Turning Red

***Turning Red*** is an American computer-animated film produced by Walt Disney Pictures and Pixar Animation Studios. It premiered on Disney+ on March 11, 2022. It is Pixar's 25th feature film.

## Synopsis

Set in the early 2000s, the movie is centered on a young girl named Mei Lee. She is torn between being a dutiful daughter and being a wild and fun teenager. As if the changes of being a teen wasn't bad enough, whenever she gets too excited she turns into a giant red panda.

## Plot

**Note: The information in this article has been taken from Disney Wiki. To view their page about Turning Red, click here.**
In April 2002, Meilin "Mei" Lee is an over-achiever who had just recently turned 13 and considers herself perfect; having mastered her classes as an A+ student, garnered a close clique of like-minded friends which consists of cool-headed Miriam, deadpan Priya, and intense Abby, and is devoted to her family temple which honors her ancestor Sun Yee, a lover of animals. Mei and her friends are obsessed with the latest boy band 4★Town which is coming to Toronto on May 18, according to Abby. While returning home from school, the girls pass by a convenience store and spy on the 17-year-old clerk, Devon. While Mei's friends find him attractive, Mei herself downplays it and passes an opportunity to go out to karaoke with her friends so that she can return home to help her mother, Ming, clean the temple. Her friends are understanding, but believe her of being "brainwashed".

Mei arrives at the temple where she converses with the locals and meets with Ming and her more laid-back father Jin. Ming expects a lot out of Mei and, despite her loving her dearly, puts a lot of pressure on her. They open the temple to tourists and afterward, Mei returns to her studies. While doing her homework, Mei begins to daydream and draw pictures of Devon and finds herself romantically obsessed with him. She tries to hide her journal when Ming comes in to check on her, but upon finding the journal, Ming overreacts and assumes that Devon was trying to attract her. She forcibly drives her to the convenience store to confront Devon and tells her to stay away from Mei while waving her drawings to him; attracting attention from onlookers including Mei's bullying classmate Tyler. Despite being angry and embarrassed, Mei hides her feelings from her mother.

Later that night, Mei has a nightmare involving red pandas and in the morning wakes up to discover that she has turned into a giant one. She hides in the bathroom from her parents; demanding that they not come in. However, Ming, who confuses her exclamations as being the result of menstruation, offers her pads. Ming gets distracted long enough for Mei to return to her room where she learns that when she gets calm, she reverts to normal, though her once raven black hair has now turned a bright orange-red; forcing her to wear a red beanie. Mei keeps a stoic face when Ming drops her off at school and reunites with her friends who inform her that Tyler has spread the incident at the convenience store all over school. Despite Mei's anger, she struggles to hide the panda.

In math class, Miriam grows concerned for Mei and points out that her mother is outside spying on them. Ming gets into a fight with the school's security guard as all the students and Mr. Kieslowski, the math teacher, watch the chaos unfold. When Ming reveals that she came to drop off some pads, Mei finally explodes into a red panda. Ming sees what has happened to her daughter and Mei flees before anyone else can see her. Mei runs through the streets, causing destruction, but also discovers that her reflexes are somewhat heightened. Upon returning to her room in tears, Ming attempts to comfort her, only for Jin to come in and accidentally blurt out "It's happened already!?"; forcing Ming and Jin to reveal their family history.

When Sun Yee's husband went to fight in a war, she asked the gods to give her power to protect her daughters. Under a red moon, she was granted the ability to transform into a giant red panda and managed to protect her home. Since then, she has passed this ability down to her daughters where it has been part of their history ever since. Mei is upset, but Ming reveals that there is a cure. Under the next red moon, which will be May 25, they will perform a ritual to encase the power of the panda, which for Ming is a medallion she wears around her neck. She warns her however that the more she transforms, the harder it will be to encase the power and tells her not to transform.

The next day, Mei hides in her room attempting to control her powers when she hears her friends outside her window. She accidentally reveals herself to them and pulls them into her room while trying to keep them quiet. Her friends, while shocked, are amused by her new appearance. Upset that 4★Town is coming before the ceremony, Mei loses all hope, until her friends go into an impromptu acapella version of "Nobody Like U". Realizing her friends love her no matter what, Mei returns to normal and discovers that she is capable of controlling her transformations regardless of her emotional state. She thanks them and challenges her parents by revealing that she has total control over her emotional state. Ming and Jin are impressed, but when Mei asks to go see 4★Town in concert they, or rather only Ming, say no. After Mei leaves dejected, Ming gets a call from her mother who saw Mei's rampage on the news and has decided to come over to check on her, much to her worry.

