Found A Homeless Billionaire Husband For Christmas (2024) - like dracula i only go where i’m invited. i’ve been sort of meaning to check out the tiktok webdramas that @Drem mentioned earlier in the thread, so imagine my delight when it turned out that this movie was actually one of those, but amerikanised by the company ReelShort (“Just Watch It, It’s Reel Short” - quibi lives!!) from their own chinese language original.
after watching the american one in one sitting i checked out a couple episodes of the original for balance. it’s quite a change and i believe sheds some light on usa/china relations. for example the original has some approximations of actual cinematography and is focused at first around the female lead - the male one is just someone she grabs off the street for her own ends in avoiding a marriage and who people kind of assume is a broke nobody bc he’s sort of rumpled and uncommunicative. it’s something like episode 10 (each is <2 minutes long) before the show starts suggesting he has other things going on.
in the usa version however it starts focused on the guy as he sits outside with a sign and the worst fake beard/moustache in existence. 10 seconds later some guys in suits walk up to him and say “boss, you’ve been working undercover as a homeless man for six months now to investigate your uncle’s crimes” and then the female lead comes out in an elf costume and hands him a hamburger. in the original the female lead finds out her fiancee is cheating on her by walking in on him doing someone else in her bridal gown in front of a big mirror; apparently feeling this was too subtle for overseas audiences, the america one has her find out via her fiancee pulling up to the drive through window of her burger workplace while getting head from her cousin in a convertible. and then they get out of the car and start yelling at her!! tbh of all the changes the characterisation of these two was my favourite; in the original they’re disingenuous soap opera characters, in the usa version they’re basically Bulk & Skull. another translation i liked: in the original the female lead makes reference to a “village” and her snotty relatives call her poor. in the usa version they emphasise the class difference by making the heroine from texas, so she wears cowboy boots and a fringed jackets every scene and the other characters refer to her as nought but a “lowly cattle herder.” like quibi, prejudice too is eternal…
anyway aggrieved at this unchivalrous behaviour the homeless billionaire ceo proposes to the girl lead, since apparently her mom and grandma spent all their money on her wedding arrangements already and grandma is dropping strong hints that the prospect of such is the only thing keeping her on this side of the veil. girl lead agrees (i have to keep calling them this since ReelShort doesn’t appear to do any kind of crediting) and soon they’re going down south. this prompts one of the many basically identical scenes that make up like 80% of the running time:
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the careerist ex-fiancee and cousin show up to say there’s NO way these broke peasants will be allowed into the airport / highschool reunion / regional texas restaurant / charity auction.
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the male lead makes a phone call to “luis”, his second in command, who proceeds to buy the whole building or the airline or whatever
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the main two are waved through by all the staff, while their rivals make shocked faces and then find out they’ve been banned from not just that one but ALL the airlines. this is a real scene!!
a funny thing is that the male lead, who sort of looks like one of those memes of handsome iranian men, has no ability to project like hauteur or anything else. so every time the other two are going at him his response is to always just say some shit like, “Indeed.” and then stand there looking like he’s waiting for a coffee. i will say the scenes of the main two being berated as peasants are probably the best part of the movie, especially when the rivals start tag teaming in other characters to dunk on them, like the mean aunt who dresses like jake the snake roberts and who gets the most first-translation-draft insults, like “he is just a vagrant!” “my son-in-law is CLEARLY superior” and, while flinging bracelet, “useless fool!”. sometimes castlevania music plays in the background of these bits. my partner compared the insults to stuff the generals in a romance of three kingdoms game would say to each other before battles.
speaking of, a funny formal effect of the chaining-together-2min-videos-into-a-90min-movie thing: something about the pacing and hard cuts between segments really makes it feel like watching a collection of videogame cutscenes, like every scene feels like between them there should be a gameplay sequence of beating up the same five mob characters in an alley. occasionally this leaks into the plot itself, as when they’re menaced at a restaurant by an evil cowboy called “elon madison” who shows up with cowboy goons to throw steel chairs around and such. i did like that he has a gender-neutral posse.
anyway. the evil cousin gets in some more good lines (“why don’t you two get married in a waste dump” “is anyody here willing to share the room with the homeless and peasants?”) but eventually the heroine realises that maybe this guy who keeps buying ferraris and things to own people may not actually be homeless after all, and it’s worked out after about 2 mins of plot complications. the evil fiancee, who ofc works for the main guy’s company along with the cousin’s rich dad, is summarily disposed of (“just fire them all”), while of elon madison our hero darkly remarks that “i think some hard labour in africa would be good for him” (??) and has his goons take care of the rest. they get married and presumably grandma is satisfied now, or maybe not. when the two leads have to stay at the family house the first night, she parks her wheelchair outside their open door to make sure they’re making out and also gives them some kind of ceremonial family fuckin’ sheet (american custom??) with which to do the deed.
the evil uncle who sets off the homelessness scheme at the beginning of the movie is never mentioned again. i have a horrible desire now to check out the even more evil seeming reelshort offering “money, guns, and a merry christmas” which seems like basically the same plot except now the hero is a billionaire defence contractor. but before then, a tribute to some of the outfits that eased my spirits in this movie.
… might as well lean into it and do a Lindsey Lohan Double Feature:
