Turning Red

The film, directed by Domee Shi, tells the story of Meilin (played by Rosalie Chiang), a Chinese Canadian 13-year-old, battling the ups and downs of the early ...

"The story of all of these friends and the family is so universal... There's emotions in 'Turning Red' that are absolutely part of a human story," she said. "It's not like I could relate to Ratatouille... I didn't even know Ratatouille was a dish," she said. That's what it kind of felt like," Wang Yuen said. Which is fine — but also, a tad limiting in its scope," O'Connell wrote. The film, which premiered Friday on Disney+, been widely hailed as a refreshing, creative look at tweendom and the awkwardness of growing up.

It's a confidence that perfectly reflects 13-year-old protagonist Meilin "Mei" Lee (Rosalie Chiang) — a boy-band-loving, Tamagotchi-wielding, overachieving ...

In that way, "Turning Red" would make a nice companion piece to "Inside Out," which also looked at the complex emotional realities of growing up as a tween girl. It’s just that she’s also starting to develop interests outside of her family too, and she’s struggling to balance that with a mom who would clearly prefer to keep her daughter frozen in amber. About the writer: Caroline Siede is a film and TV critic in Chicago, where the cold never bothers her anyway. The platform gives fans of entertainment, news and sports an easy way to discover new content that is available completely free. Ten years later, Shi is now the second woman to have a directing credit on a Pixar film and the first to have a solo directing credit. And "Turning Red" isn’t afraid to ground its story in the hyperactive, emotional rollercoaster of an experience that is life as a tween girl. And Shi complements that emotional originality with an animation style that feels just as unique. But "Turning Red" is equally about the broader emotional tumult that comes from growing up and carving out your own identity outside of your family. "Turning Red" is just as weird and wonderful but with even more room to flesh out its quirky, moving world. What works so well about "Turning Red" is its savvy mix of universality and specificity. She and co-writer Julia Cho are particularly smart not to make Mei’s "panda" an allegory for just one thing. There’s a special kind of joy that comes from watching a film that’s completely confident in its eccentricities.

Disney Media & Entertainment Distribution announced that Disney and Pixar's “Turning Red” would premiere exclusively in homes worldwide on Disney+ on March ...

“Turning Red” introduces Mei Lee (voice of Rosalie Chiang, “Clique Wars”), a confident, dorky 13-year-old torn between staying her mother’s dutiful daughter and the chaos of adolescence. The El Capitan is located at 6838 Hollywood Blvd. “Turning Red,” which is rated PG, runs through March 17. This marks the first time that a Pixar feature has had an Asian protagonist and centered mainly on Asian characters. The voice cast also includes Ava Morse (“Ron’s Gone Wrong”), Maitreyi Ramakrishnan (“Never Have I Ever”), Hyein Park, Orion Lee (“First Cow”), Wai Ching Ho (“Awkwafina Is Nora from Queens”), and veteran actor James Hong (“Blade Runner,” “Big Trouble in Little China”). And as if changes to her interests, relationships and body weren’t enough, whenever she gets too excited (which is practically ALWAYS), she “poofs” into a giant red panda! Disney Media & Entertainment Distribution announced that Disney and Pixar’s “Turning Red” would premiere exclusively in homes worldwide on Disney+ on March 11, along with a simultaneous limited run at the El Capitan Theatre in Hollywood.

What are the words of the Chinese ritual chant in Turning Red? How did Billie Eilish and Finneas O'Connell's boy-band song "Nobody Like U" merge with that ...

So he was able to pull the chant into his own system, along with the 4*Town song, and do this awesome remix where we were like, ‘Oh my God, it works!’ But I think it worked because he’s a magician. “He was like, ‘All right, so if the 4*Town song is in this key, let’s do this—’ He worked with us to make sure that rhythmically, we were doing what we needed to be doing so he could produce the remix. “We worked with a Cantonese dialect coach, Andy. We loved him,” Shi says. In the climactic final number, the chant winds up merging with Ludwig Göransson’s score and “Nobody Like U,” one of the songs siblings Billie Eilish and Finneas O’Connell’s wrote for Turning Red’s heartthrob boy band 4*Town. Shi wanted to make sure a native speaker was involved in developing the chant, so she and her team reached out to Herman Wong, the Hong Kong-based Asian-Pacific operations director for Disney Character Voices International, the Disney division that handles translation and dubbing services. “We were really inspired by Taoist chants that monks would do in Taoist temples,” Shi says.

Director Domee Shi is excited as she discusses one of her favorite scenes from her first feature: when Meilin Lee, her 13-year-old protagonist, ...

