Joy Ride Movie Review

Joy Ride” is a hard-R mash-up of “Crazy Rich Asians” and “The Hangover”. But this, it is with an Asian female lead cast and filled with language that could make a sailor blush. Four ladies make their way on a ‘business’ trip to China. Much zaniness ensues, and the journey tests friendships – along with alcohol tolerance. You could call it “My Big Fat Asian Road Trip”!

Audrey (Ashley Park) is at first a young child, adopted by White parents, in a place called White Hills, Washington. Her adopted parents find probably the only other Asian family in White Hills. They have a young daughter named Lolo. So, these two grow up to be fast friends. Especially after Lolo takes on a bigoted bully on playground and punches him out.

Later Audrey (played by Ashley Park) is grown up with a college degree, and she is highly respected lawyer. But her law firm seems to want her around because of ‘diversity’, as opposed to her skills. She is given a task to travel to China and meet with a potential client. Audrey has never been to China, and she does not know the language. But her boss Todd (played by Alexander Hodge) makes it clear that this is a make-or-break situation for her.

Lolo (played by Sherry Cola) is living in the garage at Audrey’s house. She is ‘starving artist’, since she specialized in ‘sex positive’ type of art. Meaning that, she makes nasty statues and paintings. Lolo knows Mandarin language, so Audrey invites her ‘bestie’ since grade school to come with on her business trip to China. Audrey mentions that while there, she will meet up with her old college roommate. At the airport, Audrey is surprised to find that Lolo also invited her cousin – Deadeye (played by Sabrina Wu).

When the three of them get to China, they meet up with the college roommate. Kat (played by Stephanie Hsu), is an actor on a very popular Chinese television melodrama. Audrey and Kat are back together as ‘best friends’, and that makes Lolo a little jealous. Lolo did not know that Audrey had such a close friend when she went to college. Deadeye was supposed to meet up with fellow followers of a Korean pop band, but nobody ever showed up.

Kat is engaged to her handsome hunk of a co-star named Clarence (played by Desmond Chiam). He is devout Christian, and he knows that Kat is ‘saving herself’ until marriage. Audrey hears about this and laughs, because in college Kat had a reputation at school. She was quite a ‘carpenter’, because she would go about nailing every ‘stud’ she could find. There was even talk of a wild tattoo that Kat had placed in a very compromising location.

The important client that Audrey is supposed to meet and impress is having a big party at a club. Audrey, Lolo, Kat and Deadeye are all there. Audrey does a pretty good job, in keeping up with the client’s huge drinking habits. But it finally gets to her. It all goes bad at one point, and the client is really upset. The only way that he will sign with the law firm is if Audrey and her birth mother come to a dinner at the client’s house. But Audrey was given up by her birth mother and adopted, so…

Audrey has a one picture of her actual mother, and on the back is an address. The four women get on the bullet train to get to that city in China. There are no open sitting compartments, except for one that holds a single White young woman (played by Meredith Hagner). Audrey does not realize that this girl is carrying a bunch of illegal drugs. All the others can see through this woman’s story, but Audrey trusts her. That is, until the other chick gets them thrown off the train.

Now Audrey, Lolo, Kat and Deadeye are stuck with no passports and no transportation. They are trying to get to the city where they might be able to find out more about Audrey’s mother. But Lolo says that she is online friends with basketball player Baron Davis. He is on a team sponsored by the Chinese. The team is in that area, and  the team bus stops to pick up all four ladies. They head over the next stop on the team’s schedule. They are booked at a hotel, and the four women also get rooms there.

Lolo takes her time with Baron Davis for the night. Kat also gets into it with one of team members in the hotel’s gym. Audrey decides to double down on her fun, with a nighttime engagement with two of the team’s squad. Deadeye — well she is ready for a K-Pop dance off with some other dudes who love Korean boy bands. The next morning, Baron Davis is troubled to see that ‘mishaps’ have occurred that have left many of his teammates seriously injured. Oh, those girls just wanna have fun!

Again without transportation, the four buddies get a ride to the city in the back of produce truck. Audrey finds out about her birth mother. But the track dead-ends in China, and she must go someplace else to get further information. They do not have any way to travel from China to South Korea. Lolo has an idea about private charter plane. But that plane would not take anyone without proper documentation.

Maybe they would — if the passengers were newly-famous members of a fabulously popular K-Pop ‘girl band’. But how could they pull that off? Deadeye has a whole lot of online friends into K-Pop, and they all show up at the charter terminal for an impromptu concert by the new ‘girl band’ K-Pop stars.

That does not work, but they make it to Korea. There is a lot of tension within the group, so they all go their separate ways. Audrey finds out the history of her birth mother. Lolo determines that she will continue to be an ‘artist’, but no longer likes the ‘starving’ part.

Kat has her unusual ‘nether region body art’ revealed in a viral video. Her boyfriend Clarence is taken aback by Kat’s sexual history. But he decides that he will still take her back. Deadeye now knows that being lonely is not the end of the world, not when you have some online friends who show up when you need them the most.

Is there enough friendship that still remains amongst all of these friends to get them together again? Is there a way for Audrey to be successful in her own business as a lawyer? Can Lolo continue to be an avant-garde artist, but also work at her parent’s Chinese restaurant?

Will Deadeye find that also working there will get her new friendships? Will Kat and Clarence still have a strong love, and be able to break into the US movie market as well? Will this crazy one-time adventure lead to a continued series of fantastic raunchy escapades? One can only hope that it does!

“Joy Ride” is a raunchy, yet positive movie about a group of young Asian women finding adventure out on the road. The main stars featured put in a laugh-out-loud funny performance (Ashley Park, Sherry Cola, Stephanie Hsu – and to a lesser degree Sabrina Wu). The overall story is a good framework for the rowdy time these ladies have in their quest for fun.