By Fred Topel | Image property of Sony Pictures Classics.
CJ7
Stephen Chow has been bringing CGI effects to the Hong Kong style of filmmaking with his work. Shaolin Soccer and Kung Fu Hustle made comical use of effects within kung fu stories. CJ7 is a departure for Chow, using CGI to tell a children's story about a boy and his alien friend.
Poster & Trailer: CJ7
"I did work a little bit with CG in Shaolin Soccer and Kung Fu Hustle so I did have that experience, but this is something really quite different," said Chow. "The level to which we use the CG, I don't think anywhere in Asia there's been a film where there's a whole character like this that was completely CG created with such a level of interaction with the other actors. In Hollywood you have some of this, but for Asia this was really a first. So my previous experience on those other films did help, but it was still a huge challenge. Sometimes we were just going dizzy just by all the problems associated with this. There were all these conundrums we had to deal with that could be very frustrating but in the end we made it through."
CJ7 is a toy that a father (Chow) finds for his son at the landfill. The toy turns out to be an alien creature. In the film, he even used CGI for simple scenes, like when the poor father and son crush all the cockroaches in their apartment. "Nobody got creeped out and ran away because actually, there were only two cockroaches in that whole scene. All the rest were CG created so we could handle two cockroaches."
CJ7
Chow utilized a more natural effect in casting his son. New actress Xu Jiao plays the role of Dicky. "At first, I really didn't think of her in terms of this role. I saw this girl with long hair there kind of looking at me. There's something a little strange that struck me but she was very quiet and it was only later that we started having them do specific tests and various actions to test them out that I really started seeing that there is really something special here where she was appropriate for the role."
Still, he did not want to change the script to make Dicky a daughter. "I think that it would be different. It's kind of hard to say exactly how but there are certain personality differences between boys and girls that would have larger effects on the film. Maybe one example would be the toy, CJ7. That's the kind of toy that I suspect boys would be more likely to play with and enjoy. If it had been a girl, it's a little hard for me to say.'
CJ7 opens to theaters on March 7th.
For the trailer, poster and more movie info, go to the CJ7 Movie Page.
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