Joy Ride

Joy Ride

28/7/2023 1h 34m 6.5/10

Overview

When Audrey's business trip to Asia goes sideways, she enlists the aid of Lolo, her irreverent, childhood best friend who also happens to be a hot mess; Kat, her college friend turned Chinese soap star; and Deadeye, Lolo's eccentric cousin. Their no-holds-barred, epic experience becomes a journey of bonding, friendship, belonging, and wild debauchery that reveals the universal truth of what it means to know and love who you are.

Director

Adele Lim

Top Billed Cast

Ashley Park

Ashley Park

Audrey

Ronny Chieng

Ronny Chieng

Chao

Stephanie Hsu

Stephanie Hsu

Kat

Sabrina Wu

Sabrina Wu

Deadeye

Sherry Cola

Sherry Cola

Lolo

Lori Tan Chinn

Lori Tan Chinn

Nai Nai Chen

Reviews

CinemaSerf

CinemaSerf

7/21/2023

7/10

When I saw the trails for this, I was not very enthusiastic. Now I am glad to say that this is more of a failing of the teaser makers than of the film itself, which is actually at the better end of the genre. It all centres around the high-flying "Audrey" (Ashley Park) who is on for a partnership at her firm if she can travel to China to seal a lucrative deal. Rather stupidly, she agrees to take her rather unpredictable pal "Lolo" (Sherry Cola) and, well you can just guess how messy it all gets. For the most part this is quite a pithy and earthily written, end-to-end, comedy drama with some engaging performances from these two as well as from Stephanie Hsu's "Kat" - a soap star with a few secrets to keep - and the occasionally scene-stealing "Dead Eye" (Sabrina Wu) who has many of the best lines as the story unfolds and the adopted "Audrey" seeks out her birth mother. It's the latter stages of the film that rather let this down. It can't resist a wallow in cheesy sentiment and the pace drops off a cliff for the last twenty minutes which is a shame. Still, it's a genuinely entertaining film that puts four quite plausible friends through drinking games, plenty of adult fun and games - with an entire basketball team; and makes some decent attempts at characterisation. I really quite enjoyed it.

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