Turning Red
Turning Red
Released March 11, 2022
This could almost be a movie about my life: an Asian-Canadian preteen who loves boy bands, loves school, has an awesome crew of friends and turns into a red panda occasionally. Wait, okay maybe not that last part. But seriously, I feel like this is the movie I’ve been waiting my whole life for. Not only is it Pixar’s film feature film about a Chinese (and Canadian!) family, but it’s also their first feature film with a solo female director at the helm. Domee Shi, perhaps best known for her Academy award-winning short film, Bao, wrote and directed Turning Red. It’s partially based off her own experiences as an Asian-Canadian girl growing up in Toronto.
If you aren’t familiar, Turning Red is the story of Meilin “Mei” Lee, a 13 year old girl. One day she unexpectedly wakes up as a red panda. Turns out that’s a thing that happens to the women in her family. But don’t worry - there’s a cure… It’ll just take some time to make it happen. The film stars my Canadian Queen, Sandra Oh as Mei’s mom, Ming. James Hong (the legend himself - I mentioned him in my other blog post) also has a small role in this film. The rest of the cast are almost exclusively Asian as well. I am so here for this woman-led Asian-cast film. I love to see it! Get it, my Asian brethren - I’m proud of you. Okay, back to the review now.
Underneath all the furry shenanigans and hijinks is a story about a mother and daughter. Mei and her mother Ming have an extremely close relationship at the start of the film. Once the red panda arrives though, their relationship becomes strained. Of course the red panda is a metaphor for puberty, but more than that, it’s about self-discovery and self-acceptance. We are who we are and we want our family to love us no matter what. I think those are all very human emotions that anyone can relate to. One particularly poignant scene is when Mei is about to undergo the ritual for the panda cure, and is seemingly having second thoughts. Her dad, Jin, finds Mei in her room and comes to talk to her.
“People have all kinds of sides to them, Mei, and some sides are messy. The point isn’t to push the bad stuff away, it’s to make room for it, live with it.”
I read somewhere recently about how millennials are making stories that no longer have traditional “villains” and instead have stories focusing on healing generational trauma with parents apologizing to their children (see: Turning Red, Encanto, Everything Everywhere All At Once). The pressure to succeed and to honour and respect your parents should be all too familiar for anyone who grew up in an Asian household. It can also cause many a rift between parents and children. The expectation to be perfect and the realization that you are not (because let’s be real, perfection is an illusion), can be absolutely crushing for a child. One of my favourite parts of the film is a scene near the end. It takes place after all the hullabaloo has been resolved but there’s still one final step left.
“I’m changing mom! I’m finally figuring out who I am. But I’m scared, it will take me away from you.”
”Don’t hold back. For anyone. The farther you go, the prouder I’ll be.”
This is exactly what Mei needed to hear from Ming. And frankly, it’s what Ming needed to learn for herself; You can love your children fiercely, but you can’t keep them clutched to you forever. Eventually you have to let them go. The mother bird has to let the baby bird leave the nest at some point. And the beautiful thing is that the baby will come back.
Lastly, this is going to sound silly, but one of the highlights of the film for me was seeing Canadian money on the screen. It’s so much more distinctive than American money is because it’s colourful (and plastic). It was also cool to see loonies and toonies on screen as well. Oh, and Tim Hortons. We need more movies set in Canada. Side note: Do you know how many movies and TV shows film in Vancouver but pretend to be somewhere else? It’s so rare to have a movie actually set in Vancouver. One day, maybe!
