Adele Lim’s R-Rated Comedy ‘Joy Ride’ Was Originally Called ‘Joy F— Club’
variety.comJoy Ride” was “Joy Fuck Club.” It’s a profane callback to “The Joy Luck Club,” a multigenerational family saga that broke ground.
But if “Joy Ride” builds on the legacy set by that landmark 1993 film in that nearly all of its cast is Asian, the similarities between the two end there. “Joy Ride,” which was written by Cherry Chevapravatdumrong and Teresa Hsiao, is bawdy and irreverent, more akin to “The Hangover” than to a prestige drama. “I don’t think [the writers] realize how crazy they’ve made their own movie,” says Sabrina Wu, who stars in the film alongside Ashley Park, Sherry Cola and Oscar nominee Stephanie Hsu. “Joy Ride” centers on Park’s Audrey, a lawyer who flies to China to close a deal and embarks on a madcap adventure to find her birth mother.
Cola plays Audrey’s impulsive childhood best friend, Lolo, while Hsu tackles the role of soap star Kat. Wu adds a deadpan element as the sweet, socially awkward Deadeye.
As they search for Audrey’s mother, the friends tangle with professional basketball players, get high in a disastrous encounter with a drug dealer and pose as K-pop stars.
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