It’s been an exciting time for Asian representation in Hollywood cinema. We’ve been seeing more actors of Asian descent portray more types of characters than past decades have chosen to depict, and we’re getting to recognize a much larger number of familiar Asian faces portraying them as well!
A few months ago, I was invited to an early press screening for Joy Ride, the upcoming directorial debut from Adele Lim, who has previously written for Crazy Rich Asians and Raya and the Last Dragon. The trailer first crossed my social media feed via this tweet from Phil Yu, aka Angry Asian Man:
I don’t usually seek out raunchy comedies, but modern entries in the genre have been getting really fun with this nugget of an emotional core that has been increasingly better-executed than past generations. To see one led by an all-Asian and all-woman cast is really exciting, and the trailer looked funny! Would we get something like Girls Trip for millennial Asians?
TL;DR Yes! Joy Ride is such a fun ride from start to finish. It is packed with laughs, save a beat at the end where we explore its emotional core to incredible success, and manages to avoid relying on Asian-American comedy tropes that have become tired.
This cast is stellar, and I was so excited about the cameo appearances from other Asian actors who I recognized from Marvel, a favorite HBO show, Crazy Rich Asians, and more. In a time when there is validity to the complaint that certain Asian actors become popular and get cast in “everything” or will often appear in movies and TV shows together, it’s really nice to see just how many Asian characters we have been getting recently in movies and TV and the increased diversity in just the casting of these characters. And don’t worry, with 2 Broadway musical actresses in main cast, we do indeed get a bonkers musical number.
Honestly, I went into this movie thinking it would be a pretty shallow roadtrip movie with some toilet humor and too many jokes about Asian diaspora that are overdone, in my opinion as someone who has been in the Asian culture space for a long time. But I was really pleasantly surprised that this movie managed to be so irreverently funny while still having a strong emotional core, touching on Asian-American identity in a way that felt fresher than I’ve seen in a while in addition to topics like internalized racism, cultural barriers, sex positivity, artistic expression, queer identity, family dynamics and expectations, and more. And it does so while still showing some truly unhinged moments that I could not believe my eyes at.
Also, if the think pieces and blog posts are any indication, many people only venture out to the movie theater for huge action movies and/or to avoid having a big franchise storyline spoiled during opening weekend. I had forgotten how much fun it is to watch a comedy with a full theater laughing together. I’ll admit you may get annoyed about not being able to hear some dialogue over particularly raucous laughter but it really enhances the experience when you’re able to let loose and laugh out loud at a comedy versus watching something alone and quietly. Plus, not only did my theater laugh out loud throughout much of the movie, but the emotional beat the end had many of us crying, with the sounds of sniffles and a “girl are you crying right now??” heard from all around me, a very unexpected surround sound experience to get from this movie.
Joy Ride is in theaters TODAY, July 7th. Spoilers below the jump if you’d like to read more thoughts~
Let’s first address the big surprise in the movie: Audrey, the main character, was adopted in China but has a Korean birth mother! Her birth mother’s husband is played by Daniel Dae Kim!! I’ll admit that I was confused as to why Ashley Park was cast in this role about a Chinese adoptee so this was a sneaky little twist they threw in that makes a lot of little things make sense in the end. (And what better excuse to have Daniel Dae Kim appear in your movie than to play an actual daddy?) This wasn’t just about adding a shocking plot twist or justifying the casting either, it added a really rich layer to the identity discovery storyline that I really appreciated, as the geopolitics of East Asian countries is often very easily overlooked by the West but manifests in unexpected ways like this.
I also really appreciated that Audrey is realistically pretty low-key, at times high-key, biased against Chinese and Asian people, as shown by her dating history having no Asian guys and even on the train scene when she chooses to sit with the one white person (who, of course, was an obvious-to-everyone-else drug dealer). And I’m glad she was called out for it, too! People frequently have internalized misogyny and racism and I am really glad to see this begin to be explored in the Asian American community, it means that we are actually seeing more representation not just of our faces but of our diversity of thoughts and issues. (It doesn’t hurt that the way we combat Audrey’s internalized racism is by throwing MANY extremely hot Asian men at her, including a very hot South Asian man!)
Honestly, I think someone who goes into this movie wanting to dislike it will find plenty of things to dislike, but if you go in with an open mind and willing to have fun, you will! I liked that we were able to see things like Lolo’s parents being instantly defensive about being new to town but NOT new to the country, and the insecurity Deadeye feels about having their main social connections be online ones, and the experience of being the only woman of color in an extremely bro-y white-male dominated space, and sacrificing something you love for someone you love (in Kat’s case it’s a lot of sex). The movie could have been a low shallower and cringier but all in all, I’m really glad I got to see this because I had so much fun and saw so much representation that goes much deeper than just “Asians in the movie!” and I am really grateful for that. I hope you get to have fun watching this too!
Sip of Starrshine 