Monday, 17 July 2023 12:27

Joy Ride/ 2023

joy ride

JOY RIDE

 

US, 2023, 95 minutes, Colour.

Ashley Park, Sherry Cola, Sabrina Wu, Stephanie Hsu, Ronnie Chieng, Desmond Chiam, Timothy Simons.

Directed by Adele Lim.

 

Crazy Rich Asian Women, Let Loose, Raunchy, in China. That should serve as a review – though it needs to be tripled, at least!

The Crazy Rich Asian connection is not fanciful. This film was directed by Adele Lim, a writer on the very popular Crazy Rich Asians. Someone remarked that the plot had some heart – but no brains. Sounds a little harsh, but not exactly inaccurate.

We see two young Chinese girls, one adopted by an American family, the other in the US with her Chinese family, growing up in a small town, the only two Chinese girls there, friends, one very strong, protecting the other. Then we see them as adults, though there is a lot of mutual accusation that they have not grown up, accusations not without foundation. Audrey seems to be an accomplished businesswoman. Lolo, the dominant one, works in popular art sculptures. Deadeye looks that way. And they encounter Kat, a movie star. When Audrey has to go to China for business, Lolo goes as translator, but it seems that Kat and Audrey were best friends at university.

All kinds of things go wrong in China, the friends stranded, encountering a sports team, sexual encounters, makeshift travelling all over the countryside, having to pose as a musical group… And, eventually Audrey finishes up in Korea because Lolo had found documents tracking down Audrey’s birth mother.

The film is not particularly inhibited by sex talk, sex imagery, sex jokes. Subtle it ain’t. The director has been accused of objectifying males by the female gaze. She has defended herself but it does seem a reasonable charge, given the female eye focus and attention of the camera. She has also been accused of attacking white people. An immediate response is, why not!

As might be expected after the madcap adventures, it does get a little more serious, especially concerning Audrey’s mother and quite a moving scene when she encounters a man in Korea who might have been her stepfather. While everybody does calm down, more or less, there are some reconciliations and, depending on the box office, Joy Ride 2.

Not a classy entertainment.

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