Although “Bao” was also a story about a mother and child, Shi felt she still had more to explore about the dynamics of a mother-daughter relationship. Beyond specific scenes, the anime influence is also reflected in the way that Mei and her best friends, like the teen warriors of “Sailor Moon,” have their own signature colors. This specificity of Mei’s story is one of “Turning Red’s” greatest strengths. But it was a challenge that “everyone on the crew was really excited to explore.” It “felt like the perfect style to draw from to make us feel what Mei is feeling, because she feels so many big emotions in the story,” Shi added. But at the same time, growing up in this environment, in this culture, that’s turning them into different people [who] are naturally moving away from their family.” Below, she discusses how four key influences helped shape the unique expression of “Turning Red.” “Turning Red” follows Mei (voiced by Rosalie Chiang) as she wakes up one morning to discover that because of a secret family quirk, she has turned into a large red panda. How they really exaggerate facial features and character reactions, and you really feel what the characters are feeling at any given moment.” As she was wrapping up work on her Academy Award-winning 2018 short “Bao” at Pixar, Shi knew she wanted her next film to be a girl’s coming-of-age story. Set in and around Toronto’s Chinatown in 2002, “Turning Red” is a celebration of teenage girls, their experiences and their interests. “So she draws [him with] a mermaid tail, because it’s easier to imagine.”

We exclusively talk to Turning Red director Domee Shi and producer Lindsey Collins about the messiness of puberty...

“And call their mums maybe and have that conversation with them like ‘hey, remember when I yelled at you and you misunderstood this?’. Just hopefully to spark more conversation.” Alongside that positive message, they wanted to educate young people, too, by depicting a warts-and-all tale of growing up: “Animation is unique in its ability to address tricky stories or tricky moments in life in a way that feels more acceptable or palatable or entertaining than if you just wrote it down,” Collins says. “Our hope is that you’re super invested in seeing this relationship between this mother and daughter,” says producer Lindsey Collins who tells us that their relationship “gets to a place where they’ve evolved a little bit. The movie depicts an important time in a young person’s life, which is why it was incredibly important for Shi that the movie had a positive message: “I really wanted to make this movie for that [13-year-old] version of myself,” Shi explains. “All of the messy relationships that we have with ourselves and with our parents and to be okay with that.” “Because there just wasn’t and maybe still isn’t enough stories in media that deal with that specific time period of a girl coming of age.”

Pixar's Turning Red is skipping cinemas for Disney Plus, but movies like West Side Story and Shang-Chi took months to stream. What's going on?

Putting Pixar movies directly on Disney Plus is, at its core, a strategy to both lure in more streaming subscribers and keep the ones it has. Some Disney movies -- typically midbudget live-action movies and Pixar films like Luca and Soul -- skipped theaters entirely and were available to stream on Disney Plus at no extra cost. It became available to stream on Disney Plus on Dec. 24, at no added cost to all subscribers -- one month after its theatrical release. That's one of the main reasons Disney moved back to theatrical exclusives for its biggest films. Then as vaccinations widened, Disney reintroduced theatrical exclusives -- but with a shorter commitment to stay in cinemas exclusively than before. When the pandemic first hit, Disney made a big change to its movie release practices. But in all countries where Disney Plus hasn't launched, the company said it would release Turning Red in theaters. West Side Story's streaming release was more than 80 days after the film was released in theaters -- that's back to the prepandemic norm for theatrical exclusives, which was typically 75 to 90 days. Some people refer to this as the date it will be streaming "free," but everything on Disney Plus requires a paid subscription. Pixar's last two movies -- Soul in late 2020 and Luca in the middle of 2021 -- were released this way, too. Turning Red, Pixar's latest feature film, skipped theaters to stream exclusively on Disney Plus Friday. But Encanto spent a month in theaters before streaming. In the two years since, Disney reimagined the service as an outlet to release big new movies while cinemas were shuttered or limping.

And its protagonist, 13-year-old Meilin Lee (voiced by Rosalie Chiang), is a Chinese-Canadian eighth-grader in the throes of puberty.

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In Pixar's new animated film, a Chinese Canadian girl awakens one morning to find that she's turned into an enormous panda. Turning Red provides a lot to ...

All of which is to say that Turning Red gives you a lot of ideas to grapple with. I also balked at moments that seemed to exaggerate for comic effect, especially when it came to Mei's mother, who's clearly been conceived along the lines of the controversial "tiger mom" stereotype. But then something funny happens: Her friends find out about the panda, and rather than being weirded out by it, they think it's the cutest, coolest thing ever. As it turns out, the red-panda effect is the result of some very ancient Chinese magic that's been passed down to Mei through the women in her family. With her first feature, Turning Red, Shi leans further into the complexities of Asian parent-child relationships — and this time, she's come up with an even wilder conceit. Director Shi, who wrote the script with Julia Cho, confronts the messiness of adolescence with an honesty that's refreshing in the world of studio animation.

