The whole film of CJ7 is not long, only more than 80 minutes, which is just right to watch it with children. Although the film is another painstaking work directed and acted by Stephen Chow after "Kung Fu", to be honest, after watching it, I feel that this is a completely different work of Xingye. Although there are many exaggerated plots in the familiar nonsense comedy of Xingye style, the plot and the connotation of the film are clearly new. This is a masterpiece that can be moved to tears, whether happy or sad.
The first half of the film is full of comedy. Xiao Di's scene on campus is typical of Stephen Chow's truancy style. Neurotic teachers, domineering rich kids, school gangs. The two huge exaggerated male and female classmates designed in it are enough to express the uninhibited imagination of Xing Ye. Not long after the film started, when Xiao Di and his father were squatting on the street and watching the TV in the window, there was a TV station interviewing the citizens who witnessed and filmed the UFO. The light weight was enough to make people laugh. In Xiao Di's dream after learning that CJ7 is an alien dog with special functions, the imitations he picked up from "The Matrix", "MI2" and "Kung Fu" are also very interesting.
When CJ7 has been known to the audience, the film begins the part of the tragic scene. After Xiao Di's father accidentally fell to the ground and died at the construction site, the scene between Teacher Yuan and Xiao Di in the demolished house was enough to make one cry. Although the ending of the film is a happy ending, CJ7 exhausted the energy of life to help Xiao Di's father come back to life, among the classmates on campus, and even between Xiao Di's father and teacher Yuan, it seems that "suddenly the spring breeze comes, Qianshu Thousands of pears are blooming"; CJ7 also rushed towards Xiao Di with a large group of alien dogs. The film can basically be used as a standard children's film, and it is perfect for parents to watch with their children.
However, CJ7 impresses me the most is the real life behind the nonsensical comedy in the film. The migrant workers played by Zhou Xingchi can even grasp the essential elements of survival of the migrant workers group better than Zhao Benshan. The scene where he slapped the child because he couldn't give up the expensive "Yangtze River No. 1" toy dog in the shopping mall; he wanted to beat the child but was reluctant to revise the score on the zero-point test paper, and finally replaced the stick in his hand with a roll again and again. The scene of the paper; the scene where he confronts the foreman because he says his child is cheating in the exam, . . . These scenes all have a real life basis that mainland audiences are familiar with and sighed with. The alien creature is just a dream of the humble migrant worker class. Taking CJ7 out of the film is almost a realist father-son family drama. Therefore, some film critics have repeatedly emphasized that this is actually a "Dad, Love Me Again".
But I won't call it "Dad, Love Me Again" in the tone of "Why not eat minced meat". Although Xiao Di's father is only a humble migrant worker who has never studied, he is desperately trying to earn money and hopes to send his children to an aristocratic school. From the experience of mainland audiences, it is almost a fantasy for migrant workers to send their children to aristocratic schools. From the point of view of a Hong Konger, Stephen Chow could never imagine that migrant workers at construction sites in the mainland are dozens of times worse than the living environment shown in the film. A scavenger in Hong Kong might be able to get his kids to go to an aristocratic school; it's impossible on the mainland. The annual income of migrant workers at construction sites in the mainland can only be enough to cover the belly of a family. Even not long ago when the "harmony" was shouted loudly, and Nanjing, which is the same city in the Yangtze River Delta as the city in the film, Ningbo, there was a tragedy of a construction site migrant worker begging for wages and his hand was cut off by the foreman. As a film dominated by comedy, it is impossible to demand more of Stephen Chow; and I believe that no one will criticize whether it is true or not in the "peasant workers" he performed. He did not whitewash or evade, nor did he distort or mislead. He tried his best to show the real situation of the mainland construction migrant workers - he even used real construction workers to play the role of "workers" in the film. What he did not do was that Hong Kong entertainers completely I don't understand that the living conditions of migrant workers in mainland cities, which belong to the same harmonious country as Hong Kong, are similar to those of Ethiopian or Cambodian workers.
So, I think "Changjiang No. 7" is very good and powerful.
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