THE FOLLOWING REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS OF THE DISCUSSED FILM. READERS DISCRETION IS ADVISED.
Growing up will never be easy for kids when they go from teens to adults. This couldn’t be anymore true when watching Turning Red. PLOT
The film takes place in 2002 Toronto, Canada, and follows 13 year old Chinese Canadian Meilin ‘Mei’ Lee. She lives with her strict mother Ming and layback father Jin. They work together to take care of the family temple dedicated to their ancestor Sun Yee. Although she seems to enjoy dedicating herself to make her mother happy, she chooses to secret of her different interests, like being a fan of the boy band ‘4*Town’ with her non traditional friends: Miriam (Ava Morse), Priya (Maitreyi Ramakrishnan) and Abby (Hyein Park), the latter two are Indian and Korean respectively. One night, Ming proves herself to be overbearing when she humiliates her in front of her crush, a convenient store clerk named Devon. She only does this when finding drawings of him in her daughter's journal, mistaking them to be dating. That same night, Mei turns into a red panda during her sleep. She wakes up terrified of what she's become and as she tries to hide it from her mother, making her believe she is having her first period. She does get to turn back to her human self, but only turns red whenever she's in a state of high emotion/overly excited. It is proven so when Ming tries to give her pads in the middle of school. This second moment of embarrassment causes her to turn, but is able to leave in panic to avoid being caught by classmates. Her parents do find out their situation and explain that it is traditional for the women in their family to turn into red pandas when coming of age, as Sun Yee was first granted to do so to protect her family. First looked as a blessing eventually became inconvenient and dangerous in modern times, resulting in the spirit of their red pandas to be sealed in talismans by a ritual that is only successful on the night of the Red Moon. With the next one only a month away, Mei must prepare to control her emotions until then to avoid anymore exposure. However, her friends find out of her secret and are more intrigued than scared of her. It is they who help her control the red panda within and despite showing her mother she is capable of controlling herself, she does not approve of attending an upcoming 4*Town concert scheduled to be a week ritual before the ritual, according to Abby. So Mei gets inspired to exploit her red panda persona at school, in order to raise money to get tickets for the concert. At the brink of needing enough money for one more ticket for herself and her friends, she agrees to attend the birthday party of her bully Tyler as the red panda. When she does after sneaking out, she seems to be on the right track with her plans until discovering that the concert is actually scheduled to be on the day of the ritual. In the midst of her being angry, she lashes out on Tyler who insults her and her family. Just when this happens, it scares everyone and shocks Ming who deduced of her sneaking out. Still afraid to stand up to her, she allows her to blame her friends of taking advantage of her when it was her idea. As the night of the ritual has arrived, Mei's grandmother Wu (Wai Ching Ho) arrives as well along Aunts Chen (Lori Tan Chinn) & Ping (Lillian Lim), and maternal cousins Helen (Sherry Cola) & Lily (Mia Tagano). They're also accompanied by local elder Mr. Gao (James Hong) to assist in the ritual as a trained shaman. When Jin sees videos of her daughter enjoying herself in red panda form, he encourages her to be embrace herself rather than be ashamed of it. This inspires her to abandon the ritual and attend the 4*Town concert at SkyDome. There, she makes amends with her friends including Tyler, who reveals to be a 4*Town fan as well. They briefly enjoy the concert until Ming disrupts it, revealing her red panda to be the size of a kaiju. She was able to unleash it thanks to Mei inadvertently breaking her talisman when leaving the temple. Mei quarrels with her mother about accepting her independence, leading to knocking her unconscious. This gives the women of the Lee family the opportunity to unleash their inner red pandas as well to put her in the ritual circle before the Red Moon is gone. Mei's friends and 4*Town join in singing to complete the ritual, which sends all women of the Lees into an astral plane. There, Mei reconciles with Ming, who helps her do the same with Wu after feeling such guilt, over accidentally scarring her when she disapproved of Jin. Mei is able to keep her red panda while her family choose to conceal theirs with new talismans. The film ends with the Lees raising money to repair SkyDome, whereas Mei is now able to balance her life by fulfilling with her duties at the temple, which officially makes her red panda an attraction, and spending time with her friends.
