asian girl road trip movie

an image, when javascript is unavailable

‘Joy Ride’ Review: Outrageous Asian American Comedy Gives Fresh Foursome a Chance to Cut Loose

Co-stars Ashley Park, Sherry Cola, Sabrina Wu and Stephanie Hsu prove that this raunchy R-rated buddy movie could tell 'The Hangover' to hold their beer.

By Peter Debruge

Peter Debruge

Chief Film Critic

‘The Three Musketeers – Part II: Milady’ Review: Eva Green Surprises in French Blockbuster’s Less-Than-Faithful Finale 1 week ago
‘The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare’ Review: Henry Cavill Leads a Pack of Inglorious Rogues in Guy Ritchie’s Spirited WWII Coup 2 weeks ago
‘Challengers’ Review: Zendaya and Company Smash the Sports-Movie Mold in Luca Guadagnino’s Tennis Scorcher 2 weeks ago

Popular on Variety

“Joy Ride” wastes no time in setting the tone, opening with a flashback to that special moment 25 years earlier when adopted Audrey and new-to-town Lolo cemented their friendship: The two girls have just met at the aptly named White Hills Park when a bully hurls a racist insult across the playground. “Fuck you!” Lolo screams back, punching the kid so hard he’ll probably need stitches. At the movie’s SXSW premiere (where Lionsgate treated the already-rowdy crowd to free alcohol), the auditorium erupted into applause at that moment, which is undeniably empowering — and arguably even necessary, considering the recent spike in hate crimes against Asian Americans.

The movie may not be “Bridesmaids”-level brilliant, but it’s got more than a couple hall-of-fame-worthy comedy set-pieces, like the memorable-enough K-pop cover of Cardi B’s “WAP,” which one-ups itself with an unforgettable reveal. What “Joy Ride” doesn’t have is a particularly strong storyline on which to hang all its how-low-can-you-go shenanigans.

An overachieving associate in an otherwise all-white law firm, Audrey — who was raised by white parents, played by David Denman and Annie Mumolo, and knows hardly anything of her Asian heritage — accepts an assignment to fly to Beijing and seal the deal with an important Chinese client. She invites Lolo along to serve as translator, disregarding the fact that her friend (a “body positive artist” who finds a way to bring most conversations around to sex) has a tendency to say and do outrageously inappropriate things in public.

“Joy Ride” recognizes that women — and especially women of color — have it tough in the workplace, where they aren’t treated as equals and are frequently objectified by their peers. But if the movie’s being political about anything, it’s showing that another underrepresented demographic can be just as extreme as your average Seth Rogen movie. With that goal in mind, “Joy Ride” features more irreverent vagina monologues than “Sausage Party” did dick jokes, which is a surely an accomplishment of some kind.

At the end of the day, what matters is how funny it is, and if you strip away the alcohol-primed SXSW audience’s laugh-at-everything response, a lot of “Joy Ride’s” humor hinges on characters shouting insults (“You look like Hello Kitty just got skull-fucked by Keropi!”) or unapologetic ethnic stereotypes (presumably excused by the source). Wu adds an element of physical comedy to the mix, functioning as the movie’s go-to scene-stealer, the way Melissa McCarthy did in “Bridesmaids,” or Awkwafina in “Crazy Rich Asians.”

The script does a decent job of spreading the laughs between the four core characters, while giving them all something to do in key scenes — whether it’s the cross-country train ride which turns into a desperate scramble to ingest or otherwise conceal a ton of drugs before the Chinese police find them, or an ambitious montage in which each of the women gets lucky with one or more members of the Chinese Basketball Association.

Reviewed at SXSW (Headliners), March 17, 2023. Running time: 95 MIN.

Production: A Lionsgate release and presentation of a Point Grey, Red Mysterious Hippo production. Producers: Seth Rogen, Evan Goldberg, James Weaver, Josh Fagen, Cherry Chevapravatdumrong, Teresa Hsiao, Adele Lim. Executive producers: Daniel Clarke.
Crew: Director: Adele Lim. Screenplay: Cherry Chevapravatdumrong & Teresa Hsiao; story: Cherry Chevapravatdumrong & Teresa Hsiao & Adele Lim. Camera: Paul Yee. Editor: Nena Hsu Erb. Music: Nathan Matthew David.
With: Ashley Park, Sherry Cola, Stephanie Hsu, Sabrina Wu, Ronny Chieng, Meredith Hagner, David Denman, Annie Mumolo, Timothy Simons.

More From Our Brands

Taylor swift makes chart history with ‘the tortured poets department’, aston martin’s fastest-ever vantage makes formula 1® debut, mlbpa rips nike amid changes to controversial uniforms, be tough on dirt but gentle on your body with the best soaps for sensitive skin, the conners is losing its wednesdays-at-8 time slot on abc — find out why, verify it's you, please log in.

Log in or sign up for Rotten Tomatoes

Trouble logging in?

By continuing, you agree to the Privacy Policy and the Terms and Policies , and to receive email from the Fandango Media Brands .

By creating an account, you agree to the Privacy Policy and the Terms and Policies , and to receive email from Rotten Tomatoes and to receive email from the Fandango Media Brands .

By creating an account, you agree to the Privacy Policy and the Terms and Policies , and to receive email from Rotten Tomatoes.

Email not verified

Let's keep in touch.

Sign up for the Rotten Tomatoes newsletter to get weekly updates on:

Upcoming Movies and TV shows
Trivia & Rotten Tomatoes Podcast
Media News + More

By clicking "Sign Me Up," you are agreeing to receive occasional emails and communications from Fandango Media (Fandango, Vudu, and Rotten Tomatoes) and consenting to Fandango's Privacy Policy and Terms and Policies . Please allow 10 business days for your account to reflect your preferences.

OK, got it!

Movies / TV

No results found.

What's the Tomatometer®?
Login/signup

Movies in theaters

Opening this week
Top box office
Coming soon to theaters
Certified fresh movies

Movies at home

Fandango at Home
Netflix streaming
Prime Video
Most popular streaming movies
What to Watch New

Certified fresh picks

Challengers Link to Challengers
I Saw the TV Glow Link to I Saw the TV Glow
Música Link to Música

New TV Tonight

The Veil: Season 1
Hacks: Season 3
The Tattooist of Auschwitz: Season 1
A Man in Full: Season 1
Acapulco: Season 3
Welcome to Wrexham: Season 3
John Mulaney Presents: Everybody's in LA: Season 1
Star Wars: Tales of the Empire: Season 1
My Next Guest Needs No Introduction With David Letterman: Season 4.2
Shardlake: Season 1

Where to Watch

Rent Joy Ride on Fandango at Home, Prime Video, Apple TV, or buy it on Fandango at Home, Prime Video, Apple TV.

What to Know

Joy Ride isn't afraid to shock with its gross-out gags, but this road trip's real surprise is how successfully it blends its raunchy humor with real heart.

As long as your sense of humor runs to the risqué, Joy Ride is a laugh-out-loud viewing experience.

Audience Reviews

Cast & crew.

Stephanie Hsu

David Denman

Joe Sullivan

Ashley Park

Annie Mumolo

Mary Sullivan

Sherry Cola

Movie Clips

More like this, movie news & guides, this movie is featured in the following articles., critics reviews.

Screen Rant

Joy ride (2023): release date, cast, story details, trailer & everything we know.

Joy Ride is an Adele Lim-directed road trip comedy that replaces the genre's usual group of man-children with a cast of all-Asian-American women.

Joy Ride is a 2023 road trip comedy marking the feature directorial debut of Adele Lim, and details about the movie's release date, cast, story, and more are now available. The Joy Ride movie follows a group of four women who travel to China for work, to find lost family members, and to reconnect with their heritage. While it's Lim's first film as a director, her screenwriting experience includes the adaptation of Crazy Rich Asians and the Disney animated feature Raya and the Last Dragon . Lim also has many television producing credits to her name.

Unlike most movies in the R-rated comedy genre , Joy Ride follows a cast of mostly Asian-American actors, and the writing team consists of Asian Americans Cherry Chevapravatdumrong and Teresa Hsiao, both best known for their work on Family Guy . What Joy Ride has in common with the standout raunchy comedies of the 2000s is Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg as producers. These two leading comedy figures are strong endorsements for the movie, and early reviews have been positive as well. With a familial story combined with a talented cast and crew, audiences can expect a lot of laughs and emotional heft from the Joy Ride movie .

RELATED: Joy Ride (2023) Cast & Character Guide

Joy Ride Latest News

The most recent Joy Ride movie update is a new clip that showcases more of the movie's raunchy humor (via Billboard ). In the clip, the gang attempts to pass themselves off as a K-pop group. They're dressed in eccentric clothing and wigs, and they have given themselves fittingly outrageous K-popstar names. Their K-pop pseudonyms are Sassy, Cutie, Lisa, and Lisa 2. However, the funniest part of the Joy Ride movie clip is when they give a rendition of Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion's hit "WAP" and it certainly seems to embody the kind of high energy that all the other looks at the movie have shown.

