Director Stephen Chow, dubbed the Asian King of Comedy, has made a career out of effects-heavy films about losers with hearts of gold (Shaolin Soccer, Kung Fu Hustle). For American audiences, Chow’s films exist in a sort of neutral zone — half enchanting, half preposterous. There is no denying he’s an acquired taste, but surrendering to Chow’s whimsical visions often prove to be charming trips.

Chow’s latest comic fantasy, CJ7, centers on Ti (played by the director) a poverty-stricken construction worker and his young son Dicky (played by the nine-year-old actress Xu Jiao!). Ti, who is trying to raise his son to be an honorable man, works night and day so that Dicky can attend an elite private school and have a better life than he had.

The grime smeared yet adorable Dicky looks like he stepped out of the pages of Dickens’ “Oliver Twist” and stands out like a sore thumb at school where he is mercilessly bullied by the wealthy students. Unable to buy his son the latest high-tech toys, Ti raids the local junkyard and returns with a mysterious green orb. To their astonishment and disbelief, the orb turns out to be a Jello-like alien life form with extraordinary powers. For the first time in his life, Dicky sees a way to be the envy of all his classmates. That is until he brings his extraterrestrial pet to class with him, inciting what can only be described as pandemonium.

Chow’s films belong to the mo-lei-tau tradition, which roughly translates as “nonsensical.” They rarely follow logical patterns, making more sense as indulgent dream sequences. Full of slapstick hijinks, cloying cutesiness and CGI enhanced wish fulfillment, they can perhaps best be described as live-action cartoons.

CJ7 is a somewhat unbalanced foray into family-friendly entertainment. It recycles ideas from everything from E.T. to Batteries Not Included, and liberally spoofs such films as Mission: Impossible II, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, The Matrix and even Chow’s own Kung Fu Hustle. It’s a mash-up that mostly works despite the fact that you can see each gag coming from a mile away.

While Chow certainly doesn’t intend CJ7 to be preachy, the film is filled with just enough social commentary to balance its more absurdist moments. Chow paints a country of materialistic influx, of haves and have nots, juxtaposing modern China’s schizophrenic attitude toward capitalistic round pegs in communist square holes. The most honorable people in this film are also the most destitute.

Though CJ7 deals in a level of meanness you just don’t see in American films, it is still sure to be a big hit with kids — if only they could understand Mandarin Chinese. Unfortunately, rather than dubbing the film for the American children’s market, Sony Pictures Classics, which is handling U.S. distribution, is subtitling the film only, leaving Dicky and his alien pet lost in translation for what is surely meant to be its primary audience.

© Copyright 2008 Brandon Fibbs. All rights reserved.