A CHINESE-BACKED SOAP-OPERA APP IS KEEPING L.A. ACTORS EMPLOYED

SECRET BILLIONAIRES. AGE-GAP MARRIAGES. PLENTY OF REVENGE.

- JOSHUA HUNT

AFTER A FLIGHT TO NEW YORK FROM MY HOME IN TOKYO LAST YEAR, I stumbled across a professionally filmed microdrama that played out in bewildering, minute-or-two-long installments on my Instagram feed. Early in Money, Guns, and Merry Christmas, a defense-company CEO is asked by his date how much money he makes. As he says “Fifty or 60,” she interrupts him: “Sixty grand—I cannot believe my daddy set me up with someone so poor.” We know the CEO was about to say “Fifty or 60 million” because he tells us this in a voice-over after his date declares, “Money is the only thing that matters,” and storms out of the restaurant. All of this happens before the end of one short reel, when a woman watching from the bar sets the plot in motion by telling the CEO that her father will cut her off if she doesn't find a husband soon. He agrees to marry her on the spot, and over the holidays, her wealthy family heaps abuse on their new in-law, who they assume is poor and therefore worthless.

More than its plot or the fact that it was clearly filmed to be watched on a phone, it was the acting and dialogue of Money, Guns, and Merry Christmas that caught my attention—both very bad, but in ways I'd never seen before, like a community-theater production of a video-game cut scene. I must have lingered too long on the first post because the second installment soon showed up in my feed, quickly followed by the third and fourth. To my surprise, I watched each clip in full.