
Cut to a scene where the father is in the dump looking for better shoes for the boy. In his discoveries, the father runs into a UFO that leaves a nice green ball that the father brings back to Dickie. He claims it's a better toy than CJ.
The best scene of this movie is the scene where the green ball is about to hatch and Dickey witnesses the ball hatching and has hallucinations throughout the process. After the hatching, Dickey then dreams that the friendly, magical alien (who he thinks is a toy with batteries) will create additional magical electronic devices to make him smarter, stronger, better, etc...at school.
The reality is that the green alien dog like character cannot do that..instead the dog takes a dump in his hands (is this suppose to be funny?) and then also has exploding diarrhea's out of fear (is this suppose to be funny as well?). Dickey abuses the dog, throws it away in a trash can at school, and then has regrets.
The dog only wants to please its master.
This is where the senses of culture clashes. As an Asian-American that understands Confucian philosophy, I do no value the class hierarchy that animal must obey men and that the younger generation of men must always blindly obey the older generation without question and without doubt.
It is painful to watch the dog (alien or not) to be abused by everyone until the end, when the dog sacrifices it's own life to the elder of the family (the father). In death, the dog revered and respected.
Throughout the movie, it is even more painful to watch the son suffer for his father's pride. The father's boss states that his own son goes to public school, why shouldn't Dickey? Dickey is failing and "cheating" in school and his father stubbornly wastes his money on the expensive school where Dickey is not learning. Dickey's father is too busy trying to keep up with appearances.
In the end, even if the father is brought back to life by the dog, the father is still a loser, poor, and can't get a date. Dickey is still dumb and picked on at school. However, CJ7 is self-sacrificing (another Confucian value) and dead. The earth is also invaded by CJ7s...what should be a happy ending is just awfully contrived.
Steven Chow's next movie should be a horror film called "Revenge of the CJ7s" and it would be about cute fuzzy dog aliens avenging the death of the first CJ7.
***WARNING!!!***SPOILER ALERT***DETAILS OF MOVIE BELOW*** CJ7 starts out with a very sad tale of a mother-less child who lives in a dump with his father who is a construction worker. The father spends his hard earned money on a private school that he can't afford and forgoes basic necessities such as food, shelter, and clothing so his son can go to this school and have the opportunity to learn. The father never studied in school and constantly reminds his son that they are poor because he is uneducated and can't get a better job.
The son, Dickey, is ridiculed at school because he comes to school dirty, his shoes and school uniform is from the dumpster, and it is obvious that he is poor. Nonetheless, like all humans, we all yearn to be accepted.
One day, the child who bullies Dickey, comes to school with a very cool toy, a robotic dog named "CJ" and evokes jealous from Dickey. Later while Dickey and his father are watching cartoons in a storefront window, Dickey runs off inside to the toy store and screams for the "CJ" toy. The father feels awful for spanking the boy to let go of the toy and shame that he cannot buy the toy.
Cut to a scene where the father is in the dump looking for better shoes for the boy. In his discoveries, the father runs into a UFO that leaves a nice green ball that the father brings back to Dickie. He claims it's a better toy than CJ.
The best scene of this movie is the scene where the green ball is about to hatch and Dickey witnesses the ball hatching and has hallucinations throughout the process. After the hatching, Dickey then dreams that the friendly, magical alien (who he thinks is a toy with batteries) will create additional magical electronic devices to make him smarter, stronger, better, etc...at school.
The reality is that the green alien dog like character cannot do that..instead the dog takes a dump in his hands (is this suppose to be funny?) and then also has exploding diarrhea's out of fear (is this suppose to be funny as well?). Dickey abuses the dog, throws it away in a trash can at school, and then has regrets.
The dog only wants to please its master.
This is where the senses of culture clashes. As an Asian-American that understands Confucian philosophy, I do no value the class hierarchy that animal must obey men and that the younger generation of men must always blindly obey the older generation without question and without doubt.
It is painful to watch the dog (alien or not) to be abused by everyone until the end, when the dog sacrifices it's own life to the elder of the family (the father). In death, the dog revered and respected.
Throughout the movie, it is even more painful to watch the son suffer for his father's pride. The father's boss states that his own son goes to public school, why shouldn't Dickey? Dickey is failing and "cheating" in school and his father stubbornly wastes his money on the expensive school where Dickey is not learning. Dickey's father is too busy trying to keep up with appearances.
In the end, even if the father is brought back to life by the dog, the father is still a loser, poor, and can't get a date. Dickey is still dumb and picked on at school. However, CJ7 is self-sacrificing (another Confucian value) and dead. The earth is also invaded by CJ7s...what should be a happy ending is just awfully contrived.
Steven Chow's next movie should be a horror film called "Revenge of the CJ7s" and it would be about cute fuzzy dog aliens avenging the death of the first CJ7.