Another recent Joy Ride movie update sees the release of the movie's latest red band trailer. The new footage sells the movie's R-rated humor and the wild road trip style of the story. There is also a special emphasis placed on the ensemble. Following the movie's critically acclaimed premiere at SXSW, the trailer also highlights the positive reactions, featuring pull quotes from some of the most glowing reviews. The movie is clearly looking to gain some buzz and the trailer does a good job of showing it as the next must-watch comedy.

Joy Ride Release Date

Joy Ride is slated to release theatrically on July 7, 2023 . A middle-of-the-summer drop is the classic release time for a big studio comedy and a symbol of the producers' and Lionsgate’s confidence in the movie. The film has to compete against some major blockbusters that are sure to make a lot of money.

Joy Ride Cast

The main quartet of the Joy Ride movie is made up entirely of Asian-American actors, one of the few instances of this demographic leading a comedy movie. They are Ashley Park ( Emily in Paris ) as Audrey, Sherry Cola ( Turning Red ) as Lolo, Stephanie Hsu ( Everything Everywhere All at Once ) as Kat, and newcomer Sabrina Wu as Deadeye.

Rounding out the rest of the main cast of Joy Ride is David Denman ( The Office ), Annie Mumolo ( Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar ), Chris Pang ( Crazy Rich Asians ), Desmond Chiam ( The Falcon and the Winter Soldier ), Alexander Hodge ( Insecure ), Ronny Chieng ( Crazy Rich Asians) , and Lori Tan Chinn ( Turning Red ).

Seth Rogen & Evan Goldberg Are Joy Ride Producers

The production company attached to the Joy Ride movie is Point Grey Pictures, founded in 2011 by Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg . Their company has produced some of the biggest comedies over the last decade, including Neighbors , This is the End , and Good Boys . Rogen and Goldberg are also attached personally to produce, and their credits include some very iconic comedies of the early 2000s. Superbad , Pineapple Express, and Knocked Up are just some of the movies that would not have been possible without either Rogen or Goldberg. Having those two as a big part of Joy Ride signals the movie has been made with similar care.

Rogen and Goldberg began their early careers under the tutelage of Judd Apatow, and the trio worked together on a number of projects. The Apatowian-era of comedy has steadily declined since the mid-2010s but the creators who were shaped by it continue to be prominent figures in Hollywood. Rogen, Goldberg, and Point Grey Pictures are spiritual successors to Apatow, and the Joy Ride movie is in an enviable position as the latest in the line of their tentpole comedies.

Joy Ride Story Details

Joy Ride is a coming-of-age comedy that, as the name suggests, takes place over a road trip. Audrey is an Asian-American woman living in Washington State with her adoptive parents, played by Denman and Mumolo. Audrey spends most of her time with her childhood best friend, Lolo, who also happens to be the only other Asian-American person in their town. For her job as a lawyer, Audrey is tasked with traveling to China to close an important deal. Yet Audrey has never been in touch with her culture and invites Lolo, Lolo’s cousin Deadeye, and her college friend Kat along for the ride.

As Joy Ride 's cast of characters set out on their journey, Audrey decides to use this once-in-a-lifetime trip as an excuse to also meet her birth parents and connect with her Chinese roots. Their trip is full of adventure, danger, drugs, spontaneous K-pop performances, and every other road trip joke and situation that the Joy Ride movie can be a vehicle for. Like any good R-rated comedy, there is plenty of raunchy sex, outrageous jokes, and unbelievable characters to fill the surprisingly brisk 90-minute runtime.

Joy Ride Trailer

The latest trailer for the Joy Ride movie has been released, once again showing off the raunchy, R-rated tone of the movie. While the new trailer doesn't go into the story as much as the first Joy Ride trailer, it aims to highlight the movie's positive early reactions from critics and audiences. Along with the clips from the movie's road trip antics, the trailer is filled with quotes calling the movie a new comedy classic, praising the ensemble, and comparing it to other hit R-rated comedies like The Hangover and Girls Trip .

A clip has also been released that sees the four main characters dressed up as a K-pop group as they attempt to gain entry into a VIP area they wouldn't otherwise be able to reach. The clip delivers exactly what was being praised by industry insiders after the CinemaCon screening, and it teases the exact kind of crude and over-the-top humor that audiences should expect. Both the new trailer and clip hint at the movie's themes of the characters being Asian-American and the feeling of being separated from their culture. That aspect of the movie makes Joy Ride an even more intriguing comedy, but it makes sense that the latest marketing push has highlighted it as the big summer comedy.

The Definitive Voice of Entertainment News

Subscribe for full access to The Hollywood Reporter

site categories

Ashley park, stephanie hsu take a raunchy road trip in ‘joy ride’ trailer.

Adele Lim’s directorial debut for Lionsgate also stars Sherry Cola and Sabrina Wu, and is being teased as the rowdy Asian American friendship comedy bows at SXSW.

By Etan Vlessing

Etan Vlessing

Canada Bureau Chief

Share this article on Facebook
Share this article on Twitter
Share this article on Flipboard
Share this article on Email
Show additional share options
Share this article on Linkedin
Share this article on Pinit
Share this article on Reddit
Share this article on Tumblr
Share this article on Whatsapp
Share this article on Print
Share this article on Comment

Ashley Park, Sherry Cola, Oscar nominee Stephanie Hsu and Sabrina Wu are four unlikely friends taking a wildly debauched trip to Asia in Joy Ride , a friendship comedy from the producers of Neighbors and Lionsgate.

Crazy Rich Asians co-writer Adele Lim’s directorial debut from Seth Rogen ’s Point Grey features a road trip gone wrong for Audrey (Park) after she enlists help from Lolo (Cola), Chinese soap star Kat (Hsu) and eccentric cousin Deadeye (Wu).

THR Newsletters

More from The Hollywood Reporter

Lily gladstone, omar sy, eva green on cannes competition jury, ‘deadpool & wolverine’ director shawn levy says film requires no “prior research” of marvel cinematic universe, nicole kidman says despite producing success, she doesn’t want to direct: “i would be a terrible director”, meryl streep says she was “traumatized” watching nicole kidman in ‘big little lies’ at afi life achievement gala, ray chan, art director and production designer for marvel films, dies at 56, box office: zendaya’s ‘challengers’ hits target with $15m opening for no. 1 finish.

Entertainment

Ashley Park, Stephanie Hsu, and Sherry Cola Embark on an Adventure of a Lifetime in "Joy Ride"

Updated on 6/15/2023 at 1:45 PM

A trip to China turns into a wild (and hilarious) journey of self discovery in the new trailer for "Crazy Rich Asians" co-writer Adele Lim's directorial debut, "Joy Ride." The upcoming movie stars "Emily in Paris" actor Ashley Park and Sherry Cola as best friends Audrey and Lolo, who head to China on a business trip with the hope of finding Audrey's birth mother along the way. However, their itinerary falls apart when they meet a drug dealer on the train who ropes them and their friends, Lolo's cousin Deadeye (Sabrina Wu) and Audrey's former roommate Kat (played by recent Oscar nominee Stephanie Hsu ) into her dangerous operation.

In one of the trailer's funniest scenes, the friends try to dispose of all the drugs as quickly as possible by ingesting them, and hiding them on — and in — their bodies. "Just push, pull... I mean twist it!" Lolo encourages a desperate Kat as she tries to remove the bags she stashed in her butt. "It's not a Bop It, it's my asshole!" she replies.

"Joy Ride" made its world debut at the SXSW festival in Austin on March 17. During an interview with Vanity Fair , Lim shared that her goal was to make a film in the vein of "The Hangover" and "Bridesmaids" that put the spotlight squarely on young Asian women. "There's a certain way Asian American women particularly are portrayed in TV and film — there's a lot of exoticization and fetishization," she explained. "We really wanted to tell a story inspired by our friendship and our friends, and having characters that were messy and thirsty and just pieces of work."

The end result appears to be a no-holds-barred comedy about friendship, finding your roots, and having a whole lot of fun along the way. Read on for everything you need to know about "Joy Ride" ahead, including the movie's two trailers and premiere date.

"Joy Ride" 2023 Trailer #2

"Joy Ride" 2023 Trailer #1

"Joy Ride" 2023 Plot

The movie follows Audrey, who is heading to China in order to close a major deal. She decides to bring her childhood best friend, Lolo, along as her translator, and the pals hope to find Audrey's birth mother during their trip. They're also joined by Lolo's cousin Deadeye, and Audrey's roommate turned Chinese soap star Kat.

But what starts as a business trip, quickly turns into an epic road trip across China after the friends lose their passports. Soon Audrey is embarking on a messy journey of self-discovery that involves pretending to be a K-Pop star and inadvertently getting roped into a drug dealer's scheme.

"Joy Ride" 2023 Cast

In addition to Park, Hsu, Cola, and Wu, "Joy Ride" is also set to star Desmond Chiam ("The Falcon and the Winter Soldier"), Alexander Hodge ("Insecure"), and Chris Pang ("Crazy Rich Asians"). The movie is directed by Lim, and the screenplay is by "Awkwafina Is Nora From Queens" writers Cherry Chevapravatdumrong and Teresa Hsiao. Hsiao, Lim and Chevapravatdumrong collaborated on the overall story.