The studio's early works were lauded for their “universal” storytelling. Its new approach champions personal stories—and audiences are the richer for it.

Inside Out is about a girl whose family moves from Minnesota (home of director Pete Docter) to San Francisco—but if you swap Riley’s love of hockey out for something else, there’s little rooting the story to those places. This focus on personal experiences has become something of a trend in Pixar’s recent works. The movie, which lands on Disney+ on Friday, is largely faithful to her initial pitch—there are scenes from her early storyboards that now exist in much the same form. Its rules of storytelling (there are 22) are handed down in earnest screenwriting blogs like the Ten Commandments. In its early days, Pixar was notorious for polishing and tinkering and crafting—boiling a story down to its very essence, trying to speak to universal themes like love and loss and family. “For me, I just want to go fast because my worst fear is to overthink and overdo and overpolish something until it loses all of its uniqueness.” It’s an allegory for puberty—and one of the most personal movies Pixar has ever made.

The “Grey's Anatomy” actress stars in the new Pixar film about a 13-year-old girl who discovers she turns into a red panda when she's angry. Disney/ ...

The concert itself is a setup for a war between tradition and the exhilarating freedom of living in the moment. But "Turning Red" is all about Meilin letting her adorkable spirit animal out for a walk on the wild side. And when her parents promise to perform a ritual that will lock away her panda identity for good, Meilin isn’t so sure. Why? "You’ll get whipped up in a frenzy and panda all over the place," says mom. Chinese-Canadian filmmaker Domee Shi (who helmed the Oscar-winning short "Bao") lavishes her focus on a 13-year-old girl much like herself 20 years ago. Still, like most teens, Meilin is most influenced by her peer group.

The film, directed by Domee Shi, who made the lovely Oscar-winning short “Bao,” is the first Pixar movie directly solely by a woman. Its leadership team, ...

But “Turning Red” is surprisingly free of humor or the kind of visual wit that has long been a Pixar hallmark. Where I think “Turning Red” mainly misses is with the mom. But just as good is Mei’s mother’s cutting critique of them as “glittery delinquents with their … gyrations.” I seriously doubt I will ever listen to my daughters blast BTS without muttering her line to myself. That “Turning Red” pivots this way — with Mei, as panda, cowering in the bathroom with her mother knocking outside — is a fairly radical move in the typically sanitized world of studio animation. Her “Bao” conceived a mother-son tale in a dumpling-comes-alive allegory that culminated, surprisingly, with the mom eating her dumpling son in a fit of denial over him growing up and leaving home. For Pixar, a factory of childhood whimsy designed to make adults cry, “Turning Red” fills in more than a few blind spots.

The studio packs more universal human truths than ever into its most culturally specific story yet.

But you don’t have to be a teenager, or a mom, or even remember what it was like to be either one of those things to find someone to connect to in the film. Ultimately, a film doesn’t have to be about you, or be from what you perceive is your perspective, for it to resonate with you, and even enlighten you. Ming, meanwhile, is classically overprotective of Meilin—not just of her health and safety, but of the perception she has created of her daughter as innocent and perfect. But what’s so compelling about the story is how little effort is required to find a point of view with which to relate, even if you’re not Canadian, or Chinese, or a girl. Set in 2002 Toronto, the film follows Meilin Lee (an irrepressible Rosalie Chiang), a self-possessed but dutiful 13-year-old girl who awakens one morning to discover that she’s been transformed into a gigantic red panda by her raging adolescent hormones. Director Domee Shi’s film could not have arrived at a more important moment, putting complex Asian characters (and specifically, multiple generations of women) at the center of a story that explores and celebrates their multi-dimensionality.

Vulture's Alison Willmore reviews 'Turning Red,' the Domee Shi–directed Disney and Pixar film about the relationship between the first-generation Ming ...

The shame comes from Ming. She had it instilled in her by Mei’s even more iron-willed grandmother, who eventually shows up with a battalion of aunties for a ceremony meant to seal Mei’s inner beast away forever. Effervescent and ridiculous and grounded in a pastel-shaded Toronto and the nearby throwback details of 2002, it has texture and specificity to spare, and the only person it cares to speak on behalf of is its 13-year-old heroine, Meilin Lee (Rosalie Chiang). The panda, fluffy and free, represents Mei at her most unfettered, dancing up a storm and posing for pictures and serving as the life of the party once Mei and her friends figure out that they can monetize Mei’s metamorphosis to buy 4*Town tickets. Mei is an unabashed dork who loves Canada; her grade-eight crew of Miriam (Ava Morse), Priya (Maitreyi Ramakrishnan), and Abby (Hyein Park); the boy band 4*Town; and her parents Ming (Sandra Oh) and Jin Lee (Orion Lee), though her suffocatingly close relationship with her helicoptering mother is more complicated than she’s willing to acknowledge. Maybe it’s that the simplicity of Bao (which, like most of the animation giant’s shorts, is wordless) gave it the feeling of a fable that we were supposed to take ownership of, whether those were its intentions or not. For all that we measure out recognition in pangs, the experience of seeing some fragment of yourself onscreen is usually assumed to be a positive one.

