Ashley Park's much-anticipated new film Joy Ride finally has a trailer and a release date - and trust us, it's a wild - and indeed joyous - ride that is set to be one of the must-see movies of the summer, when it hits cinemas on June 23rd. Marking the directorial debut of Crazy Rich Asians screenwriter, Adele Lim, the R-rated movie produced by Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg for Lionsgate is the first of its kind to have a full Asian-diaspora female led cast (plus one non-binary lead). Speaking to GLAMOUR shortly after she wrapped filming, Ashley said: “It was the first time I was a lead in something… And all of the department heads, everyone, were Asian females.”
The film follows small-town BFFs Audrey (Ashley Park) and Lolo (Sherry Cola) as they embark on a drama-crammed trip from the US to Beijing which is ostensibly a business assignment for Audrey (who works in a law firm) but also serves as an opportunity to discover their heritage. The girls team up with Lolo's famous cousin, Kat, (Oscar-nominated, Stephanie Hsu Everything Everywhere All At Once) and her college roommate ‘Deadeye’ (Sabrina Wu) and the four eventually wind up posing as a fake famous K-Pop group to escape being framed as drug dealers. An impromptu rendition of Cardi B's WAP from the fake K-Pop group is particularly memorable.
We also see Audrey and Lolo bond as youngsters as the only two girls who look similar in their small-town USA suburb (with some impeccable put-downs along the way.) The plot also portrays awkward encounters between both girls' on-screen families, with Lolo's being Californian of Asian heritage, while Audrey is adopted to Caucasian parents.
“I was surrounded by an Asian community for the first time,” says Ashley, who spent the early years of her career working on Broadway in New York, before finding global fame as Mindy Chen alongside Lily Collins as Emily Cooper in Netflix behemoth, Emily in Paris. "I have all these amazing Asian-American actress friends now because we grew up in it and we were pitted against each other, where it was like, 'there's [only] room for one of you.' I felt for the first time being out to a restaurant with all Asian people and not being self conscious about how the rest of the world was looking at us. We get to enjoy dinner and just feeling really comfortable in our own skin for really I think truly for the first time being I love being Asian and embracing all those parts of me.
“I didn't realise until right after and I just wrapped that [Joy Ride], that I have always, especially in the past year, really spoken the word of being a proud Asian American and spoken out about it.”
“[But] if you had given me a Genie in a magic bottle for my entire life up until I shot this movie, I think one of the first wishes would have always been that I was white.”
It’s a depressing statement, but also we agree how encouraging it is that the industry is changing, as is reflected in Joy Ride.
Busting taboos and tackling anti-Asian racism head on with some fearless dialogue and scenarios, Joy Ride's script is exceptional on the trailer. And you'd expect nothing less from Lim, whose work on Crazy Rich Asians was groundbreaking. Industry bible, The Hollywood Reporter, says of the picture,“Joy Ride sets out to prove (or re-prove) that populations still marginalized by Hollywood (women, people of color, queer folks) can be just as unapologetically brash, bold and rowdy.”
And Ashley agrees: “There won't be a comedy that you've ever seen with Asian women as the leads who are funny and raunchy and heartfelt, all these things before their own story. Who are smart and sexy and all these things, but not for the benefit of my protagonist.”
**Joy Ride is out in cinemas nationwide June 23rd. **
