PREMIERE'S REVIEW (posted 3/5/08)

Exuberantly creative Hong Kong hyphenate Stephen Chow's follow-up to his riotous 2004 live-action cartoon Kung Fu Hustle is a diffuse-feeling but in fact tightly structured sci-fi fairy tale replete with creepy/adorable CGI effects, peculiarly-pitched moral lessons and some of the most outré scatological humor in any film ever.

Dingy, unfocused schoolboy Dicky Chow (Jiao) is a failure at the fancy facility his poverty-plagued widower dad Ti (Chow) sends him to. Said school is populated by types that evoke the Little Rascals as re-envisioned by Salvador Dalí — among them a rich, smart-aleck toy maven named Egg Drop who's got a bit of Edward G. Robinson in him, and a massive, immensely strong giantess named Maggie, who's got a bit of a crush on little Dicky. The boy's fortunes change after his dad finds him a new toy in the junkyard — an unutterably cute outer space robot dog left behind by an alien craft. Dicky dubs the toy CJ7, one-upping the model number of an Earth-manufactured toy dog Egg Drop's been showing off at school. With its huge eyes, furry head, and seemingly indestructible green phosphorescent body, CJ7 seems like a magic mutt, and Dicky dreams of the dog turning him into a classroom hero. The dream doesn't quite pan out, but the alien beast does prove useful in… you could see this coming… teaching Dicky the values of honest hard work and self-reliance. Until, of course, CJ7 becomes obligated to pull a miracle out of its top-of-the-head antenna.

There's quite a bit of silly incidence packed into this slight, frenetic film, including an episode of machine-gunned-from-the-butt miniature alien dog turds. The overall feel is Hong Kong to the core…which means CJ7, like the first 25 minutes or so of Shaolin Soccer, doesn't make many allowances to Western sensibilities. You're either along for this ride or you're not, and while I'm a Chow fan up to a point, there are a number of scenes here I could only absorb objectively. Which is to say, this isn't as consistently winning a Chow film as Hustle. It's still, however, a sight to be seen.

— Glenn Kenny