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Joy Ride (2023)

 


Joy Ride is a comedy about a group of Chinese-American women being awkward and girlbosses in China.

Adele Lim tries to recreate her prior success with Crazy Rich Asians with this female-centered comedy. I'm sure there are many cultural references that went over many US audiences, but the intentional comedy scenes weren't landing. The cuts were so quick it was like watching the film through the eyes of an ADHD child. There were many scenes in which you had to suspend your disbelief to make it through. I'm fine with that if the payoff works and there's a laugh, there wasn't.

While Ashley Park is a beautiful woman, she's not that funny. The film also addresses the fact that Park, the actress, is Korean but plays a Chinese woman in the film. Sherry Cola is given the most comedy to work with but she's so insufferable and rude that she just comes off as annoying. Stephanie Hsu probably has the best comedic timing but isn't giving her enough of the lines to really improve the movie. There is another woman in there but she's so inconsequential.

I generally measure comedies with how many times I laugh. It's better directed than some other entries this year, but in terms of comedies, it's pretty bad. I wasn't dreading every moment like I was with Your Place or Mine or Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem, but the film exhausted me. Result: D+.


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