Cj7
Entry updated 15 June 2026. Tagged: Film.
Chinese-Hong Kong film (2008). Columbia Pictures. Directed by Stephen Chow. Written by Fung Chi-Keung, Chow, Lam Fung, Tsang Kan-Cheong,Vincent Kok, and Sandy Shaw Lai-King. Cast includes Lam Chi-Cheong, Chow, Min Hun Fung, Lei Huang, Xu Jiao, Jiro Lee, and Zhang Yuqi. 88 minutes. Colour.
Single father Chow Ti (Chow) lives with his son Dicky Chow (Jiao) in a squalid house, striving to make enough money from his construction job to send his son to a private school, though the boy suffers there because of bullying from his richer classmates and the disdain of his teachers. Still, he has the support of a sympathetic teacher, Ms Yuen (Yuqi). One night, while searching through a garbage dump to find his son some shoes, the father encounters a glowing green sphere left by a flying saucer (see UFOs) and decides to take it home to amuse his son. The sphere soon transforms into a green, adorable, and Dog-like Alien. Of course Dicky quickly bonds with the friendly alien, whom he names Cj7 (referencing the Chinese space programme); it displays the power to make a rotten apple fresh again, though he is briefly angry when it defecates on him and throws it into a trash can. However, the alien returns to his home and everything is fine. Then Chow Ti, who has endured a brief crisis of losing and then regaining his job, has a grievous accident and dies; but the alien uses its restoring powers to bring him back to life, though the effort to do so kills it, transforming it into a doll. In a final scene, a flying saucer descends to deposit several other green aliens who will presumably become the boy's and others's companions.
While this film has obvious similarities to Steven Spielberg's E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial (1982), its alien seems less intelligent than E.T., who was after all a botanist studying Earth's plant life; and it is left unclear why aliens would be depositing what amount to cute pets on Earth. These unexplained actions make the film seem like a wish-fulfilment Fantasy, even though in the end the lives of the protagonists have not been significantly improved. The film also differs from E.T. with its grim portrayal of Chow Ti's and Dicky's impoverished existence, which contrasts sharply with Elliott's placid suburban life. And there are aspects of the film that will disconcert Western audiences, such as the scene, apparently intended to be charming, when father and son play the game of smashing the cockroaches that are swarming through their house. [GW]
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