THOUGHTS
Considering that Pixar has been Walt Disney's most successful staple in the 21st century, in a critical standpoint, you know expectations are going to be high when the next big thing comes around. So after making the time to see this one Disney+, I'm relieved to see this one reach my expectations. The animation is indeed so vibrant that it feels pretty refreshing. The whole time, I thought I was living in the 2000s again in positive fashion. Aside from that, the main reason this movie is so interesting to watch goes to how natural it is when exploring the female perspective of puberty. I did say it's never gonna be easy for kids when growing up because I know I wasn't easy for me, but that does not mean we have the same obstacles. I'm not a woman, but I grew up around many, and I know that the challenges they go through are much harder than what men have in their mind. And with this allegory of puberty, Director Domee Shi and co writers Julia Cho & Sarah Streicher are able to tell viewers that as you grow up, it is okay to be different as long as you do not forget where you came from. It is also good to express loyalty towards your family, but you do not always need to put aside your interests to satisfy others. This was all powerfully explored in the perspectives of entertaining characters voiced by a diverse cast. In the shoes of the lead Meilin Lee, Rosalie Chiang, is able to accurately the teenage character as one so confident she feels like she can't do wrong. Her being the red panda is where you see the puberty allegory because it's inconvenient, yet she finds herself in the best way possible, hence keeping it. It is through the panda where she realizes that she doesn't need to be perfect to be a good person. She makes mistakes, but she doesn't let that define her. And seeing her stand up to her mother and tell her she must deal with that she's different is empowering because everyone should be able to figure themselves out without pressure from others. Parents can be as difficult as children since both can think differently and you totally get that when Ming is onscreen. Played excellently by Sandra Oh, it is easy to notice that her being overprotective towards her daughter, which can be a compassionate aspect of parenting until it becomes overbearing in her case. Sadly, this originates from a high baggage of emotional repression from her past. The trauma she has with her past is so difficult for her to acknowledge that she chose to repeat the same parental instincts her mother expressed, which led to such trauma. The conflict she ends up having with her own daughter further proves that we don't need to repeat past mistakes from our ancestors when our own decisions are what define us. With that in mind, I do think that Ming will grow to be a better mother than she already was. Parenting can be a two person job and if there is a mother, you could expect a father as well. I totally dug Jin because Orion Lee naturally portrays him as a simple man who is the most steady. It is clear that he and Ming fell for each other out of how their opposites attracted. And from there, he became the best husband she could ever ask for because he always tried to keep her grounded. He then proves to be a great dad to Mei for being the only one in the family to actually encourage her to be herself and if the panda was herself, he was fine with it. Aside from Jin, Mei had the best friends who taught her just that as well. Miriam was fun loving, nurturing and easygoing. Priya was chill and mellow, while Abby was energetic and slightly aggressive. Mei had all of these traits and all three of these girls taught her that not one thing has to define her, which is why she bonded with them so well. It's easy to not like Tyler at first since Tristan Allerick Chen portrays him to be very provocative of a bully. But once he is revealed to be a 4*Town as well, it seems that he maybe has his own personal issues that push others away. Once Mei and the girls know his secret, they make amends with him because they straight up teach him to not be ashamed of their interests. Seeing him be on the same page with them felt symbolic since there are five members in the boy band as well, which'll likely make their friendship stronger as time progresses. This movie is better than I expected, but even I can admit that there were multiple moments that threw me off when re watching. First off, I respect the bond Mei has with Ming when defending the temple like when they stop a group of delinquents vandalizing it, but those guys were so dumb to even try doing that in broad daylight. I don't wanna root for vandalism, but if these guys wanted to do that so bad, they could've until nighttime. You guys know I don't like continuity errors, so you can find me confused as hell when Mei is able to throw confetti and I don't see how is it in her costumed paws? it doesn't even look like it comes from her sleeves, so they could've just had Ming toss it if they ain't gonna be clear on how her daughter does it. I do think Ming's confusion of thinking Mei having her period is hilarious, but I am shook of how she is more freaked out about that instead of a red panda. Ming is indeed a smart person, but I will continue to question her intelligence when she actually thought she was gonna give her daughter pads at a school window. That's wilder than the fact that the school doesn't get a restraining order for her constant trespassing. If you want to ask what is the biggest mistake Ming makes, it will be not preparing her daughter about the red panda curse. Preparing for the worse is better protection than being kept under the loop. I even got pretty confused on how strong she was in human form to hold Mei back when she is heavy enough to take down a fire escape. If she's got a second life that involves her working out like crazy, that would be nice to know. I almost want to praise her for testing her daughter's emotions to see if she can control it, but how did she have a box of kittens ready? If she borrowed them from a pound, I wish that was clear. I even wonder why would she do the trigger test in the house rather than somewhere else? That's like asking for your house to be destroyed. It is a funny sequence to see Mei hustle her panda for the tickets, but I could not ignore that a group of kids didn't take their own picture once it was taken. It would've been nice if it showed Miriam give it to them later. Mei was bound to be caught being dishonest to her mom, but she could've kept her secret longer if she hid everything at Miriam's, knowing very well she wouldn't go that far with snooping. I don't wanna blame Abby for messing up the dates for the concert, because kids make more accidental mistakes than adults, but why didn't she or the other girls double check it? This should've been a top priority before hustling the panda. What surprises me a lot about Mei's panda being so secretive is that Tyler's parents are the only other parents that knew about it and didn't talk to Ming & Jin or any other parents about it. She was on the news for crying out loud, so it's pretty crazy that no one connected the dots after the party. It is pretty cool that Mei jumps into the concert in time to make amends with everyone, but I'm shook that no one points out her free fall just moments before the concert starts. There is no way to be nonchalant about that. I'm glad the Lees get to the concert in time before the Red Moon disappears, but how did they get in? Would've not minded knowing if they snuck in or got cheap tickets. It's cute that Mei's friends and 4*Town get involved with the ritual, but how the hell do they know singing from the heart helps? It didn't look like she had time to explain that to any of them. And that is more baffling than seeing fans still in attendance during all the chaos when they didn't even look trapped. Once you ignore all of this, you'll still be having a good time. In short, Turning Red is another Pixar hit for being natural in the discussion of womanhood. If you have Disney+ and want something different to bring your family together, this will be an excellent choice.
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