When “Everything Everywhere All at Once” won just about every award earlier this year, it was only a matter of time before we saw more iterations of Asian-American life.
Enter: “Joy Ride,” a raunchy comedy that upends stereotypes and leans into “Bridesmaids” and “Hangover” in ways no one saw coming.
Ashley Park plays a high-powered Asian-American lawyer who’s sent to China to close a deal. Because her adoptive parents aren’t Asian, she has no facility with the language. To help, she brings along a childhood friend, Lolo (Sherry Cola), who has all but cornered the market on irreverence. For good measure, Lolo brings a cousin who has an affinity for K-Pop. In China, they meet Park’s college roommate (Stephanie Hsu), who just happens to be a big star in a Chinese soap opera.
And then? They’re off, on a mission to find Park’s birth mother -- and party harder than they ever did in the United States. That means stories about the Jonas Brothers, a close encounter with a basketball team and a big reveal that involves the roommate’s hidden tattoo.
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From left, Stephanie Hsu as Kat, Sabrina Wu as Deadeye, Ashley Park as Audrey, and Sherry Cola as Lolo in "Joy Ride."
Directed by Adele Lim (who co-wrote “Crazy Rich Asians”), “Joy Ride” isn’t afraid to shock with language and sexuality. If the goal was to out-raunch any film that didn’t star Asian-Americans, it succeeds. Laughs abound, but sometimes they’re a little too outre for anyone’s good.
The trouble begins when the four meet a drug dealer on a train and help her hide her inventory. Naturally, they’ve lost their luggage and don’t have passports to help them out of a tight squeeze. That prompts a K-Pop impersonation and a reveal that threatens the actress’s reputation and her relationship with a co-star.
The business meeting goes south, the friendships falter and “Joy Ride” looks like anything but.
Still, this teems with laughs, particularly when Cola is deflating Park. She has a dry sense of humor (and a pornographic flair for art). The cousin (played by Sabrina Wu) is deadpan and hardly in the same league as her travel mates. Still, she knows when her skills are needed and isn’t afraid to rouse the online friends in China. That prompts an outrageous musical sequence and suggests there isn’t anywhere Lim and company won’t go.
A moment of calm for the friends in "Joy Ride."
Hsu, who was so great in “Everything,” may be the most reserved of the bunch. She tries to keep the truth from her fiancé and winds up risking everything.
While it’s easy to figure out how this pulls together, there are enough left turns to make “Joy Ride” fun while it lasts.
It isn’t as linear as it should be, but it suggests the “Girls Trip” foursome aren’t the only ones who can make a vacation memorable. They work, werk -- whatever -- and come away with a film that entertains as often as it attempts to offend.