Chow joins space race

Hong Kong's king of comedy Stephen Chow says he has seen UFO's twice, which partially explains why he shot his latest feature film CJ7 (Changjiang Qihao), a combination of comedy and science fiction that premieres on January 11 in the United States, and at the end of the same month in China.

Of his UFO sightings, Chow describes them as white, soccer-ball-sized objects without tails.

"The first time was 20 years ago in Hong Kong and the other time was in Hawaii over 10 years ago. I cannot explain what they were unless they were UFO's."

Set in contemporary China, CJ7 is an offbeat but tender story about a laborer and his son. They both learn an important lesson about the father-son relationship after the boy finds a toy from outer space - the CJ7.

This is a computer-generated dog with a white head, big eyes and green body. Hong Kong-based Menford Electronic Art and Computer Design, which has contributed to the visual effects of popular computer game Final Fantasy, has taken charge of the dog's design.

There has been a lot of speculation about the dog's powers, but Chow would only reveal that it has bowel motions, like any other dog.

Costing about US$27 million, this is Chow's first stab at science fiction and a father-son story. When asked how it compared with Charles Chaplin's The Kid and Steven Spielberg's ET, Chow admitted he did have the idea of shooting a film like ET.

"This film does have something in common with ET, such as the extra-terrestrial subject, the child and the family story," Chow admitted recently at a conference attended by 200 university students in Beijing.

"Chaplin is the master of comedy in my heart. His films, though silent, are very engaging, while my films would be uninteresting without sound."

Although it is a sci-fi film, Chow has confirmed it will still contain his distinct brand of humor known as mo lei tau (nonsense), which makes frequent use of euphemisms and double entendres in inoffensive Cantonese slang.

Nine-year old girl Xu Jiao, from Ningbo, a city in East China's Zhejiang Province, Chow's ancestral home, plays Chow's son. Chow speaks highly of the girl who stood out from 1,000 hopefuls and has called her a genius.

Chow said that for much of the film, Xu had to act by herself in front of a blue screen. "Sometimes we put an orange or a cup in front of her to help, but most of the time she reacted against nothing. That's difficult, but she's so good. I wish I was as good," Chow said.

(China Daily 12/28/2007 page18)