STUDIO: Sony
RELEASE DATE: August 12, 2008
STARRING: Xu Jiao, Kitty Zhang, and Stephen Chow
WRITTEN BY: Stephen Chow
DIRECTED BY: Stephen Chow
FEATURES: Cast and Crew Commentary
The Story Of CJ7
The Making Of CJ7
Anatomy Of A Scene
How To Bully A Bully
How To Make A Lollipop
CJ7 Profiles

Stephen Chow should be a household name. The guy defines his own cool. What I mean by that is that there's nothing traditionally "cool" about Shaolin Soccer or Kung Fu Hustle - the kind-of gawky Chow isn't going to remind anyone of Johnny Cash or Bono - but the movies themselves are such energetic blasts that you can't help but love the guy. Chow is one of those rare performers for whom it feels like the four corners of the movie screen aren't nearly enough to hold him. Something like Shaolin Soccer or Kung Fu Hustle (a chop-socky movie that was so acclaimed that the Chicago Film Critics Association actually nominated it for Best Foreign Language Film of the Year) as his newest film might have pushed Chow into that "household name" status. But cool never does what you think it's going to do. Instead of another straight-up (well, as straight as Chow could be), he made a kids movie, a sci-fable like E.T. or The Last Mimzy called CJ7, new this week to Blu-Ray. At first, I was a little disappointed at the idea of a PG-rated, kiddie movie from Chow. Never question the cool. CJ7 won't be the first Chow flick that I pick from the shelf but it is a surprisingly sweet and charming fable that, like all of Stephen's movies, you just can't take yours eyes off of it, especially on Blu-Ray.

The title CJ7 refers to a toy that isn't really a toy. Chow himself stars as Ti, a hard-working, poor single father who tries to impart the best message to his son, a poor boy stuck in the popularity wars of school and unable to get ahead. Being popular and having the new toys isn't a lesson that Ti tries to teach his son, but it's a part of the school years everywhere around the world. The hot new toy is CJ1, a cool robot. Ti finds what looks like a green volleyball in a garbage dump and brings it home for his son. That's the best he can do. It turns out that the ball is actually an alien, one that Ti's son named CJ7 and one of the cutest cinematic creations of the year. CJ7's body is kind of a green blob and his oversized head is a fluffy, adorable ball. The cuddly creature turns out to be more than just a fun-loving pet. He's going to change their lives and teach Ti and his son some very important lessons. CJ7 isn't perfect - it almost feels incomplete on a storytelling level at under 90 minutes and somewhat sloppily plotted - but it's really adorable and sweet. If you have a kid or young relative that would be willing to sit through a foreign-language fable, show them CJ7. It's hard not to fall in love with it at least a little bit.

Any kid's movie that is named after a character who doesn't actually exist - CJ7 is an entirely CGI creation - is going to look significantly better on Blu-Ray but CJ7 is even more visually remarkable than you might expect. The 1080p High Definition/2.40:1 picture is spectacular. The audio is a slightly different story. I'll admit that I actually mad the cardinal sin of jumping to the dubbed version for a while because the audio in original Chinese TrueHD 5.1 seemed oddly synced with the actor's voices. There are a couple of scenes between Ti and his boss where what they're saying doesn't quite match with their lips. It's likely an ADR problem that would happen on any version of CJ7, standard or Blu-Ray, but it's still worth mentioning. There are English, Chinese (Mandarin), and French TrueHD 5.1 tracks, and Chinese (Cantonese) and Thai 5.1 tracks. The wealth of special features on CJ7 are impressive, as well, including featurettes, a game, and a commentary track.