"Joy Ride" 2023 Release Date

"Joy Ride" will premiere in theaters on July 7.

"Joy Ride" 2023 Poster

Ashley Park
Stephanie Hsu

International edition
Australia edition
Europe edition

From left: Stephanie Hsu, Sherry Cola, Ashley Park and Sabrina Wu in Joy Ride.

Joy Ride review – slickly likable Asian-American comedy dwells on family and identity

Laughs, high energy levels and some outrageous set pieces make this examination of the complex relationship with distant family a fun journey of self-discovery

W riter-producer Adele Lim, who worked on the script for Crazy Rich Asians, now makes her feature directing debut with this likable and brash Asian-American comedy about four women leaving the US for a trip to the Chinese homeland; they come to terms with their roots in various ways, expressing sexualities queer and straight and of course celebrating friendship.

It all barrels along, with a journey-of-discovery narrative template not entirely dissimilar to the recent Book Club sequel ; the energy levels are high and there are some outrageous gags, between which the mandatory sentimentality is reasonably managed although occasionally the sex-positivity theme is rather earnestly signalled. And given how contemporary and hip the script is striving to be, and the fact that it’s specifically about four American nationals flying to China, the lack of any mention of the recent Covid lockdown and diplomatic froideur between China and the US is a bit weird. This project could, of course, have originated before the pandemic.

Ashley Park plays Audrey, adopted as a child by a white American couple and now a super-smart overachiever, about to make partner in a very Wasp-y Seattle law firm; the casually racist boss (played by Veep’s Timothy Simons) needs her to negotiate for lucrative work with a Chinese company. Her best friend from girlhood is Lolo (played by comic Sherry Cola), who back in the day beat up racist kids in the playground on Audrey’s behalf and is now a penniless aspiring artist, still fearlessly cracking wise. Audrey takes Lolo on this business trip to Beijing, and they find themselves being accompanied by non-binary mutual acquaintance Deadeye (Sabrina Wu), whose life so far has been lived pretty much online.

Once in the Chinese capital, they look up a friend: Kat (Stephanie Hsu, from Everything Everywhere All at Once ) who is now a famous screen actor and engaged to a Christian hunk who doesn’t know about the colourful love life she has enjoyed up until now – believing her to be, like him, a virgin. But Audrey faces a challenge: the Chinese businessman (Ronnie Chieng) she is dealing with is not impressed with her lack of interest in her background, and so Audrey realises that to land the contract she must track down her birth mother.

Like The Farewell and Everything Everywhere All at Once, Joy Ride is very much about family, and about the complicated Asian-American experience of connecting with faraway relatives of whose existence you have been so far hardly aware. Joy Ride delivers mostly through setpieces, and the best is the one in which the four heroines are aboard a Chinese train looking for an empty compartment, or at least one in which the existing occupants look reassuringly respectable. They eagerly settle for one containing a blond white American – only later wondering if there is some internalised bigotry going on – but this woman is not what they think, and triggers a catastrophe which launches the action. A fun ride.

Comedy films
Drama films
Asia Pacific
Everything Everywhere All At Once

Most viewed

‘Joy Ride’: The Asian Squad Raising Hell and Crushing Stereotypes

By Marlow Stern

Marlow Stern

The new movie Joy Ride , a riotously funny comedy about a group of four Asian-American pals — Audrey ( Ashley Park of Emily in Paris ), Kat ( Stephanie Hsu , Oscar-nominated star of Everything Everywhere All at Once ), Lolo ( Sherry Cola ), and Deadeye ( Sabrina Wu ) — who head to China to try to help Audrey close a business deal (and find her birth mother), was originally titled Joy Fuck Club . It served as a recognition of those that came before them in the Asian cinema canon, but also a reminder of just how gleefully chaotic this road-trip adventure is. After all, Crazy Rich Asians scribe Adele Lim ’s feature directorial debut boasts everything from cocaine getting shoved up people’s butts and a three-way sex scene (that the cast has come to refer to as the “double-munch”) to a full-frontal shot at the end of a performance of Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion’s “WAP” that will have you in hysterics.

They describe themselves as “four pieces of a puzzle”: Audrey is the by-the-book lawyer gunning for a promotion who’s never had sex with an Asian guy; Kat’s a famous soapy actress in China who’s crushing on her chaste co-star, thereby hiding her kinky past (she once had a three-way with two Jonas brothers); Lolo is Audrey’s right-hand woman who talks a big game, sexually and otherwise; and Deadeye is Lolo’s weirdo cousin who loves BTS and is just excited to be there getting some friend time in with these gals.

Ever since its premiere at SXSW, the film, produced by Seth Rogen ’s production company Point Grey, has garnered comparisons to The Hangover and Bridesmaids . And Rolling Stone had the pleasure of sitting down with the four leads of Joy Ride over lunch in Manhattan to discuss their trailblazing new movie.

Editor’s picks

The 250 greatest guitarists of all time, the 500 greatest albums of all time, the 50 worst decisions in movie history, every awful thing trump has promised to do in a second term.

[All four begin hitting the table and clapping while singing, “We will… we will… WAP YOU!” in the style of Queen’s “We Will Rock You.”]

Sabrina Wu: You had to do that beat because you couldn’t hold any other beat.

Park: And then we realized with Sabrina, like, oh, you really beat box.

Wu: I wouldn’t say that. Out of respect to the beatboxing community, I would say I’m extremely mid.

Out of respect to Rahzel. Park: Every place we go, if we can get a meal like this in together, Sherry is the queen of ordering like it’s our first and last supper ever.

Mae Martin Is a Master Escape Artist

Ellen degeneres addresses ‘getting kicked out of show business’ on her new comedy tour: ‘it’s been a toll on my ego’, megan thee stallion sued by personal cameraman for harassment and 'hostile work environment'.

Park: We discovered early on, and I wasn’t as familiar with this process, but to get this genuine comedy in this way, Point Grey uses alt-lines. So, you do a scene, you learn it, and as you’re doing it, our amazing writers in the tent would think up different versions of every single line. Then, we’d do different versions of every line.

Cola: After experiencing Point Grey’s method of alts, I think we’ve become sharper comedic actors in that process. Along with the screenwriters Cherry [Chevapravatdumrong] and Teresa [Hsiao], there were these punch-up writers on set who punched up jokes as we filmed it.

Park: Literally, we would do ten different words in a spot. By the end of the first week, most of the stuff in the movie isn’t even those jokes, but the improv that came after those jokes.

Now that you’ve mentioned “WAP,” we’ve gotta talk about it. How long did it take you to nail down “WAP” when you were practicing it in Ashley’s backyard? And did you have any say in your K-pop costumes? Park: Adele [Lim] wrote this awesome letter to Megan Thee Stallion and Cardi B saying, “Listen, you’ve really reclaimed your sexuality and empowered yourselves with this song. We would love to do the same, if you give us your blessing.”

Stephanie Hsu: We would film Monday through Friday and have dance rehearsals on Saturday. And we shot that the last week of filming.

Cola: We went to the recording studio, laid the track, and we were so honored to use the song. Beverly Huynh, our wardrobe head, was so collaborative, and allowed us to fulfill our K-pop fantasies as Brownie Tuesday.

Hsu: I knew I wanted the blonde wig, and then I saw that Ashley had the blonde wig, and I was like, “Well, she’s number one on the call sheet, so…”

Park: And I was like, “This is Stephanie!” Because it completely made sense for Kat.

It’s a very funny counterpoint to conservative troll Ben Shapiro’s rendition of “WAP.” Park: Oh, no!

Was there a moment where you felt like this was a vibe and you were all really in sync? Wu: It was at the table read for me. It was still in the Covid-lockdown period, so there was an executive every ten feet in a mask, and it was outdoors in [the Point Grey] parking lot, and it was an impossible place to kill. And we became a four-person a cappella group, and it was electric. Imagine doing “WAP” a cappella! We were improvising and so in the moment. I was like, no offense, but I think this might be really special.

Cola: As we got deeper into the process of filming, it was clear that this was a forever friendship — on and off screen. We developed this telepathic language of just eye contact, nodding and sound effects, and we knew exactly what the other was talking about.

Park: I was so nervous at the table read that I almost blacked out, but in reading all our parts, I found myself being so proud when someone nailed a moment or really found something. I felt genuine support and like we were all listening to each other. Have you guys thought about this? Because we haven’t really debriefed since doing all that stuff. But people say we have great chemistry, and I never even thought about our chemistry, because it was always such a given. It was immediately easy.

Stephanie, there is a big reveal for your character at the end of the “WAP” number [a shocking vagina tattoo]. How did you pull that off, and were there different tattoo ideas being floated? Hsu: There was a body double audition process that I was invited to, and it was very important that we chose someone who was comfortable in their skin, because that is a very courageous and exposing act. We chose this woman who was very sex-positive and awesome.

