Has China not yet encountered sit-coms? If you show them “Cheers” or “Cosby Show,” will Chinese people just get confused? Maybe they didn’t like how they were treated in “M*A*S*H.” My primary rule for movies is, has been, and continually will be: show me something I cannot see on television. Throw random people in a house under a flimsy ruse and wait for laughs? No. We have that. Try sitcoms like “Three’s Company,” “Bosom Buddies,” or “Big Brother.”
Basic plot is middle-aged Hong Kong real estate guy Lung (Nick Cheung) proposes to his main squeeze and she pulls an Olive Oyl, essentially saying, “meet my housing demands or I walk.” Her demand is 1,000 sq, ft. I don’t think Hong Kong deals in sq. ft., so I’ve no idea what the actual figure is; I can only guess this is close to correct. As 1,000 sq. ft. in Hong Kong is worth, roughly, the GNP of Luxembourg, Lung has to come up with a lot of cash fast. He ain’t a criminal, so he decides to invest in an apartment he can’t afford with three people he doesn’t know as well as he should (the idea is to turn over these fab digs to a wealthy investor, ASAP). The three speculators include a middle-aged woman and two relative youngsters, so together the four all emulate a nuclear family; this looks like a Far East timid version of We’re the Millers.
Oh yeah, what was the plot of We’re the Millers? The elder two with little in common discover romance once thrust together? Yeah. Charlotte (Sammi Cheng) is a recent divorcee – a very pretty recent divorcee– with an awesome collection of high heels. 
Lung, OTOH, is clearly not hooked to a winner. Huh. Wonder what’s gonna happen? Lung is a bit of a Type A, no, not “Taipei,” T-y-p-e-A, and he has trouble controlling the group in every aspect of communal living from, say, moving in to cleaning. Again, this is where some sitcom experience would really help a culture out, because weak plot points like this are covered on the Disney channel.
I did enjoy a scene in which the four all stared in mesmerized horror at a wall-clinging pubic hair. Ok, that’s not your average TV fare. The solution? Better to cover it then claim or clean it. Temporary Family is well meaning miss, but decidedly a miss. You charge movie prices? You gotta do better than this, Hong Kong.
A real estate venture goes amiss
When old housing rules dismiss
A foursome all joined
With plot purloined
Trust me, ignorance ain’t bliss
Not Rated, 100 Minutes
D: Cheuk Wan Chi
W: Cheuk Wan Chi
Genre: Hong Kong phooey
Type of person most likely to enjoy this film: Real estate speculators
Type of person least likely to enjoy this film: Pushy fiancées
