CJ7 is a Hong Kong movie directed by Stephen Chow of
Shaolin Soccer and
Kung Fu Hustle fame.
Chow, a homeless single-father laborer, and his young son, Dicky, make a meager living, their home an abandoned lot near a garbage dump. One day, the laborer scavenges the dump for usable items when he comes across something that's literally out of this world...
The name CJ7 actually comes from a known riverboat in China; "CJ" means
Chang Jiang, the Chinese name for the Yangtze River.
CJ7 has examples of:
- All Just a Dream: Dicky's first day at school with CJ7.
- Always a Bigger Fish
- Androcles Lion: Parodied.
- Back from the Dead: Chow, after a Heroic Sacrifice by CJ 7
- Cow Tools: CJ7 can be seen pulling out a multitude of tools, including a ray gun and a propeller-driven alarm clock... but that's just during a dream sequence... However, afterwards we see the elementary schoolkids chasing down CJ7 using the kind of foreign objects you'd see at a wrestling match...
- Crosscast Role: Xu Jiao, who plays Dicky, is actually a girl. Many of the supporting boy cast are actually young girls.
- Maggie, Dicky's love interest, is played by Yong Hua Han, a large weightlifting man.
- Crowning Moment of Funny: when playing with CJ 7 by making him mimic different emotions, one kid actually suggests You Killed My Father.
- Disaster Dominoes: Played painfully straight with Chow's Disney Death.
- Four Eyes, Zero Soul: That one teacher who has it in for Dicky is conveniently bespectacled.
- Fridge Horror: The movie ends with a UFO landing in broad daylight, and CJ 7 leading hordes of scurrying fellow aliens all over the place. Aliens normally do that when they're INVADING.
- Gonk: Maggie, who looks like a full-grown fat guy.
- Homage: Several, including Shout Outs to Shaolin Soccer and Kung Fu Hustle.
- Hot Teacher
- Huge Schoolgirl: Over the top with Maggie.
◊ - Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Chow's foreman.
- Kick the Dog
- Mechanical Lifeform: CJ7 possibly, given that springs stick out of his head when it's injured, and it malfunctions spectacularly when given too many emotion commands.
- Off-the-Shelf FX: CJ7's Sleep Mode Size was made from fabric scraps with a markered face, and a green rubber loop from a toy.
- Perpetual Poverty
- Production Posse: Little Brother from Shaolin Soccer plays the foreman.
- Product Placement: The "CJ1" toy is actually from the existing Robosapiens toyline.
- Retraux: Apart from the toy mentioned above, and some traffic lights, this movieverse seems to be stuck in the 1970s.
- Rubber Critter: CJ7.
- Shout Out: CJ7 has a lot in common with the classic Disney movie Pete's Dragon.
- Sleep Mode Size: When CJ7 uses all its power to revive Chow from death, its antennae ball-thingy falls out and disintegrates, and it shrinks down to the size of a small(er) doll, complete with Xs for eyes.
- Token Romance: Subverted — Chow has no luck at all with Dicky's hot teacher.
- What Do You Mean, It's Not Awesome?: During Dicky's dream sequence.
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