It plays really well. Hsu: It does. I think we figured out the sweet spot of time, duration. I come from a comedy background and hung out with all boys growing up, so I was around a lot of perverted people who were unhinged. When I read it on the page, it didn’t really strike me as something wild. And suddenly, when we were shooting it, it wasn’t abstract. You’re like, “The makeup artist is gonna put this on a body, and they’re gonna shoot that body!”

I recently spoke with your pal Bowen Yang , by the way, who had lovely things to say about you and your time together at NYU. Hsu: Aw! I love him so much. It’s really wild that we get to be on this journey in tandem, together. It’s really nuts.

With the drug-binge sequence on the train, what were you all snorting? Cola: It was a B-12 vitamin, and I was actually down to take it for real, but they put this device in my hand that was disguised as a rolled-up fifty-dollar bill and it’s a tube up my sleeve. There was a lot of tube work, actually! The puking scene involved a tube. All of us really found our moments in that train car. We just went in there, played, and let loose. We laughed our asses off.

Park: It was our last day of filming! And Meredith [Hagner] was such a pro. Everyone who came to the set cameo-wise was so excited for us and brought it.

There’s also the hilarious three-way sequence. Hsu: We call it the double-munch.

Park: Double-munch box!

Wu: The Munchables!

Were there any other wild scenes that were left on the cutting-room floor? Cola: There’s a deleted scene that’s going to be in the bonus DVD extras—

Hsu: —That’s going to be in your eulogy! Cola: It’s a moment with Lolo and Kat at my character’s grandma’s house, and I’m not going to give away too much because you’ve gotta buy the DVD, but… it leans into that sexual tension. It’s very special, very heartfelt, and I personally think it’s hilarious.

Hsu: The hatred between Lolo and Kat throughout the entire movie is a hatred that is purely based in sexual tension, and there’s a scene where you almost see it bubble… right to the lip. And someone — one of us — is afraid.

Cola: The joke is that I’m all flirt and no squirt! We’re saving it for the sequel.

How do you think the film upends Asian stereotypes? This film is going to garner comparisons to The Hangover , for example, which has a problematic Asian character in it. Park: What I’ve been thinking about is that, in terms of stereotypes, the four of us have never wanted to be contained to a certain box or label, and I feel like trying to break stereotypes is giving the verbiage and the power to the people who are making the stereotypes. For me, it’s been about finding the truth in the character or a person, and then if it makes people see Asian people a different way. It’s about, how can we expose the different facets of a single person?

Hsu: It’s also the gift of having Adele [Lim], Cherry [Chevapravatdumrong] and Teresa [Hsiao] at the helm of it. They were in control and keeping us safe. They know what it’s like to be the butt of the joke. They allowed us to surrender into making fun of ourselves with full gusto. My press catchphrase has been, “Instead of being the butt of the joke, we’re four butts and four jokes.”

Park, Cola, and Wu : Oh!

Hsu: Or four butts and endless jokes. That was such a key component of why we didn’t even have to work hard in “upending” stereotypes, because that was not the focus of the film. They just allowed us to be ourselves and have at it.

Park: The kid on the playground! What’s funny is to watch white people laugh at it just as hard as Asian people.

Two recent films really seemed to shift the industry’s perspective of what an “Asian movie” could be: Crazy Rich Asians and Everything Everywhere All at Once . Crazy Rich Asians showed that you can make a studio romcom with an all-Asian cast and it could be a global box-office hit, while Everything Everywhere righted a bunch of Oscar wrongs, since Asian actors had constantly been overlooked for Oscars. No one from the casts of Crouching Tiger and Parasite were even nominated. Park: I wouldn’t even put either of those films in the “Asian film” category. Crazy Rich Asians was a beautiful romantic comedy that everyone went to go watch, and Everything Everywhere All at Once was the little engine that could and contained incredible performances, regardless of if they were Asian. Adele [Lim], Cherry [Chevapravatdumrong] and Teresa [Hsiao] — along with Point Grey — were excited to see Asian faces and people being lifted in that way, but also wanted this to be in the ranks of great comedies.

Hsu: If I were to zoom out, put my professorial hat on and look at the last ten years, there’s been incredible Asian cinema that people know about. But in this moment of us breaking these PC barriers, I feel like Crazy Rich Asians was so significant in its box office success because the “market” needed to know that we were valuable and that we could bring people into the movie theater, which is so unfortunate that people didn’t think that. It all of a sudden made us sexy. It made Asian men feel so sexy. It completely did a very Hollywood box office pop version of an American movie, but it just had Asian faces. I think that with that success, Everything Everywhere got to be centered around an Asian family. There were moments where maybe it wasn’t going to be an Asian family, and then Dan Kwan was like, “This is the story and the one that I want to tell.” Because of the success of Crazy Rich Asians , I think people had something to point to. Every space that opens can open up more for other people. The great thing about Joy Ride after Everything Everywhere , because right after the Oscars we were at SXSW premiering our movie, was that in the spectrum of Asian-American filmmaking, I love that this little indie film solidified its place in the quilt of cinema, and Asians in the fabric of cinema, and what comes next is this raunchy R-rated comedy that completely flips any perception of a “model-minority” expectation. It’s like, yeah, we can win Oscars and we can be disgusting.

Cola: This year, in general, has been so grand for us. Beef , Everything Everywhere , Shortcomings . It’s about Asians in day-to-day relationships. Shortcomings is Asians sitting around and talking. They’re just human beings that happen to be Asian. As debauched and dirty as our film is, it’s still done so intentionally and tastefully.

Wu: I also write for TV as well, and I’ve felt that when you want to talk about people of color and marginalized people, I feel this unspoken pressure that it has to be very smart and auteur. It needs this very specific voice.

You feel the standard is higher. Wu: Yeah. I think that’s a pressure that people of color feel. Our film isn’t dumb, but it’s not shooting for that feel of proving that we are excellent. We’re going for something that’s raw and funny and dumb, in a smart way. It’s accessible. And I think that’s the new space that we’re carving out with this movie. It’s Superbad . It’s The Hangover . It’s us being insane . Teresa [Hsiao] has said many times as a joke that this movie will “bring dishonor to us all,” but that is something that’s been very hard in this industry — to sell something with people of color where we don’t have to be the smartest, most artistic Asian person you’ve ever met; like, the voice of a generation. We’re just awesome creators that are gonna hit with Middle America and all these other spots.

Park: To play a flawed character is so wonderful because then you get to have growth and an arc.

Cola: I think we’re learning to give ourselves permission to make mistakes.

What are the lasting memories you’ll take away from the Joy Ride experience? Park: It’s hard to remember the specifics of scenes sometimes for me. Not to be cheesy, but there were moments where someone would say something funny and we’re all laughing, and I’d never felt so at ease. Those kernels of feelings throughout.

Billie Eilish Would Like to Reintroduce Herself

Taylor swift makes chart history with ‘the tortured poets department', meet the mvp of 'shōgun' — ex-punk rocker and japanese movie star tadanobu asano, salma hayek joins madonna for ‘vogue’ in mexico city.

Wu: Literally, that was the peak of my life. It’s been all downhill from there.

Nicole Kidman Becomes First Australian to Earn AFI Life Achievement Award

she makes movies better
By Daniel Kreps

Meet the MVP of 'Shōgun' — Ex-Punk Rocker and Japanese Movie Star Tadanobu Asano

TOKYO DRIFTER
By David Fear

What’s the Story Behind the ‘I Told Ya’ T-Shirt in 'Challengers'?

Game, Set, Match!
By Kalia Richardson and Sage Anderson

SZA and Keke Palmer Land Lead Roles in New Issa Rae-Produced Comedy Film

TriStar Trifecta
By Larisha Paul

Aaron Sorkin Blames Facebook for Jan. 6 and He's Trying to Write a 'Social Network' Sequel About It

Drop The 'The'
By Jon Blistein

Most Popular

Anne hathaway says 'gross' chemistry test in the 2000s required her to make out with 10 guys: that's the 'worst way to do it' and 'now we know better', louvre considers moving mona lisa to underground chamber to end 'public disappointment', real-life 'baby reindeer' stalker speaks out following netflix show success, sources gave an update on hugh jackman's 'love life' after fans raised concerns about his well-being, you might also like, spectacularly located procedural ‘weiss & morales’ rolls in the canary islands, from rtve, zdf and zdf studios, which shares sales rights (exclusive), miranda lambert goes bold and blue in denim jumpsuit with turquoise, rhinestones and fringe for stagecoach 2024, performs with reba mcentire, the best yoga mats for any practice, according to instructors, is caitlin cronenberg entering the family business with ‘humane’: ‘we would need a therapist to weigh in’, mlbpa rips nike amid changes to controversial uniforms.

Verify it's you

Please log in.

'Joy Ride' review: Summer's raunchiest comedy goes hard on sex, drugs and K-pop

The dudes of “The Hangover” walked so the women of “Bridesmaids” and “Girls Trip” could run, leading now to the talented cast of “Joy Ride” causing all manner of raunchy international chaos.

