"Joy Ride" - Review

Audrey (Ashley Park) and Lolo (Sherry Cola) grew up as best friends: largely because they were the only Asian kids in their tiny town, and because the fiery, punchy Lolo protected Audrey on the playground from a racist. Now, the high-flying overachieving lawyer Audrey is about to embark on a business trip for her firm to meet a client in China; and the artistic, foul-mouthed, free spirited Lolo (voted "Most Likely to Get Arrested") comes along not just as her best friend, but her translator! After all, ever since they were kids, Audrey has wanted to find her birth mother in China, and Lolo decides that this is the chance to do it. However, the latter also neglected to mention that her awkward K-Pop loving cousin "Deadeye" (Sabrina Wu) will be joining them... Whilst she's in the neighbourhood, Audrey also decides to catch up with her old college room mate Kat (Stephanie Hsu), a wild child sex machine now working as golden girl leading lady in a prestigious TV show called "The Emperor's Daughter" and engaged to her hot, chaste Christian leading man Clarence. The quartet begin a road trip which devolves into shenanigans and evolves into friendship and struggles with identity.

We saw this at a "Screen Unseen" preview a month or so before it comes out, and had 2 walkouts in the first 5 minutes. I'm glad that they left then, because this movie is fucking filthy.
It's also hilarious.
A depraved, wildfire, highly energetic road trip movie with 4 excellent comedic actors (Sherry Cola is an immediate standout and rightly so as the raunchy, borderline degenerate maniac and supportive best friend Lolo; but Stephanie Hsu had me pissing myself, and Sabrina Wu is one hell of a find); all 4 of the cast feel like rounded characters to boot. The lazy review is to say "Asian Bridesmaids", and whilst Stephanie Hsu (can we have a Stephanie Hsu movie every year please?) plays it with madcap Rose Byrne energy, and some will compare Lolo to Melissa McCarthy's star-making performance (and there is even a cameo from Annie Mumolo, writer of "Bridesmaids" as Audrey's mother), the movie evolves into its own hedonistic thing, with an effervescent and horny energy of its own. A sequence involving drugs on a train has some choice lines and had my partner and I crying with laughter, only to be followed up with a 6-way sex sequence/dance-off a few minutes later, where Stephanie Hsu is attempting to hide how horny she is, and it killed me- and yet still it had the sheer nerve to also feature character growth and development in its double-cunnilingus concussion basketball masturbation extravaganza.
In between rapid fire delivery, a breakneck pace and a rendition of "W.A.P" which goes beyond what is shown in the trailer (I will not say more), there comes the movie's real strength of balancing these pussy-tattoo shenanigans and foul mouthed gags about anal sex with its resonant emotional core - a woman's search for her identity when she doesn't feel quite at home in this world anymore, and maybe won't even find it here... Daniel "Turbo Chad" Dae Kim has an incredibly sweet cameo, but the emotional core and heart of the film lies comfortably with Park (whom you can tell is a theatre actor, not just from her EXCELLENT vocals on "W.A.P". Fun fact: she played the part of Gretchen in the "Mean Girls" musical and I can 100% see it) and her journey, as well as some tender moments with friends both new and old... Lolo and Kat have an excellent catty dynamic, but it doesn't drag too long. Deadeye is charming and funny without being annoying (looking at you, Kate McKinnon) and it is just such a damn good time. I applaud Adele Lim for her triumphant debut, and am keen on all of these guys going far.