Plot
When four best friends try and move forward in their work and personal life, they realize that trying to live their life's dream is more difficult than they imagine -- especially in the high fashion world of Shanghai.
Release Year: 2013
Rating: 2.6/10 (236 voted)
Director:Jinming Guo
Storyline
When four best friends try and move forward in their work and personal life, they realize that trying to live their life's dream is more difficult than they imagine -- especially in the high fashion world of Shanghai.
Taglines:
Older but stronger...We call it friendship
Language: ,
Release Date:
Box Office Details
Budget: CNY 45,000,000
(estimated)
Technical Specs
Runtime:
User Review
Author:
Rating: 1/10
I have never seen such a ugly film and i think 郭敬明 can receive Razzie
Award . Tiny Times tells the story of friendship between four girls
from high school through college, with each girl also having her own
love story. With a bit of a mix between The Devil Wears Prada and
Gossip Girl, the story is told from the perspective of one of the girls
who is an intern at a fashion and literature magazine. Differently,
however, her boss is a handsome young man. Guo's own image is also
reflected in the characters, but split into two roles: editor-in-chief
of the magazine and an idolized young writer. Just like Guo's real life
- a publisher who always prepares a plan B and a boy from a small town
who gets famous at 17 and must face the pressure and loneliness of the
world - the writer's characteristics and personality are recognizable
in the film. The casting fits perfectly into different roles. These
good-looking actors and actresses, mostly famous for pop television
series or advertisements, all have their own fan base. However, it
seems the acting potential of these young stars is not reflected in the
film. Lead actor Ko Chen-tung's performance in Tiny Times is said to be
not as good as what he did in You Are the Apple of My Eye. Few of the
roles are fully represented even though the film is filled with
voice-over to introduce the background. One of the ex-boyfriends, who
can always lead to a strong emotional reaction from the girls, only
appears twice in the whole movie. For those in the audience who never
read the book, unconnected scenes and unreal details are everywhere.
For instance, an extremely rich family does not have a guest room and
has
to tell the girl staying over the night to sleep in the room with the
son - the college student played by Ko. In another example, the girl
who carries different Dior bags everyday cries to borrow money from her
boyfriend because she cannot afford a crystal glass she broke in her
boss' office. The problem of featuring multiple leading characters but
not making careful use of them all is a common problem for those new to
filmmaking. For instance, Zhao Wei who directed So Young made similar
mistakes. Spin off success Nevertheless, from a purely commercial
point-of-view, adapting the story for the big screen is wonderful. Long
before the film was released, gossips about Tiny Times and Guo appeared
all over the place. More than half of the members of the production
team come from Taiwan, a place where films specifically target young
audiences with its own unique style. As a result, the fashionable
setting and glamorous photography are comparable to the best chick
flicks Chinese audiences have seen before. Various attractive trailers,
music videos and promotional posters all suggested the film's potential
of becoming the most popular film of the year as long as the script and
film languages reached an average professional level. The film remains
loyal to the novel and the script was also written by Guo. The major
problems seem to stem from a filming style that looks like a string of
TV commercials all stitched together. The result is a collection of
scenes that are unlikely to satisfy film critics and industry insiders.
What Guo has done is more like producing a mood piece or a long music
video as a spin off for the book to fans who admire the invisible
"vanity fair" that was created in the book. Controversy as a trend
Controversy about a film is no longer a surprise. However, the
discussions about Tiny Times have created a phenomenon that audiences
could have totally opposite opinions towards almost every part of the
film. The series of books, Tiny Times (1.0/2.0/3.0), have boosted
controversy since first coming out five years ago. Guo's target readers
are teenagers. What he became famous for was mainly beautiful
languages and because of this, the excessive desire for luxuries
mentioned in his books is seen as having a negative effect on
youngsters who are still building up their values and ideologies. Such
issues continue to be the main point of contention between the two
camps that either love or hate the stories. The most frequent comment,
especially by those who have no background knowledge of the novel, is
that the story illustrates a warped value system-luxury labels appear
every few minutes. The argument that Chinese films generally have been
overly "teachy" and perhaps in the past spent too much time on values
should allow the critics to switch focus on other problems or qualities
that the film has. If the story was constructed upon an imaginary space
like Twilight, some of the audience might forgive Guo's unrealistic
details. Or, if the story was just about upper-class lifestyle like
Gossip Girl, it would also be fine for many film critics. The main
shortcoming lies on the contradiction that Guo wants to portray
different people from different social backgrounds to reflect the
status of the young generation in the current time period, as the name
Tiny Times suggests. But the luxurious lifestyle and cartoon like
characters are too much of a daydreamer's fairytale. Guo's success as a
businessman is indubitable, but the film Tiny Times is exactly the same
as the book - full of beautiful surface elements and never enough
careful consideration. The disagreement between fans and film critics
is a mirror of the gap between different generations. Youngsters would
ask, what's so amazing about really deep thoughts?
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