Four very different Asian American friends go on a gut-busting trip to Beijing that explodes tropes and stereotypes and bursts with heart in the smartly paced, fabulously unhinged and proudly explicit comedy (★★★½ out of four, rated R, in theaters Friday), the directorial debut for “Crazy Rich Asians” writer Adele Lim. It’s the kind of film where everybody will have their own favorite characters and riotous episodes but it doesn’t need A-list cameos or needle drops to make a mark – though it does boast one instantly memorable K-pop remix of a Cardi B hit.

Ashley Park stars as Audrey, a successful lawyer adopted from China as a little girl by white parents. She and her childhood friend Lolo (Sherry Cola), a trash-talking free spirit making sex-positive art while living in Audrey’s backyard, have long talked about one day finding Audrey’s birth mother, and an opportunity arises on a business trip to Beijing to do that plus land an important deal.

Lolo comes along as a translator (since Audrey isn’t fluent in Chinese) and brings her awkward BTS-loving cousin Deadeye (Sabrina Wu), and they meet up with Kat (recent Oscar nominee Stephanie Hsu ), Audrey’s college bestie who’s now an A-list Chinese soap-opera star . The quartet hit the road seeking Audrey's long-lost parent and dive into a series of madcap shenanigans, from doing an excessive amount of drugs to meeting up with ex-NBA star Baron Davis to disguising themselves as a K-pop quartet called Brownie Tuesday just to catch a plane. (And that’s just the stuff we can mention in a family newspaper, folks.)

But what makes “Joy Ride” special is getting to know the personalities and their quirks, with each of the four main characters wrestling with identity issues and needing a dose of self-discovery. Audrey feels out of place both at home and in China. Lolo has big artistic dreams she worries never will come to fruition, and because she's a bit of a slacker, she frets about losing her lifelong connection with her ambitious BFF. Kat is engaged to her hunky and deeply devout co-star, who's saving himself for marriage, yet the image-conscious actress hasn’t told him of her far-from-virginal past. And Deadeye is a sweet beatboxing sort struggling with her insecurities who desperately holds on to anything resembling friendship.

'Past Lives': Why the romantic drama is one of the year's best films

The primary cast is spot-on from top to bottom, but Cola is a delight to watch letting loose with her character’s riotous side – she’s also impressive in the upcoming Sundance Film Festival comedy “Shortcomings” – and Wu is a nonbinary stand-up comedian with flawless timing. “Lost” fans will adore a stellar supporting turn from Daniel Dae Kim: He misses all the sex-fueled revelry but shows up late in the proceedings for the most heartfelt scenes.

Like last year’s Oscar-winning “Everything Everywhere All at Once ” and this year’s “Past Lives” and “Return to Seoul” – albeit with more threesomes, tattooed genitalia and slap fights – “Joy Ride” is a superbly crafted film that centers on and celebrates Asian people and culture yet also is wholly relatable on a wider scale. Everybody’s had an Audrey, Lolo, Kat and/or Deadeye come into their lives, perhaps even akin to the four forces of nature here. And with this group of hilarious stars and thoughtful filmmakers, the hard-R comedy couldn’t be in better hands.

'Everything Everywhere' sweep: A long-awaited, well-deserved win for Asian Americans

‘Joy Ride’: Four friends deliver raunchy laughs in the year’s funniest movie

Asian american women dominate an outstanding cast of this sometimes moving, sometimes hilarious road trip comedy..

Sabrina Wu Ashley Park Sherry Cola Stephanie Hsu Joy Ride

Sabrina Wu (from left), Ashley Park, Sherry Cola and Stephanie Hsu play friends on a journey across China in “Joy Ride.”

Female-fronted ensemble comedies are still relatively rare, but with “Bridesmaids” setting the tone some 12 years ago (!), we’ve since had “Trainwreck” and “Booksmart” and “Girls Trip” and “The Heat” and now comes “Joy Ride,” which had a working title of “The Joy F--- Club” and that would have been amazing and absolutely accurate. This is a ferociously funny, raunchy, bold and original buddy comedy with a mostly female, Asian American lead cast that teams up with director Adele Lim to deliver the funniest movie of 2023 so far.

I avoid saying a comedy is “laugh out loud hilarious” unless that’s literally true, but I laughed out loud at least a half-dozen times at the edgy antics of “Joy Ride” — and I was genuinely moved by the warmhearted scenes depicting the complicated bonds of friendship and family. Thanks to a crisp and insightful and sometimes silly screenplay by Cherry Chevapravatdumrong and Teresa Hsiao, the surehanded and well-paced direction by Lim (writer of “Raya and the Last Dragon” and “Crazy Rich Asians”) and the electric chemistry among the four leads, “Joy Ride” absolutely sings.

After a hilarious, table-setting prologue set in the 1990s (featuring the best punch of the year outside of “John Wick: Chapter Four”), we catch up some 25 years later with lifelong best friends Audrey (Ashley Park) and Lolo (Sherry Cola), who remain close even as they’ve followed wildly different career paths. The relatively rigid and conservative Audrey is an attorney hoping to become a partner at her prestigious and uptight and very white law firm, while the brash and outspoken Lolo is a sex-positive artist who is struggling to make ends meet and is perhaps a bit too clingy with Audrey.

When Audrey’s supervisors give her a high-profile assignment to close a deal with a wealthy Chinese client in Beijing — they assume Audrey speaks Mandarin, and she doesn’t disavow them of that notion — Audrey brings along Lolo to act as translator. What could possibly go right? (A prevalent theme throughout “Joy Ride” is that while Lolo is deeply connected to her Asian roots, Audrey feels lost between cultures.)

Once Audrey and Lolo arrive, they’re joined by Audrey’s college best friend Kat (Stephanie Hsu from “Everything Everywhere All at Once”), who is now a popular actress in China hoping to get cast in a film that will give her a global profile, and Lolo’s socially awkward cousin Deadeye (played by nonbinary standup Sabrina Wu), who has made online connections with a bunch of fellow K-pop lovers, and is hoping to connect with them in person. Assuming they’re actual people, of course.

Through a bit of forced plot contrivance, Audrey puts herself in a bind that can only be resolved if she meets her birth mother, which kicks off a classic Road Trip Comedy that takes us across China and eventually to Korea. Clocking in at a breezy 92 minutes, “Joy Ride” still manages to find time for a myriad of subplots, including the rivalry between Lolo and Kat to claim Audrey as best friend; Kat’s romance with her Christian co-star Clarence (Desmond Chiam), who believes Kat is a virgin, and let’s just say that’s a long, long way from the truth, and some madcap hijinks involving a drug dealer and a train trip gone horribly wrong.

Oh, and we’d be remiss not to mention the various hookups involving members of a men’s basketball team, and the K-pop cover of Cardi B’s “WAP,” and the reveal that one member of our quartet has of a very elaborate tattoo in an extremely intimate area, and when I say reveal, I mean REVEAL.

Time and again, “Joy Ride” embraces stereotypes and turns them sideways for effective comedy (with just a sprinkling of social commentary), whether it’s Audrey’s colleagues throwing her a “Mulan”-themed birthday party; Audrey feeling she’s too Asian for America but too white for Asia; or a Chinese family’s reaction to learning someone they thought was Chinese is actually Korean.

Mostly, though, this is a comedy that once again proves women, in this case Asian American women, can go as raunchy and wacky as guys in “The Hangover” movies. All four of the main players are outstanding, with Park leading the way as the smart, flawed, funny, deeply empathetic Audrey; Hsu and Cola delivering solid laughs and some genuinely moving turns; and Wu creating one of the most indelible and lovable characters of the year in the fantastically awkward Deadeye. If there’s a “Joy Ride 2,” and why not, sign me up for the trip.

Skip to main content
Keyboard shortcuts for audio player

Movie Reviews

Buckle up: this mile-a-minute 'joy ride' across china is a raunchy romp.

Justin Chang

Deadeye (Sabrina Wu), left, Audrey (Ashley Park), Lolo (Sherry Cola) and Kat (Stephanie Hsu) in Joy Ride. Ed Araquel/Lionsgate hide caption

Deadeye (Sabrina Wu), left, Audrey (Ashley Park), Lolo (Sherry Cola) and Kat (Stephanie Hsu) in Joy Ride.

There's an early moment in Joy Ride when you'll know if you're on board with this exuberantly raunchy comedy or not. On a neighborhood playground, a white kid tells a young Chinese American girl named Lolo that the place is off-limits to "ching chongs."

Lolo then does something that maybe a lot of us who've been on the receiving end of racist bullying have fantasized about doing: She drops an F-bomb and punches him in the face. It's an extreme response, but also a hilarious and, frankly, cathartic one — a blissfully efficient counter to every stereotype of the shy, docile Asian kid.

Pop Culture Happy Hour

These are the new movies and tv shows we can't wait to watch this summer.

Lolo soon becomes best friends with Audrey, one of the only other Asian American girls in their Washington state suburb. That aside, the two could hardly be more different: Where Lolo is unapologetically crude and outspoken, Audrey is quiet and eager-to-please. And while Lolo speaks Mandarin fluently and grew up steeped in Chinese culture, Audrey is more westernized, having been adopted as a baby in China and raised by white parents.

