SFnal

[lsanderson]

Adventures of a Boy, His Dad and His Alien
By JEANNETTE CATSOULIS
Published: March 7, 2008

A devilishly entertaining curveball thrown at unsuspecting family audiences, “CJ7” is “E.T.” as reimagined by the premier clown of Chinese cinema, Stephen Chow. Whether American viewers will respond with the enthusiasm of their Chinese counterparts remains to be seen. What is clear, however, is that Mr. Chow’s notion of family is decidedly more Addams than Brady.

A simple fairy tale — albeit with a perverseness that no Disney executive would permit — “CJ7” finds Mr. Chow in a Chaplinesque mood as Ti, an impoverished widower caring for his young son, Dicky (the 9-year-old actress Xu Jiao in her debut). By day Ti works long hours on a construction site to pay for Dicky’s elite private school; at night they return to a sweltering, cockroach-infested shack with unreliable electricity. Both suffer constant bullying: Ti’s overbearing boss (Lam Tze Chung) berates him for having ideas above his station, while Dicky’s fastidious teacher (Lee Sheung Ching) and snotty schoolmates treat him like a leper. More

Comments

[shelleybear.livejournal.com]

I'd love to see it, but roaches, why does it have to be roaches?