Review: "Turning Red"

Domee Shi first began her career at Pixar, interning as a storyboard artist in 2011. Her first Pixar film credit was as a storyboard artist on the Oscar-winning Inside Out (2015), written and directed by Pete Docter, her mentor. She was also credited for her work on The Good Dinosaur (2015), Incredibles 2 (2018), and Toy Story 4 (2019). During her time on “Inside Out,” Shi pitched to Docter the idea for the shot film Bao (2018), about a dumpling magically coming to life. He approved the project, making Shi the very first woman to direct a short film for Pixar. “Bao” won the Oscar for Best Short Film Animated, a fact that led Docter to approve her first feature film project, Turning Red, which was released on Disney+ on March 11th, 2022. Here’s my review of “Turning Red.”

“Turning Red,” is the story of 13-year-old Meilin Lee, who lives in Toronto with her family  in a temple that they all help take care of in tribute to their late ancestor, Sun Yee. Meilin is close to her family, though her mother, Ming Lee, is overprotective and expects her daughter to be perfect all the time. The stress she endures from her mother, the excitement of her first crush in school—maintaining her friendships with school mates Abby, Miriam, and Priya—ultimately cause Meilin to magically transform into a giant Red Panda. It continues to endure throughout the film whenever she experiences strong feelings of emotion, and leads to her learning about her family’s remarkable connection to Red Pandas.

Domee Shi based “Turning Red,” on her own real-life upbringing in Toronto. As a 13-year-old-, Shi never turned into a Red Panda, but in the Disney+ Documentary Embracing the Panda: Making Turning Red (2022), you’ll hear her talk about how she had an overprotective mother and how being 13 was a “turbulent” time in her life. Back then, she also binge-watched anime shows, i.e.: Ramma 1/2 (1986-1997), Sailor Moon (1992-1997), Inuyasha (1996-2008) and Fruits Basket (1998-2006), which influenced the looks of the movie. Shi’s movie is inspiring because it acknowledges how the stress in life often brings out the monster in all of us, and we often don’t know to handle it, especially teenagers. I can certainly identify with that for being on the Autism Spectrum.

“Turning Red,” is in a sense, a more mature “Inside Out,” except it’s not about the emotions within, it’s about dealing with stress in life that causes us to have the emotions within.  As human beings we might struggle to be a certain way, and there might be things in life that we desperately want, but ultimately we have to accept that life doesn’t always work out exactly how we want it to. Hopefully, we can learn to embrace every side of ourselves, and will have family and close friends to help us through, exactly what Meilin has.

“Turning Red’s” voice cast includes newcomer Rosalie Chiang as the voice of Meilin and Emmy Nominee Sandra Oh as Ming Lee. The voice cast also includes Orion Lee as Mei’s father Jin Lee, Ava Morse, Maitreyi Ramakrishnan, Hyein Park respectively as Miriam, Priya, and Abby, and James Hong as the Lee’s neighbor, Mr. Gao. (Fun Fact: James Hong and Sandra Oh both voiced characters in Disney’s Mulan franchise: Hong voiced Chi-Fu, the Emperor’s Royal Advisor, in Mulan (1998) and Oh voiced Ting-Ting, Ling’s love interest in the direct-to-video sequel Mulan 2 (2004)). “Turning Red’s” music was scored by Ludwig Goransson who won the Best Original Score Oscar for scoring Marvel’s Black Panther (2018). The film’s Production Design was done by Rona Liu who also collaborated with Domee Shi on the production designing for “Bao.”

All in all, “Turning Red,” is a great movie. It’s one of the best animated films that I’ve seen in a really long time as well as being quite inspirational. As someone on the Autism Spectrum, I can relate to putting pressure on one’s self to be perfect all the time. This movie made me feel inspired to embrace my imperfect side and to not fear messing up. I imagine this movie can do the same for you to, whether you’re on the Autism Spectrum or not.