Joy Ride review: A hilariously raunchy road trip through China

Comedies with strong studio backing are something of a rarity in theaters these days, which makes Joy Ride one of the funniest theatrical offerings in recent memory, almost by default. This is not to damn debut director Adele Lim and screenwriters Cherry Chevapravatdumrong and Teresa Hsiao with faint praise; it’s merely an observation that another raunchy ensemble comedy in the vein of Bridesmaids and Girls Trip is more than welcome in a market starving for them, and Joy Ride deserves to be spoken of and remembered in the same breath as its forebears. It’s a comedy that stands on its own merits while also adding a surprising amount of pathos to its story of an American woman discovering her Chinese roots. But, ya know, with gags about shoving eight balloons of cocaine up one’s ass.

The film opens with a white family asking a Chinese immigrant family whether their respective daughters would like to play with each other, revealing that the daughter of the white family was adopted from China. This kicks off a lifelong friendship between the overachieving Audrey (Ashley Park) and the sexually adventurous loudmouth Lolo (Sherry Cola). When the now-adult Audrey needs to close a deal with her law firm’s new Chinese client, she enlists Lolo as her translator, prompting Lolo to push Audrey to track down her birth mother while they’re in China. With Lolo’s socially awkward cousin Deadeye (Sabrina Wu) in tow and Audrey’s former college roommate Kat (Stephanie Hsu) joining them, a series of complications and misunderstandings put the four on an unexpected road trip across Asia.

To call Joy Ride funny would be a massive understatement, as the group tries to keep up with heavy-drinking Chinese businessmen, allows unrestrained libidos to destroy a whole basketball team, and impersonates K-pop stars to evade customs. These scenes would be great on their own, but even minor gag lines are paid off in tremendously absurd ways, making the comedy extremely rewarding in its intricacy on top of its shock value.

It certainly doesn’t hurt that the lead performers have tremendous chemistry, whether it’s Lolo and Kat vying for status as Audrey’s best friend, Deadeye’s eagerness to make a genuine human connection with Audrey, or the unspoken tensions between Audrey’s careerism and Lolo’s coasting through life. These are characters you grow to love in your short time with them, even if the logic between the comedic checkpoints of their journey can be a bit shaky.

What’s probably most surprising about Joy Ride is how much it has on its mind with regard to Asian American identity. Reminiscent of the journey portrayed in 2022’s superb Return To Seoul, Audrey’s arc of self-discovery leads to questions about what it means to be the Chinese daughter of white parents, whether that upbringing makes her any less Chinese, and what it means to have your understanding of your life story suddenly upended. These are powerful themes, feeding into conflicts that are deftly expressed through Park’s and Wu’s nuanced performances, though it is something of a shame that the film needs to put the brakes on the comedy in order for that depth to be adequately explored.

However, for as thoughtful as these dalliances of introspection are, they don’t distract from the laughter for long, feeding us back into a wet and wild adventure through the realms of aggressively horny art pieces and ill-advised tattoos. Joy Ride is a real blast, offering its sentimentality as a garnish to a road trip that emphasizes the sex in sex positivity.

Joy Ride opens in theaters on July 7