After a dearth of R-rated big screen hijinks, the industry bets again on films like No Hard Feelings and Joy Ride to lure crowdsJoy Ride, in theaters this Friday, is not for the modest.
The R-rated road trip movie, from the director Adele Lim (Crazy Rich Asians), follows four friends, played by Ashley Park, Sabrina Wu, Sherry Cola and the Oscar nominee Stephanie Hsu (from Everything Everywhere All at Once), on a weeklong romp through China that is deliriously deranged and unapologetically lascivious.
There’s a moving plot about searching for one’s identity after a life in white America and a pointed subversion of the trope of meek Asian women.
But Joy Ride is primarily crass and vigorous, viscerally horny comedy, pulling from such R-rated touchstones as The Hangover, Bridesmaids and Girls Trip – binge drinking and vomit, copious references to several orifices, cartoonish clouds of cocaine, a raucous…
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