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~
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