When we last left our Tiny Times girls (Mini Yang, Amber Kuo, Haden Kuo and Hsieh Yi-Lin, in case you need a reminder) they’d successfully pulled off a fashion show using the power of their unswerving friendship and the help of a bunch of hot guys. The present and future both seemed full with bright, shining promise. However, Tiny Times 2.0 is The Dark Knight to Tiny Times 1.0’s Batman Begins because things have escalated — and not in a good way. Nan Xiang’s (Haden Kuo) slimy ex (Jo Jiang) returns bearing bad secrets, which spill out on the same evening that a family tragedy befalls one of the girls. Meanwhile, there’s infidelity and romantic second thoughts bubbling up, plus the girls must move out of their ridiculously spacious college dorm into a ridiculously spacious apartment funded by rich little miss Lily (Amber Kuo). For these girls, even in dark times there’s always a silver lining.

The introduction of conflict may seem like a turn-off to fans of the chipper, positive tone of the first Tiny Times, but these twists only increase the opportunities for more hilariously over-the-top filmmaking. During a pivotal birthday dinner, one girl saunters malevolently around the table like a haughty pulp heroine about to do a heel turn. There’s some schadenfreude in seeing the girls finally fight — though come on, you know it’ll be solved by the time Tiny Times 3.0 rolls around. Anyway, only one of the girls splits off, leaving the other three to engage in the superficial friendship clichés of the first film. The guys help, particularly Gong Ming (Rhydian Vaughan), whose squinty, stone-faced CEO is a highlight of this series. Gong Ming unfortunately gets less development in this film, but he engages in some catty one-upmanship with Lily, who ends up squaring off with Gong Ming for control of her father’s company.

Also figuring into the big business shenanigans is Lily’s ex-boyfriend Gu Yuan (Kai Ko), who still wants Lily but is prevented from getting her back by his harridan mother (Wang Lin). The nominal star, Lin Xiao (Mini Yang), only has love troubles to deal with, as she’s caught between old boyfriend Jian Xi (Li Ruimin) and sickly writer Zhou Chongguang (Cheney Chen). Infidelity, terminal diseases, friendship battles, big business deals, plus fashion tips and relationship problems – wow, Tiny Times has it all! It also has some surprisingly decent acting from Amber Kuo, whose turn as the haughty, heady but full-hearted Lily is a standout, especially considering the material she’s working with. The other actors are hit-and-miss. Rhydian Vaughan is great — though that’s because of the character and not his acting — while Cheney Chen’s douchey/sensitive gazes mark him as either an endearing man-pixie or a potential sociopath. Hsieh Yi-Lin is fun as the comic relief, even if her shtick mostly involves sucking on phallic objects.

Tiny Times 2.0 ends with the celebration of unethical business practices and an engagement reception stolen by Amber Kuo doing her best impression of a perfume commercial spokesperson. Yes, you heard that right. If it sounds like I’m being dismissive of the Tiny Times franchise…well, you’re not far off. You simply cannot take these films seriously, what with their crazy materialism, hackneyed melodrama and ridiculous, metaphor-stuffed scripts. If one were to really examine Tiny Times, they’d have to acknowledge just how blazingly unoriginal and self-absorbed it is as a youth saga, while noting its stylishly empty filmmaking, which consists of 80s-style MTV montages and fashion commercial swipes. This is shojo manga filtered through trendy Korean dramas, and if you can’t get on board with that level of doe-eyed camp then you should really be watching David Fincher and Lu Chuan movies instead. Seriously, to know Tiny Times is to love it because it’s — as the great Charles Barkely would say — turrible. It’s also terribly entertaining. (Kozo, 10/2013)