Joy Ride
Short description
Joy Ride follows Audrey, a lawyer who travels to China to close a major business deal. Because she barely speaks the language, she brings along Lolo, her uninhibited childhood best friend, to act as interpreter. The trip soon expands to include Kat, a college friend who has become a star of Chinese soap operas, and Deadeye, Lolo's eccentric cousin. What begins as a professional obligation turns into a journey across Asia during which the four women confront questions of friendship, belonging and identity.
The film marks the feature directorial debut of Adele Lim, who had previously worked as a screenwriter. Cherry Chevapravatdumrong and Teresa Hsiao wrote the screenplay, and Seth Rogen, Evan Goldberg and James Weaver produced. Ashley Park leads as Audrey, with Sherry Cola as Lolo, Stephanie Hsu as Kat, Sabrina Wu as Deadeye, Ronny Chieng as Chao and Lori Tan Chinn as Nai Nai Chen. The production was made for 20 million USD and returned 16 million USD worldwide.
On IMDb, the film holds 6.4/10 from around 31,000 votes, while on TMDB it has 6.5/10 from over 500 votes. A critics' rating of 7.3/10 from 220 reviews places it noticeably above those audience scores. The credited cast numbers 53 and the credited crew 83.
What's left behind the scenes
- Stephanie Hsu (who played Cat) later recounted that in several takes she couldn’t hold back laughter while her character listened to Sabrina Uw’s character explain her nickname.
- Daniel Dae Kim not only played a cameo role, but also helped the filmmakers with casting, suggesting Ashley Park and Stephanie Hsu, who ultimately played Audrey and Kat, respectively.
- Several excellent scenes written by the screenwriters of animated projects, Cherry Cheva-Pratvedprumrong and Teresa Hsiao, had to be cut, otherwise the project would definitely have exceeded its budget.
- According to director and screenwriter Adele Lim, the tattoo scene was inspired by memories of an old acquaintance who was considered eccentric in college. She feared the producers would say, “Oh…wow, you’ve lost your mind!” regarding the filming of this scene, but producer Seth Rogen said, “Oh…wow, that’s awesome!”
- The keywords in the film's title and slogan, “Crazy Trip: Four Friends. One Trip. A Disaster,” are similar to the title of another well-known film about four Chinese-American women – Wayne Wang's 1993 drama, “The Joy Luck Club.” Both films feature a protagonist returning to China to find relatives with whom she has lost contact.
- A life-size set of Lolo’s “adult playground” was built in one of the parks in British Columbia. They even filmed corresponding scenes there, but they were cut from the final edit of the film.
- Screenwriters Cherry Cheva-Pratvedprumrong and Teresa Hsiao lived in a tent directly on the set and made changes to the script and reworked lines on the spot as needed.
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