The hair is done. The clothes are Gucci. The consumption is rampant. Why, it's Sex and the City.

Only it isn't — although Carrie Bradshaw would certainly find in the cast of Tiny Times a slew of new shoe-shopping BFFs. American audiences would certainly see a few parallels, too: New Yorkers Carrie, Miranda, Samantha, and Charlotte have been switched out with Shanghainese Lily, Ruby, Lin and Nan Xiang. All are slim, beautiful, perfectly coiffed, successful, drenched in tasteful bling, and have a rolodex of disturbingly attractive suitors at their disposal.

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And as what its counterpart did in 90s America, Tiny Times is holding a jewel-encrusted mirror to show what China is fast becoming in 2014. The poverty-stricken self-sufficiency of Mao Zedong has given way to the one of the dynamic economies in history, with all the sparkly perks that come with it. Chinese cinema has been pumping out films for decades, but Tiny Times is the first to so directly market itself to a relatively new niche market: The rich kid.

And those who want to be rich kids. The creation of writer-turned-director Guo Jingming, Tiny Times serves up smorgasbord-style all the prizes of "making it" in China. The you-go-girl panache of its women and the cool, sleek refinement of the men combine into an aspirational fantasy China's new middle and upper classes find appealing. While the movie, actually a series, had been derided as a "visual version of Vogue" from, Guo must be doing something right — the third installment pulled in an impressive $200 million at China's box offices.

But haters gotta hate. Critics complain the materialism and individualism of the characters is exactly the kind of Western cultural intrusion China wants to avoid, warning that the accumulation of luxury good is not how a person's value should be determined or life validated. It is the old argument that money cannot buy happiness.

At the same time, China cannot hide its own success story, and is increasingly finding itself at the crossroads all traditionally austere societies reach when economic expansion brings with it the luxury of showing off. The franchise is sparking a lively generational debate in China's pop culture; some say Tiny Times' only crime is daring to publicly acknowledge that people who are now rich like to be just that.

In other words, if you have money, you may as well spend it is style, and look good doing it. 

TagsSex and the City, Chinese cinema, Tiny Times 3.0