CJ7 and Atonement were released in Thailand cinemas last week, which along with the new Thai martial arts drama, Chocolate, were either highly acclaimed or highly anticipated.

Aside from the gritty Chocolate, which has the same flavor of dangerous stunt action as Ong-Bak and Tom Yum Goong, what I really wanted see was CJ7, the new comedy by Stephen Chow. I loved his Shaolin Soccer and especially Kung Fu Hustle, so I thought CJ7 would be right up there with those.

Atonement, meanwhile, was universally acclaimed by critics and has been nominated for many awards. But the portentious title, and its pretentious setting on an English country estate in 1935, did little to interest me. That it had Keira Knightly in it also did little for me - it's Pirates of the Caribbean without the pirates, Domino with no lap dancing and fewer guns.

Boy, was I surprised at my reactions to Atonement and CJ7.

With CJ7, I was not as wowed as I thought I would have been. It's still a lot of fun, but this gentle, kid-friendly family comedy didn't measure up to the martial-arts antics of Kung Fu Hustle.

In CJ7, Stephen Chow plays a struggling single father, who works as a day laborer at a construction site to pay for his son Dickie to attend a ridiculously expensive private school. There is no money to pay for anything else - not a decent home, new shoes nor clean clothes. They live in a wrecked apartment block, and Chow's character rummages for school supplies and household goods at the city dump.

It's on a trip picking through the trash that he comes across a green ball, left by a flying saucer. He brings the ball home and it eventually transforms into the charming little CJ7, a sort of cross between a Tribble and a Pekinese dog with a green body. This CGI space alien pretty well steals the movie from Chow and the kid who plays Dickie. And yeah, the kid, Xu Jiao, is actually a girl, though this is nothing new in Chinese and Hong Kong cinema. After all, Wong Fei Huang was played by girl in Iron Monkey.

Aside from the CJ7 character itself, there is plenty of fun to be had in spotting the references to Chow's previous films, Shaolin Soccer and Kung Fu Hustle, and there are the kids - an over-the-top rich kid, a giant little girl and a big-but-not-so-big bully.

Just as I was getting into it, CJ7 was over. As I sat there, dumbfounded with the credits rolling, and Boney M's disco version of "Sunny" blasting out of the speakers, I was wondering, "is that it?"

I didn't really want to see Atonement. But I went and saw it anyway, even as I was prepared to be bored by the pretentious English countryside estate setting and British accents so thick I needed subtitles. Despite all the acclaim the film has received (winner of the Bafta for best film, Oscar nominee for best picture, etc.) , I just wasn't excited about it. The title itself - Atonement - was so heavy, it was depressing to think about.

So I was surprised at how much I was actually entertained by it. Of course, having Keira Knightly strip down to her underwear and jump into a fountain helps.

The story is set on an English country estate in 1935. James McAvoy plays Robbie, the college-educated son of the estate's head housekeeper. He's the same age as Cecilia, the idly rich recent college graduate. It's summer, and it's hot, and Cecilia is soooo bored.

Cecilia has a sister, the pale-skinned, straw-haired, blue-eyed waif, Briony. At age 13, Briony is already an accomplished writer, and she hopes to stage a play with her bratty red-headed cousins. Briony also has a crush on Robbie. So when she sees Cecilia strip down to her undies and jump in the fountain during an argument with Robbie, she gets to thinking. Her jealousy is further fuelled by another incident later, and then, seeing an opportunity to act on this jealously, she tells a lie, which has terrible consequences for everyone.

How those consequences manifest themselves, and how that lie plays out in Briony's life is the heart of this story.

Robbie goes to war with the British army, fighting in France. He and what is left his platoon find their way to Dunkirk, where the chaos of the evacuation staging area is captured in a fantastic Steadicam tracking sequence - it is the holiday beach from hell, with wounded and dying soldiers, a choir, horses being shot, a derelict schooner and a Ferris wheel.

Ceclia, meanwhile, has become a nurse, and so has Briony, who has yet to come to grips with the consequences of her lie, and what it did to Cecilia and Robbie. I never for minute thought it would be possible for her to atone for what she'd done.

Briony is played by three actresses, at age 13 by Saoirse Ronan, as a young woman by Romola Garai, and in the present day, near death, by Vanessa Redgrave. All three have the same pale skin, and soul-less, scary blue eyes.

In the end, though I was surprised by the twist ending, I was not totally convinced by it. Where, after all, was the atonement?