At school during dodgeball practice, all four girls reveal that they were unable to convince their parents to get the tickets as they are expensive. When Tyler begins to mock Mei after they notice that Ming is spying on them, Mei angrily uses her panda powers to toss the ball so hard that it breaks a window. Mei's friends take her to the bathroom where she laments the fact that her mother is always pushing her to be "perfect little Mei-Mei" and that she wants to break free. After she transforms again, a girl named Stacy, along with her friends, enters the bathroom and catches Mei in her red panda form. Having previously seen her, Stacy is instead in love with her adorable appearance. The girls then get the idea to use Mei's red panda form to make money off of their classmates and thus get the funds necessary to get tickets. Mei hides her personal appearance as the red panda from her parents by pretending to go to a mathlete's practice.

While making more merchandise of the red panda, Tyler privately approaches Mei and offers to pay her $200 for her to show up at his birthday party, the exact amount needed for all four girls to get into the concert, and reluctantly agrees. Just before Mei is about to leave for Tyler's house, her Grandmother and Aunties arrive, detaining her from the party. Afterward, Mei tries to leave through the window but is stopped by Grandma who tells her how dangerous the red panda is and implies that the scar over her eye came from Ming when she transformed. Mei finally manages to escape but knocks down a photo of herself and her mother.

Mei finally arrives at the party, in a cheap red panda suit and admits to her friends that she is scared of transforming again after what she just learned. Upon realizing that she would be disappointing her friends, Mei finally gives in and transforms; making Tyler's party a success. Back at home, Ming enters Mei's bedroom and sees the knocked down photo, and discovers the red panda merchandise and her escape. While relaxing with her friends, the girls hear over the radio that 4★Town is coming to Toronto on May 25, the same day as the red moon. It turns out that Abby misread the schedule and that they would be in "Toledo" on May 18. The news upsets Mei and she transforms. When Tyler angrily demands her to come down and give the other kids rides, Mei attacks him just as Ming arrives to witness it.

All the kids are sent home as Tyler's parents scold Mei for attacking their son. Ming accuses Mei's friends of influencing her, but when they try to explain themselves, Mei is too scared to defend them. As Ming takes Mei home, she drops her digital pet behind. She returns to her room sad and dejected. While cleaning out the basement, Jin comes across a camcorder that Mei was using to film videos with her friends while using her panda transformation. He approaches her and tells her that he witnessed Ming transform only once when she got into an argument with her mother. The reason being was because of him as Grandma disapproved of him, hence why Ming gave Grandma her scar. He tells her that she accept who she truly is.

On May 25, Miriam, Priya, and Abby head to the concert by themselves while Mei stays at home with her family to perform the ritual with their neighbor Mr. Gao, who apparently was a shaman on the side. The women chant as Mei's soul heads to a spiritual realm where she encounters Sun Yee who holds a mirror that she must enter to remove the power. However, while going through it, she begins to reminisce on how much being a red panda has changed her life and rejects getting cured. The ritual fails and Mei happily bounces away to the concert in her red panda form. Ming, angered that her daughter would do this and break her medallion, begins to transform into a red panda.

Mei arrives at the concert and reunites with her friends who are still upset with her. However, Mei notices that Miriam kept an eye on her digital pet and they make up with each other. Tyler arrives, revealing himself to be a fan of 4★Town, and the girls embrace him into their friend circle and leave him embarrassed. 4★Town comes out, being everything the friends wanted them to be, but the concert is suddenly interrupted by Ming in her panda form who has grown to Kaiju size demanding to know where Mei is. Everyone flees the concert as Ming grabs Mei and chastises her for disobeying her and being rebellious. Mei admits that she likes who she is and reveals that her friends were never at fault for her decisions; angering her further. During the fight, however, Mei accidentally knocks Ming out.

Mei's family and Mr. Gao arrive to complete the ritual before the red moon is gone and remove their medallions and pendants to transform into red pandas and chant while helping Mei bring her mother into the ritual circle. Mei's friends get 4★Town to perform to empower Mei and the ritual as a bright light envelopes them. Mei finds herself in the spirit realm again and finds a teenage Ming who is sad and scared over harming her mother. Mei tells her that everything will be okay as despite how scary it is, things will get better. Ming reverts to adult form as she makes up with Grandmother and the Aunties one by one enter Sun Yee's mirror to remove their transformation powers. Mei informs Ming that she will not remove her powers as she has embraced herself for who she truly is. Despite Ming's concern, she is still confident enough to know what Mei is doing.

Following the destruction of the SkyDome, things have gotten better for Mei as she now has a better grasp of her abilities and balances her temple duties with her social life. More people are visiting the temple to see Mei in her red panda transformation, with the merchandise proceeds going to rebuild the Skydome. While Ming is still concerned for her daughter, she respects her more as she goes to be with her friends. In a post-credits scene, Mei is looking for Jin, who is down in the basement listening to 4★Town and embracing the memorabilia.

