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Andrew Gurland is a New York City filmmaker interested in making a documentary about an average guy and his marriage to a mail order bride. Andrew finds the perfect subject for his film and decides to fund the marriage in exchange for the right to film the entire process. He finds what appears to be the ideal candidate in Adrian Martin, an overweight doorman from Queens who has renounced dating and seems optimistic about choosing a bride from overseas. After corresponding with Burmese women from a catalogue, Adrian selects Lichi, a beautiful woman in her twenties whose ad and letter pique his interest.

The filmmakers pay for Lichi's flight to America, and soon she finds herself immersed in American married life-which, in Adrian's household, involves little more than one's cooking and cleaning duties. Andrew initially looks past the fact that Adrian treats Lichi more like a domestic servant than a companion. The entire project comes to a startling halt when, without Lichi's knowledge, Adrian takes her to the gynecologist for a consultation about tubal legation (sterilization). Lichi quickly discovers what the Doctor visit is for and rejects the procedure. Andrew thinks Adrian has crossed the line and when a heated argument ensues, Adrian terminates his involvement in the documentary.

Two months later, Andrew receives a surprise visit from Lichi, who is there to reveal a shocking videotape documenting her bizarre life as Adrian's wife. Feeling partially responsible for her increasingly despondent situation, Andrew urges Lichi to leave her husband and offers his apartment as a safe haven.

What transpires is beyond anything Andrew or Adrian could imagine, as their experiences with Lichi lead them through a series of unpredictable events, ultimately culminating in a showdown in Miami that reveals the lengths that both men and women will go to in order to avoid being alone.

A movie maker unwittingly gets a bit too involved with his subjects in this darkly comic mockumentary. Andrew (Andrew Gurland) is a documentary filmmaker who wants to make a picture about modern-day mail order marriage. Andrew thinks he's found the perfect subject for his film when he meets Adrian (Adrian Martinez), a stocky snake enthusiast from Queens, NY, who earns his living as a doorman and has never had much luck with women. Adrian wants choose a bride from a professional marriage broker's agency called Paradise Girls, and Andrew agrees to foot the bill in exchange for the rights to make a movie about him. Adrian soon weds Lichi (Eugenia Yuan), an attractive Burmese woman, but Andrew is less than pleased to discover what Adrian really wants from his relationship is a woman who will feed mice to his pet python, make chili just the way he likes it, and keep the house spotless while occasionally indulging some of his odder sexual fantasies. Lichi isn't happy either, and at Andrew's urging she leaves Adrian and moves into Andrew's apartment until she decides what to do next. Andrew falls for Lichi, and before long he asks for her hand in marriage; however, her relationship with Adrian has stripped Lichi of her illusions, and she becomes a very demanding bride who loudly speaks her mind and has accumulated a large and expensive collection of pig-related nick knacks. Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

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