“Quiz Lady”, which came to Disney+ in South Korea in last week, is a predictable but delightful comedy often buoyed by the undeniable comic talent of its two wonderful lead actresses. Although we can clearly see where its story and characters are heading right from the beginning, the movie is still worthwhile to watch for a number of funny moments generated from their good comic timing, and that is mostly enough for compensating for several weak aspects of the film including its rather conventional plot.

Awkwafina, who has been steadily rising since her notable supporting turn in “Ocean’s 8” (2018) and “Crazy Rish Asians” (2018), plays Anne Yum, a young Korean-Chinese American woman whose daily life outside her plain workplace mainly revolves around a popular TV quiz show. Since she was very young, this TV quiz show has been a sort of shelter for her, and she is also pretty good at giving the right answers for all those various quizzes thrown at its contestants, though she is a bit too shy to try to appear on the TV quiz show someday.

On one day, Anne’s usual daily life is disrupted by a call from the local facility for old people where her mother has been staying for a while. Her mother ran away with someone to Macao, and now Anne should take care of the consequence of her mother’s reckless action. To make matters worse, her estranged older sister Jenny (Sandra Oh) also comes after receiving the call from the facility, and Anne is all the more annoyed to see that Jenny is going to stay in Anne’s residence during next several days.

The main source of comedy in the film is how much Anne and Jenny are different from each other in many aspects. While Anne is often socially awkward while thinking and worrying too much, Jenny is quite outgoing with much consideration on her frequently impulsive actions, and she is not so trustworthy to say the least. Later in the story, she tells her younger sister that she will get a considerable amount of compensation money from a certain restaurant franchise due to a little accident of hers, but Anne understandably does not believe her older sister at all.

Anyway, Anne and Jenny soon find themselves in a big trouble thanks to their mother. It turns out that their mother owed lots of money to a local gang organization due to her gambling, and those gangs even kidnap Anne’s pet dog. Although both Anne and Jenny do not have much money right now, Jenny comes to have a little good idea for getting enough money for paying off their mother’s debt. After Jenny posted a video clip of Anne correctly answering every quiz while watching that TV quiz show as usual, Anne suddenly becomes an online celebrity, and this actually draws the attention of the production team of the TV quiz show. Jenny suggests to her younger sister that they really should go to the audition to be held a few days later, but, not so surprisingly, Anne hesitates due to the lack of confidence.

Of course, Anne subsequently finds herself forcefully taken to the audition by her older sister, and there is an uproarious scene where Anne eventually attends the audition as quite intoxicated due to a couple of drugs belonging to her older sister. While she usually has to play a straight figure in contrast to her co-star’s more colorful character, Awkwafina loses herself a bit into several goofy moments during this scene, and Sandra Oh, who has been one of the most dependable actresses working in Hollywood since her breakout role in Alexander Payne’s Oscar-winning film “Sideways” (2004), effectively supports her co-star step by step as demonstrating another side of her immense talent.

During its last act, the screenplay by Jen D’Angelo stumbles more than once as having its two lead characters separated for a while, but it later bounces back once Awkwafina and Oh stick together again as required by its plot mechanism. Yes, their characters surely come to have a dramatic moment of support and reconciliation as expected, but we care about their relationship at least because Oh and Awkwafina did a commendable job of bringing enough life and personality to their characters.

Around Awkwafina and Oh, director Jessica Yu places several notable performers who have each own moment to shine. While Holland Taylor is dryly humorous as Annie’s cranky neighbor who turns out to have a little soft spot for a certain well-known figure later in the story, Jason Schwartzman, who is always effective at playing petty comic characters, is well-cast as the current champion of the quiz show, and Jon “Dumbfoundead” Park, a Korean American rapper who previously appeared in Joseph Khan’s interesting rap battle drama film “Bodied” (2017), has a couple of silly scenes as the gang boss menacing Anne and Jenny. In case of Will Ferrell, who also participated in the production of the film along with Oh and Awkwafina, he wisely dials down his usual comic persona in contrast to his recent over-the-top supporting turn in Greta Gerwig’s “Barbie” (2023), and the result is both funny and sincere while never going too far.

Overall, “Quiz Lady” does not surprise us much in terms of story and characters, but it has enough laughs besides being another film to be added to the growing list of notable Asian American films ranging from “The Farewell” (2019) and “Minari” (2020) to “Everything Everywhere All at Once” (2022) and “Joy Ride” (2023). It could be more improved here and there for more depth and hilarity in my inconsequential opinion, but I was amused enough during my viewing, so I will not grumble for now.