Think 'Bridesmaids' by way of 'The Joy Luck Club'.
Audrey Sullivan (Ashley Park) is a successful lawyer, who was adopted by Americans as a child but has never been to China, doesn't speak the language, and has no understanding of her culture. When she's sent to China as part of her work, she brings her artist friend Lolo as interpreter (Sherry Cola), Lolo's cousin Deadeye (Sabrina Wu) and meets up with her college roommate (Stephanie Hsu), now working in China as a famous actress. However, the trip soon goes off the rails following a drug bust, and Audrey diverts the trip to search for her birth mother, whom she has never met...
With the likes of 'Bridesmaids', 'The Hangover', and 'Due Date', bawdy, gross-out road trip comedies are a recognised subgenre. You even have regional examples, like John Butler's Irish comedy 'The Stag' with Andrew Scott, Briain Gleeson, and Hugh O'Connor. 'Joy Ride' is another example, taking Asian-American female actors and planting them in the middle of a road-trip comedy. The difference here is that thrown into the mixture is an affecting story about adoption and identity, which gets lost between the cocaine-fuelled madness and sex jokes.
Cast-wise, 'Joy Ride' has all of the archetypes suitably covered - Audrey, the leader, is played with preening precision by Ashley Park. Sherry Cola is the wildcard, while Sabrina Wu has the social misfit role squared away perfectly. Stephanie Hsu, meanwhile, plays the once-crazy-now-domesticated friend, much in the same way that Ed Helms portrayed it in 'The Hangover'. Their dynamic is much the same, with the hijinks they find themselves in just as funny and off-the-wall. There's cocaine smuggling using genitalia, a three-way with basketball players, and later, impersonating a K-pop band in order to get out of China.
The final twenty minutes of the movie, however, divert away from all of this to go into a heartfelt story about adoption with Ashley Park's character. It's an intriguing topic, one that was explored in much greater detail in 'Return To Seoul' earlier this year. Here, it's condensed down entirely with a cameo from Daniel Dae Kim, who's always a good addition to any movie or TV show.
For the most part, 'Joy Ride' is perfectly serviceable stuff. It's by no means reinventing the wheel or making any great shifts with comedy or the like. It's merely an example of using an existing format and bringing in new representation to it, which is a time-honoured endeavour. If you're looking for a good, bawdy time in cinemas, 'Joy Ride' is worth the trip.