Years later, they're still best friends and total opposites: Audrey, played by Ashley Park, is a lawyer on the fast track to making partner at her firm, while Lolo, played by Sherry Cola, is a broke artist who makes sexually explicit sculptures.

The story gets going when Audrey is sent on a business trip to Beijing to woo a potential client. Lolo comes along for fun, and to serve as Audrey's translator. Lolo also brings along her K-pop-obsessed cousin, nicknamed Deadeye, who's played by the non-binary actor Sabrina Wu.

The script, written by Cherry Chevapravatdumrong and Teresa Hsiao, is heavy on contrivance: Thanks to Lolo's meddling, Audrey winds up putting her work on hold and trying to track down her birth mother. But the director Adele Lim keeps the twists and the laughs coming so swiftly that it's hard not to get swept up in the adventure.

I'm Really Into

Why 'everything everywhere all at once' feels more like reality than movie magic.

The comedy kicks up a notch once Audrey looks up her old college pal Kat, who's now a successful actor on a Chinese soap opera. Kat is played by Stephanie Hsu , who, after her melancholy breakout performance in Everything Everywhere All at Once , gets to show off some dazzling comedic chops here .

Like Lolo, with whom she initially butts heads, Kat has had a lot of sex, something she's trying to hide from her strictly Christian fiancé. But no one in Joy Ride holds onto their secrets, or their inhibitions, for very long. As they make their way through the scenic countryside, Audrey, Lolo, Kat and Deadeye run afoul of a drug dealer, hook up with some hunky Chinese basketball players and disguise themselves as a fledgling K-pop group for reasons too outlandish to get into here.

'Never Have I Ever' Complicates Its Asian American Characters. That's The Whole Point

In a way, Joy Ride — which counts Seth Rogen as one its producers — marks the latest step in a logical progression for the mainstream Hollywood comedy. If Bridesmaids and Girls Trip set out to prove that women could be as gleefully gross as, say, the men in The Hangover movies, this one is clearly bent on doing the same for Asian American women and non-binary characters.

Like many of those earlier models, Joy Ride boasts mile-a-minute pop-culture references, filthy one-liners and a few priceless sight gags, including some strategic full-frontal nudity. Naturally, it also forces Audrey and Lolo to confront their differences in ways that put their friendship to the test.

Hollywood relies on China to stay afloat. What does that mean for movies?

If it doesn't all work, the hit-to-miss ratio is still impressively high. Joy Ride may be reworking a formula, but it does so with disarming energy and verve, plus a level of savvy about Asian culture that we still rarely see in Hollywood movies. Director Lim can stage a gross-out moment or a frisky montage as well as anyone. But she also gives the comedy a subversive edge, whether she's pushing back on lazy assumptions about Asian masculinity or — in one queasily funny scene — making clear just how racist Asians can be toward other Asians.

The actors are terrific. Deadeye is named Deadeye for their seeming lack of expression, but Wu makes this character, in some ways, the emotional glue that holds the group together. You can hear Cola's past stand-up experience in just about every one of Lolo's foul-mouthed zingers. And Park gives the movie's trickiest performance as Audrey, an insecure overachiever who, as the movie progresses, learns a lot about herself. Maybe that's a cliché, too, but Joy Ride gives it just the punch it needs.

'Joy Ride' trailer promises misadventure, scandal and 'The Hangover' for Asians

Stephanie Hsu as Kat, Sabrina Wu as Deadeye, Ashley Park as Audrey, and Sherry Cola as Lolo in "Joy Ride."

Featuring a powerhouse cast of Asian actors, the trailer for the raunchy comedy “Joy Ride” dropped over the weekend, and fans are already buzzing with excitement ahead of its release this summer.

Starting off with a bang (a 5-year-old Asian girl cursing out and punching a white classmate who calls her a racial slur), the film’s trailer centers on the friendship between characters Audrey (Ashley Park) and Lolo (Sherry Cola).

Reminiscent of an Asian version of “The Hangover,” the story follows the two women as they journey to China in search of adoptee Audrey’s birth mother. While there, the two meet up with Audrey’s college roommate Kat (Oscar nominee Stephanie Hsu) and Lolo’s cousin Deadeye (Sabrina Wu).

Traversing China together, the four find themselves meeting hot guys, having their passports stolen, masquerading as K-pop stars, and inadvertently getting caught up in drug smuggling.

“For us to get to do this raunchy, balls to the wall, rated R, wild, unhinged movie, I feel like we have permission to do this and to make a mess and to not be precious with our identity,” Hsu said in a cast interview at the film’s South by Southwest premiere . “Our movie is not about so much more. It’s just a fun time.”

Set to release on July 7, the film is helmed by “Crazy Rich Asians” writer Adele Lim in her directorial debut. It’s produced by Seth Rogen, and features cameos by Ronny Chieng, Desmond Chiam and Chris Pang.

It’s unabashedly sexual, which Cola believes is one of its most important aspects. Given Asian womens’ historical exoticization and fetishization in Western media, “Joy Ride” is a chance to rewrite the narrative.

“Historically, it’s always been so extreme,” Cola said during the interview. “This film is about reclaiming our sexuality and telling that story through our own lens, through our own mouths and through our own bodies. I think that’s the number one goal here, to kind of redefine the box we’ve been put in.”

In a media landscape that’s so often served audiences Asians as stereotypes or side roles, a carefree movie with Asian main characters is monumental, cast members said.

“We’re all very used to being supporting characters,” Park said. “We were like, ‘Oh my gosh, it feels like we’ve been filming a different movie every day, like a different genre.’ And we were like, ‘I guess that’s what being the protagonist in your own story feels like.’”

Sakshi Venkatraman is a reporter for NBC Asian America.

Supported by

Critic’s Pick

‘Joy Ride’ Review: A Raunch-Com Roller Coaster

Four friends travel to China in a trip that goes entertainingly off the rails in this terrific comedy, starring Ashley Park and Sherry Cola.

Share full article

In a scene from “Joy Ride,” Stephanie Hsu, Sherry Cola, Ashley Park and Sabrina Wu stand in a room bathed in purple light, all looking past the camera with bemused or shocked expressions on their faces.

By Elisabeth Vincentelli

The new “Joy Ride” offers a modern-comedy bingo card with pretty much all the squares checked: mismatched besties, an oddball crashing a group outing, said outing going wildly off the rails, freewheeling sex, projectile vomiting, unhinged debauchery involving booze and drugs, and a crucial plot point hinging on an intimate body part.

This film, directed by the “ Crazy Rich Asians ” co-writer Adele Lim, may not reinvent the raunch-com wheel (see: “ The Hangover ,” “ Girls Trip ,” “ Bridesmaids ”), but it does change who’s driving the car. And, most importantly, it is really, really funny.

“Joy Ride” processes all of its familiar ingredients into a sustained, sometimes near-berserk, barrage of jokes, interspersed with epic set pieces. That is, up until the two-thirds mark, when the movie paints itself into a corner and presses the “earnest sentimentality” eject button before managing a narrow escape. It’s a small price to pay for the inspired pandemonium that precedes.

The mismatched friends here are Audrey (the brilliant Ashley Park , from “ Emily in Paris ”) and Lolo (a deliciously acerbic Sherry Cola), who have been best friends since childhood, when they bonded over being the only two Asian girls in their Pacific Northwest town.

Audrey, who was adopted from China by a white couple, grows up to become a prim, career-obsessed lawyer. She is sent to Beijing to close a deal, with a promotion hanging on her success. Since her Mandarin is practically nonexistent, she brings along the irrepressible Lolo. Completing the comic superteam are Lolo’s socially awkward cousin, Deadeye (Sabrina Wu), whose superpower is extensive K-pop knowledge, and Audrey’s college roommate Kat ( Stephanie Hsu , from “Everything Everywhere All at Once”), now a screen star in China and engaged to her very hunky and very Christian co-star (Desmond Chiam).

Eventually, Audrey decides to find her birth mother, and the four women set off on an odyssey that immediately devolves into a series of mishaps. The shenanigans come at breakneck speed, and peak with a repurposing of the Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion hit “WAP” that could become a late-night-karaoke staple in its own right.

The film is especially sharp around identity and assimilation, and the screenwriters Cherry Chevapravatdumrong and Teresa Hsiao have fun with the expectations and stereotypes placed on Asians and Asian Americans — including those that are self-imposed. The seams show only toward the end, when the film’s pace slackens, but even then, the cast’s chemistry and flawless timing hold steady.

As the straight arrow protagonist, Park expertly pulls off a trick similar to Kristen Wiig in “Bridesmaids”: Her character serves as the narrative engine, while also setting up comedy opportunities for the others.

If there is any justice, Park will soon be a marquee name. But this applies to all of the central quartet, who so effectively take advantage of the movie’s many opportunities to shine. With “Joy Ride,” summer has truly arrived.

Rated R for exuberant sexuality, bilingual foul language, brief nudity and liberal use of drugs and booze. Running time: 1 hour 35 minutes. In theaters .

