‘Joy Ride’ is the Asian American-centered movie that all audiences need to see

Photo credit: Ed Araquel

When I first heard about the film “Joy Ride,” an unabashedly raunchy comedy about four Asian American friends and their misadventures in China, I couldn’t contain my excitement. Finally, a Hollywood movie that shows that Asian women can be funny, loud and relatable and aren’t the meek, submissive “lotus blossom” stereotype that the industry has long perpetuated.

From the opening scene where an Asian American girl punches a White boy in the face for using a racial slur (which I imagine must’ve felt pretty cathartic for many Asian Americans who’ve had to endure playground taunts and bullying during their childhood), nearly every moment in the movie feels novel and refreshing. That’s because – even though parts of the film harken back to outlandish comedies like “The Hangover” trilogy or “Girls Trip” – we’ve never seen Asian American women do stuff like this in a Hollywood film before.

It felt exactly like the kind of movie that the Asian American community had been waiting for.

Created by Asian Americans (it was directed by Adele Lim, who co-wrote “Crazy Rich Asians,” with a script by Cherry Chevapravatdumrong and Teresa Hsiao, and stars Ashley Park as Audrey; Stephanie Hsu as Kat; Sherry Cola as Lolo; and Sabrina Wu as Lolo’s cousin, Deadeye) “Joy Ride” tests our limits for bawdiness and impropriety, while simultaneously making some remarkably astute observations about the Asian American experience.

To be perfectly honest, after going to a screening of “Joy Ride,” it took me two days to fully process what I’d seen. While I’d anticipated some degree of outrageous behavior and gross-out humor, I hadn’t quite expected this level of off-the-wall debauchery. (No spoilers here, but one particularly revealing scene will probably be forever seared into my brain.)

Then something occurred to me: Would it have felt so shocking if the movie had shown Caucasians — or even Black or Latinx people, for that matter — indulging in such crazy antics and sexcapades, telling off-color jokes and getting into all sorts of trouble?

Read the full article on CNN.