Tiny Times 2.0

As entertainment, this is vintage potboiler fare. But the movie is also revealing as fantasy, an artifact of 21st-century China’s youth culture transfixed by its rising fortunes and Western ways.

Though this sequel is just as glossy and shallow as its predecessor, the story gets juicier as the four femme friends transform from kittens to lynxes in the wake of boy troubles and corporate takeovers.

[Guo's] film, which at first hints at a wry critique of materialism but ends up reveling in it, is a timely snapshot of aspirational glitz in the big city.

Perhaps keenly aware of the short attention spans and the reluctance in the ordinary viewer to countenance long-lingering malice on screen – especially among good-looking, self-proclaimed friends – everything gets neatly resolved sharply and swiftly, so that shouting matches will quickly give way to yet another round of gags and all-round tomfoolery.