Explore More in TV and Movies

Not sure what to watch next we can help..

Sydney Sweeney and Glen Powell speak about how “Anyone but You” beat the rom-com odds. Here are their takeaways after the film , debuting on Netflix, went from box office miss to runaway hit.

The vampire ballerina in the new movie “Abigail” has a long pop culture lineage . She and her sisters are obsessed, tormented and likely to cause harm.

In a joint interview, the actors Lily Gladstone and Riley Keough discuss “Under the Bridge,” their new true-crime series based on a teenager’s brutal killing in British Columbia.

The movie “Civil War” has tapped into a dark set of national angst . In polls and in interviews, a segment of voters say they fear the country’s divides may lead to actual, not just rhetorical, battles.

If you are overwhelmed by the endless options, don’t despair — we put together the best offerings on Netflix , Max , Disney+ , Amazon Prime and Hulu to make choosing your next binge a little easier.

Sign up for our Watching newsletter to get recommendations on the best films and TV shows to stream and watch, delivered to your inbox.

Search Please fill out this field.
Newsletters
Sweepstakes
Movie Reviews

Joy Ride review: Sex, drugs, and a very raunchy road movie

Ashley Park, Sherry Cola, Stephanie Hsu, and Sabrina Wu star in this predictable but charming comedy, about a group of friends on a bawdy trip through China.

Devan Coggan (rhymes with seven slogan) is a senior writer at Entertainment Weekly. Most of her personality is just John Mulaney quotes and Lord of the Rings references.

Five years ago, Adele Lim co-wrote Crazy Rich Asians , a hit rom-com that raked in more than $238 million and helped shatter misconceptions about Asian-led films in Hollywood. A sequel was quickly greenlit, but Lim later exited the film after she was reportedly offered significantly less money than her white male co-writer. Instead, she turned to a new project: a filthy road comedy about four best friends traveling through China. Now, that film has become a reality, and Lim makes her feature directorial debut with Joy Ride (out this weekend), a riotous raunch-fest that doesn't reinvent the genre but earns every bit of its hard-R rating.

Lim developed Joy Ride with friends Cherry Chevapravatdumrong and Teresa Hsiao, and the film itself is a testament to friendship and the many messy forms it can take. Broadway alum Ashley Park stars as Audrey, a buttoned-up overachiever who, as a child, was adopted from China by white American parents. Young Audrey became fast friends with Lolo (Sherry Cola), the only other Asian girl in their blindingly white suburb. (When a kid on the playground hurls a racial slur, the tiny Lolo decks him in the face, a shocking but hilarious moment that sets the tone for the chaos to come.) Decades later, Audrey and Lolo are still inseparable, even as Audrey has grown into a prim lawyer, while Lolo is a lawless, sex-positive artist crafting lewd sculptures in Audrey's backyard.

When Audrey heads to China for an international business trip, Lolo volunteers to tag along as her interpreter, accompanied by her awkward, K-pop-obsessed cousin Deadeye (nonbinary actor Sabrina Wu). Later, they're joined by Audrey's college roommate Kat ( Everything Everywhere All at Once star Stephanie Hsu ), who's found fame as a soapy TV star in China. What starts as a giddy vacation quickly goes off the rails, as Ashley tries to close a deal with an intimidating business contact (Ronny Chieng). To prove that she's a dedicated family woman, she reluctantly decides to track down her birth mother in China, triggering — you guessed it — even more chaos.

Joy Ride isn't the first bawdy, R-rated comedy to hit theaters this summer: No Hard Feelings premiered in June, starring Jennifer Lawrence as a 30something hired to flirt with a recent high school grad. But where No Hard Feelings dipped a toe into raunch, Joy Ride cannonballs straight in. Vomit is spewed, drugs are shoved in bodily orifices, threesomes are had with professional basketball players. (Baron Davis has a role as himself.) At one point, having lost their passports, the four friends pose as a fake K-pop group, complete with a hilariously absurd performance of Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion's " WAP " (ending with a jaw-droppingly filthy finale).

The four leads have an easy chemistry. Hsu, a recent Oscar nominee for Everything Everywhere, shows off her comic chops as the reluctantly celibate Kat, while Wu's Deadeye lives up to their name, delivering emotionless and deeply hilarious reaction shots. Cola is also a charming hurricane of chaos, a lascivious foil to Park's strait-laced Audrey.

Gross gags and chaotic debauchery aren't exactly new, and Joy Ride shares plenty of DNA with other female-led comedies like 2011's Bridesmaids and 2017's Girls Trip . Joy Ride is a welcome addition to the genre, if not a particularly subversive one: Lim raises some thoughtful questions about Asian-American identity and the struggle to belong, but any deeper ideas are overshadowed by nudity and absurdist jokes. Also, not every gag works. (Please, a moratorium on scenes where someone accidentally does cocaine!)

The emotional third act is particularly predictable, trading slapstick for sentimentality and leaning a little too heavily on "friendship saves the day!" cliches. But even among all the sex jokes and vulgar one-liners, Joy Ride boasts a real beating heart. It's a raunchy (and occasionally familiar) ride, but it's well worth the trip. Grade: B

Want more movie news? Sign up for Entertainment Weekly 's free newsletter to get the latest trailers, celebrity interviews, film reviews, and more.

Joy Ride Review: Adele Lim’s Raunchy Asian American Comedy Is Both Hilarious and Poignant

Following its buzzy premiere at SXSW in March, the bawdy comedy Joy Ride cruises into theaters this weekend, and it follows four Asian-American friends on an unlikely-but-hilarious adventure as they travel through China in search of one girl’s birth mother.

Adele Lim , who previously penned Crazy Rich Asians , the 2018 rom-com that grossed over $283 million worldwide, makes a solid feature directorial debut here, and she also shares story credit with screenwriters Cherry Chevapravatdumrong ( Family Guy ) and Teresa Hsiao ( Awkwafina Is Nora From Queens ), whose hilarious script is raunchy yet, and certainly more nuanced than one would expect from a buddy comedy/road-trip movie.

The film centers around Audrey ( Ashley Park , Emily in Paris ), an Asian American adoptee raised by well-meaning white parents, and Lolo ( Sherry Cola , Shortcomings ), who becomes Audrey’s best friend in spite of their differences because they’re the only two Asian American girls in their small, lily-white Washington town. An early scene that sets up their relationship finds Young Lolo ( Chloe Pun ) telling Young Audrey ( Isla Rose Hall ) not to worry about what other people think of her. Audrey doubles down on being perceived as successful, smart, and competitive, shielding herself from growing up Asian in a white world with trophies and awards. When we jump to the present day, we see an athletic adult Audrey — now a successful lawyer — soundly beating her boss in racquetball.

Meanwhile, Lolo grows into that chaotic, disorganized hot mess of a friend who will feel familiar to many of us, whether because we have a friend just like her or we are the Lolo of our friend group. Where Audrey shies away from conflict and makes her life choices based on career success and fitting in (“And thanks for the Mulan -themed birthday party,” she tells her colleagues with a straight face), Lolo meets conflict head-on, punches it in the face, and flips it off with both hands. Audrey has chosen a safe, traditional career in law, while Lolo, an aspiring artist who makes art as in-your-face and sex-positive as she is, lives in Audrey’s backyard. Somehow, in spite of their differences, their decades-long friendship has sustained and carried them both through the isolation of being “othered” in an otherwise homogeneous town.

Audrey’s job sends her to China to close an important contract; her boss assumes she’s fluent in Chinese because she’s Asian, and she gamely pretends she is because she wants to close this deal and make partner. She invites Lolo along for emotional support — and to help with translating — and plans to connect in Beijing with her college roommate and other best friend, Kat ( Stephanie Hsu , Everything Everywhere All at Once ), a charismatic and successful Chinese soap opera star. Also along for the ride is Lolo’s cousin, Deadeye, (non-binary standup comedian Sabrina Wu , in an absolutely delightful scene-stealing turn), an awkward, eccentric K-Pop fan whose only friends are online.

As Audrey keeps reminding Lolo, this is a work trip and it’s important to her; Lolo says she “gets” this, but she really doesn’t because her life is not centered around the same definition of work, success, and happiness by which Audrey has guided her own. When Audrey agrees to meet her client for a business meeting in a nightclub, things go hilariously awry, which leads to the deal being threatened when the client learns Audrey was adopted. Lolo impulsively tries to save the day by telling him Audrey knows her birth mother and is planning to see her while on the trip, something Audrey had not planned to do. This serves as the impetus for the rest of the film, as the friends try to find Audrey’s birth mother, bring her to a party to meet the client, and get the contract signed.

Kat’s down to help with all this as she wants Audrey to land the contract and move to L.A.; she also has her own personal identity crisis going on related to concealing her prolific sexual past from her dashingly handsome fiance and co-star Clarence ( Desmond Chiam ), who is leaving room for Jesus until they get married. That whole side story gets upended hilariously later in the film, causing me and the audience I saw the film with to double over with laughter.