Christian Hoffman is the lead character supervisor on “Turning Red,” which premiered Friday on Disney+.

“But there was a lot of excitement in terms of clothing and accessories.” Hoffman said that “making sure we’re representing people correctly is also important for us,” so a lot of effort was put into ensuring the character and temple designs rose to the occasion in terms of cultural sensitivity. Another fun element that Hoffman and his team got to play with was the film’s early 2000s setting. Eagle-eyed viewers will be able to track Mei’s mood based on her clothing and hair because Hoffman and his team “used that throughout the film to help figure out where she was” emotionally. Mei is pretty unhappy when the red panda change first occurs, and thus her fur is matted and clumpy to reflect how grossed out she is by herself. I had a lot more flexibility and freedom than Mei does, and that sort of allowed me to figure out how to be self-motivated and gave me the opportunities to make mistakes and learn from those and grow.”

Find out how to watch the new Pixar movie Turning Red, who's on the cast, and what it's about.

The family struggles with the fact that despite how much they care for each other they don’t necessarily have a lot of common interests and often don’t really seem to understand each other. The family of course comes together when they really need to and all learn something about each other and even manage to stop a robot invasion.. This film shows how deftly Domee Shi can handle creating work that is both specific to her experiences as a Chinese-Canadian and universal in its themes of boundaries, growing up and parent-child relationships. In addition to the usual challenges of middle school and growing up, Mei also has to deal with the fact that when she gets too emotional she turns into a giant red panda as a result of a family quirk. Its success provided a blueprint and paved the way for a variety of other sitcoms for tweens. Inside Out takes place primarily in the emotional control center of a girl named Riley. There, her anthropomorphic emotions, Joy (Amy Poehler), Sadness (Phyllis Smith), Anger (Lewis Black), Fear (Bill Hader), and Disgust (Mindy Kaling), work hard to guide her through her day. Inside Out: Given the similarities in themes between Inside Out and Turning Red, it may be no surprise to learn that Domee Shi worked in the animation department on Inside Out. Both films focus on the emotional life of a middle school aged girl and the heightened emotions that are part of growing up. Between the silly plots like Lizzy’s school becoming obsessed with 40s lounge singers (not that unrealistic given the swing craze of the late 90s), the colorful fashion, and the little animated version of Lizzy (Hilary Duff) that shows up to illustrate Lizzy’s inner feelings, there’s a lot to enjoy in this series. Turning Red has its release date on March 11, 2022, and in a surprising move on Disney’s part, it will not be released in theaters in the US. Instead, viewers can tune in to Disney+ starting on March 11 to see director Domee Shi’s first full-length feature film. We have some bad news for anyone who has finally managed to get "We Don’t Talk About Bruno" out of their head. Mei has to rely on her friends and herself as she navigates family, adolescence, and growing up in Pixar’s latest film to deal with these themes. And if you're wondering how to watch the film, we've got you covered with this handy guide.

Turning Red” cast members spoke up in support of the new Pixar film and its universality following a controversial review for the animated movie that was.

The actor added, “[Many people will be able] to relate to Meilin’s story, regardless of whether you are a young Chinese girl from Canada or not.” O’Connell also issued the following apology on Twitter: “I’m genuinely sorry for my ‘Turning Red’ review. It’s a love letter to Toronto.” This is a coming of age film, everyone goes through this change… CinemaBlend managing director Sean O’Connell wrote the review, saying that the film’s appeal was limited because it’s set in the Asian community of Toronto. “Which is fine — but also, a tad limiting in its scope.”

An allegory for puberty that manages to deal with teenage girl sexuality without ever overtly sexualizing the main character, this is a film that feels ...

Each of the female characters in “Turning Red” are unique and well-rounded. In “Brave,” Merida and her mother are at odds; in “Inside Out,” Sadness, Joy and Disgust often are, too. “Turning Red” is all about girls who like each other — and remarkably, for a Disney product, a mother-daughter pairing who genuinely love and respect each other even as they struggle with conflicting desires. And “Turning Red” is no exception. Should she be a dutiful daughter and complete the magic ritual, or should she discover herself — wherever that leads? In what feels like a Lisa Frank-meets-Kafka moment, she wakes up one morning to find herself inexplicably transformed into a huge but cuddly red panda.