Along their wacky, wild, unpredictable journey through bustling cities and the countryside, Audrey, Lolo, Kat, and Deadeye learn to see each other through a new lens and to value the ways in which they each move through the world differently. In spite of its often break-neck pacing and brisk 95-minute run time, the film gives us ample time to get to know and care about each of these characters. A good movie starts with a great script, but it’s the simply splendid acting and synergy of the terrific cast interpreting that script and the deft direction by Lim that really wins us over here. We care about these characters and what happens to them, we vicariously enjoy their outrageous madcap adventures and wistfully wish we could have a road trip like this with our own besties to remember when we’re in our rocking-chair years.

Joy Ride has a lot in common with films like Superbad , Pineapple Express , and This is the End — not surprising given that it was produced by Seth Rogen ‘s production company, Point Grey Pictures — and it’s pretty awesome to see four Asian-American women playing off the same brand of raunchiness that made those white-dude films so popular, and making it work just as well. Representation matters, indeed.

This is a highly enjoyable road trip comedy with some genuinely laugh-out-loud moments that, at the same time, offers a deeper, poignant theme of self-discovery that’s highly relatable across demographics. And while it’s very funny and sometimes surprising in its upending of what you expect to happen, at its core, this is a film about what happens when you realize the entire story and sense of selfhood upon which you’ve built your life isn’t at all what you thought it was — and what you do when you figure that out. Joy Ride takes us along for the laughs while also giving us things to contemplate later about our own relationships, both with our friends… and ourselves. Bring your own besties, get ready to laugh a lot, and buckle up for a joyous ride.

Joy Ride is now playing in theaters nationwide courtesy of Lionsgate.

ABOVE THE LINE

Above the Line covers the entire media landscape with an edge, providing breaking news, insightful reviews, and major interviews along with hard-hitting analysis of awards, box office, and festivals.

Industry Sector
Privacy Policy

Full of gags and gusto, "Joy Ride" is a provocative comedy that isn't afraid to probe identity

The road trip film boasts rousing performances, diamond-cut jokes and self-assurance that subverts with sensitivity, by kyle turner.

If the road trip movie tends to literalize a traditional and familiar narrative structure — taking its merry band of characters from Point A to Point B — you could argue that "Joy Ride's" contribution to the genre is, beyond being a near expert (if not wholly surprising) execution of its archetype, gently prodding the limits of that kind of movie.

"Joy Ride" is shiny and looks fresh, certainly amplified by the impressive performances from the ensemble.

Yes, "Joy Ride" is a breezy, delightful movie with an impressive joke density (thanks to a screenplay by Cherry Chevapravatdumrong and Teresa Hsiao); yes, it's about friendship ; yes, it aces the "specificity in story underlines universality in theme" test; yes, it lets its Asian men be sexy ; yes, it addresses internalized racism ; yes, it takes pride in sticking its tongue out at a kind of Asian (American) respectability politics and lets its ensemble "be messy," as is so desirable in our various forms of representation discourse . But perhaps more compellingly, "Joy Ride" functions as an interesting example of Asian American cinema by its light toying with the nature of identity .

There have been other movies, and ones in the road trip lineage, that have had their way with the self: "My Own Private Idaho," "To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar" and "Two for the Road" among them. But "Joy Ride's" premise rests fairly explicitly on the idea of finding yourself : though ambitious lawyer Audrey ( Ashley Park of "Emily in Paris" ) is going to Beijing for a work trip with the promise of making partner at her all-white bro firm, another incentive lies before her. She could find her birth mother . Audrey was adopted to white parents, leaving her to be the only Asian girl in the town of White Hills, besides her best friend, slacker sex positive artist, Lolo (Sherry Cola, "Good Trouble"). And on their journey they are joined by Lolo's cousin Deadeye (Sabrina Wu) and Audrey's other best friend, successful actress Kat ( Stephanie Hsu, "Everything Everywhere All at Once") . Hijinks ensue.

Adele Lim, who worked as a screenwriter on "Crazy Rich Asians" and "Raya and the Last Dragon," takes her feature film directorial debut by the hilt and, with editor Nena Erb, focuses on making sure that every setup, premise and absurdist gag is as tight as possible. It makes "Joy Ride's" pace feel self-assured and the relationships between the characters dynamic, even if its insights into emotional displacement occasionally feel trimmed of welcome fat.

But Lim has a good sense of space, both in terms of the actual environments she's using, from Beijing to Seoul, from an airport walkway to a smaller, cramped home, feel textured and lived in, not only for the characters, but also for the sharpening of a joke. "Joy Ride" is shiny and looks fresh, certainly amplified by the impressive performances from the ensemble. And while its more directly provocative gags are delivered with gusto (props particularly to Sherry Cola and Stephanie Hsu, whose chillness and movie-star high maintenance, respectively, clash with delight), the deadpan buttons from Sabrina Wu, who flexes their ability to vacillate from blank to deeply emotional, are a thrilling, hilarious jolt.

"Joy Ride" is hardly the first film to drive down the path of "child of adoption seeks birth parents" — such narratives may, in fact, dominate movies about adoption period, from Lion to "Philomena." There's a preponderance of stories emphatically implying that to find one's biological family is to unlock all the secrets of one's identity. And it's something that feels like "Joy Ride" is also going to run with, particularly when Ronny Chieng 's slick and powerful potential business partner character asks Audrey during a business drinking session, "If you do not know where you come from, how do you know who you are?" It is, frankly, a boring, essentialist point of view .

What is worthwhile about its approach, however, is that "Joy Ride" subverts and expands expectations of closure.

Lolo and Deadeye sneak some jabs in about Audrey being "basically white" (she loves The National and can name every character on "Succession" ), and the film nods to the frustrating liminal space that cross-racial adoptees can feel like they occupy: clearly not white, but also seen as not Asian enough. It would have been nice to see how that uncertainty and those feelings of alienation shaped Audrey's life not on this trip, besides the overachieving as her desire to prove herself to an unwelcome society, as well as the pitfalls of raising/being raised as a child from a different racial and cultural background, but the film compensates for that by having Audrey repeat through dialogue her feelings of displacement. But "Joy Ride" still manages to take Audrey's state of flux seriously and does so with sensitivity.

What is worthwhile about its approach, however, is that "Joy Ride" (without spoiling) subverts and expands expectations of closure. It is a neat movie, many of its ends tied up with a ribbon; but not all of them so neatly that these characters are radically transformed in the way that they might be in another kind of road trip movie. The characters are perhaps better versions of themselves, more honest and caring. But their maturation is less rooted in the essentialist DNA that tends to be embedded within these movies — that their journey to something will have fundamentally changed who they are — and more in refining and polishing who these characters were the whole time.

Want a daily wrap-up of all the news and commentary Salon has to offer? Subscribe to our morning newsletter , Crash Course.

Perhaps the film could have leaned more into being headier, more emotional, have more going on. But it's got diamond-cut jokes and it sticks the emotional landing, leaving just enough space for Audrey to rethink how she relates to her identity, not merely on a scale of the "enoughness" of her Asianness. "Joy Ride's" sense of Asian Americanness is liberal and broad (not in a bad way, exactly), embracing a kind of smudgy, melted idea of culture, heritage and identity, strengthened by the community of loved ones, a kind of pan-Asian American camaraderie.

With its own idiosyncratic sense of humor (that is electrified by the star wattage from its ensemble) that is purely uninterested in being compared to its other white gross-out comedy counterparts, "Joy Ride" cleverly embodies its primary thematic occupations: being the best version of its type. It's the perfect trip for the summer.

"Joy Ride" opens nationwide Friday, July 7.

stories featuring "Joy Ride" stars

"Everything" star Stephanie Hsu on playing all-powerful: "We would just unleash ultimate chaos"
Ronny Chieng on Andrew Yang: "There aren't enough Asian people in positions of power"
Mindy of "Emily in Paris": Nepo baby done good

Kyle Turner is a queer writer based in Brooklyn, NY. His writing on film, queerness, and culture has been featured in W Magazine, The Village Voice, Slate, GQ and the New York Times, and he is the author of " The Queer Film Guide: 100 Films That Tell LGBTQIA+ Stories " out May 16 from Smith Street Books and Rizzoli. He is relieved to know that he is not a golem.

Road Trip (2000)

Full cast & crew.

Directed by

Writing credits ( wga ) , cast (in credits order) verified as complete , produced by , music by , cinematography by , editing by , casting by , production design by , art direction by , set decoration by , costume design by , makeup department , production management , second unit director or assistant director , art department , sound department , special effects by , visual effects by , stunts , camera and electrical department , animation department , casting department , costume and wardrobe department , editorial department , location management , music department , script and continuity department , transportation department , additional crew .

Release Dates | Official Sites | Company Credits | Filming & Production | Technical Specs

Contribute to This Page

Full Cast and Crew
Release Dates
Official Sites
Company Credits
Filming & Production
Technical Specs
Plot Summary
Plot Keywords
Parents Guide

Did You Know?

Crazy Credits
Alternate Versions
Connections
Soundtracks

Photo & Video

Photo Gallery
Trailers and Videos
User Reviews
User Ratings
External Reviews
Metacritic Reviews