## Cast

* Rosalie Chiang as Meilin Lee
* Sandra Oh as Ming Lee
* Orion Lee as Jin Lee
* Ava Morse as Miriam
* Maitreyi Ramakrishnan as Priya
* Hyein Park as Abby
* Wai Chiang Ho as Wu, Mei's Grandmother
* Tristan Allerick Chen as Tyler, Mei's classmate
* Addie Chandler as Devon, Mei's secret crush
* The members of 4★Town
	+ Jordan Fisher as Robaire
	+ Josh Levi as Aaron Z.
	+ Topher Ngo as Aaron T.
	+ Finneas O'Connell as Jesse
	+ Grayson Villanueva as Tae Young
* Anne-Marie as Lauren
* Sasha Roiz as Mr. Kieslowski
* James Hong as Mr. Gao
* Lillian Lim as Ping
* Lori Tan Chinn as Chen
* Sherry Cola as Helen
* Mia Tango as Lily
* Lily Sanfelippo as Stacy Frick

### Additional Voices

* Evan Agos
* Trinity Jo-Li Bliss
* Devin Bright
* Kimberly Brooks
* Addie Chandler
* David Jordan Chen
* Ian James Corlett
* Juliet Donenfeld
* Terri Douglas
* Ellen Dubin
* Alison Fernandez
* Jack Fisher
* Erin Fitzgerald
* Lily Poon Fong-Fong
* Hadley Gannaway
* Kim Mai Guest
* David Hayter
* Karen Huie
* Caleb Jeon
* Arif S. Kinchen
* Sean T. Krishnan
* Paul Kwo
* James Taku Leung
* Ethan Loh
* Lydia Look
* Noel Mason
* Jason Maybaum
* Jaiden Alexander McLeod
* Ulka Simone Mohanty
* Iara Nemirovsky
* Capri Oliver
* Benjamin Plessala
* Tsang Pui-Yee
* Maddix Robinson
* Zeno Robinson
* Sasha Roiz
* Vivienne Rutherford
* Lily Sanfelippo
* Violet Grace Schaffer
* Mariel Sheets
* Christian J. Simon
* Artemis Snow
* Sydney Thomas
* Cheng Tse-Sing
* Benjamin Valic
* Shondalia White
* Cedric L. Williams - 4★Town TV/Radio DJ Announcer

## Production

### Development

In 2017, Shi had recently completed the Pixar short *Bao* when Pixar invited her to pitch three ideas for a full-length film. Her proposed concepts were all coming-of-age stories centered on teenage girls. The one that became *Turning Red* was based on a girl going through a "magical puberty," which Shi wrote based on her own personal experiences. Shi said "Everyone has been there. Everyone has been 13 and feeling like they're turning into some wild, hairy, hormonal beast, and I think that's why Pixar was drawn to it." Shi pitched all three concepts, including *Turning Red*, to Pixar on October 31, 2017. According to Pixar producer Lindsey Collins, who sat in on Shi's pitch meeting, the Pixar staff were drawn to the *Turning Red* idea as "it was so clear that Domee had such a sense of who these two main characters were, that Mei and Ming were really clear and special and unique, more than any of the other ideas" and that "she had this really personal experience with these two characters that were kind of versions of her own life. That's like the magic equation, right there." The approach of using more personable stories followed from *Luca* under Pixar's new chief creative officer Pete Docter's oversight, which shifted the direction the studio took with both storytelling and film production.

The film was developed under the working title of *Red*. Shi was announced as writer and director of an upcoming Pixar full-length film on May 8, 2018, making her the first woman to solely direct a film in the studio. The film's creative leads were also the first all-female team for Pixar, which Pixar's CEO Jim Morris said "happened very organically" rather than by intent. Rona Liu served as production designer, after doing so for *Bao*. Liu said that working on a feature film was "a dream come true". By November 26, 2018, Shi confirmed that the film was in early stages of development, with the story still being worked on, and that "[she is] really excited to play in this new 90-minute film format". The title *Turning Red* was finalized by December 10, 2020. According to Morris, *Turning Red* had one of the fastest development times of a Pixar feature film, taking only four years to complete.

### Casting

In 2017, Pixar hired Chiang to provide scratch vocals to support the development of the film. Chiang, then only 12 years old, was selected in part because she was a local child actor conveniently based in nearby Fremont, which is only about 35 miles (56 km) from Pixar's Emeryville headquarters. After two years of development, Shi and Collins reached the point where the film was "solid" enough to start casting professional voice actors. Despite listening to various auditions, the two realized they had already fallen in love with Chiang's scratch vocals and could not envision anyone else playing Mei. They escalated the issue to Pixar chief creative officer Pete Docter, who personally approved the casting of Chiang in the film's lead role.

During an early 2020 recording session, Shi suddenly surprised Chiang with an additional script page, in which Shi, reading in character as Ming, offered Chiang the role. This session, right before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States, turned out to be their last one conducted in person. To keep production going, Pixar shipped an enormous amount of professional audio equipment to Chiang, who turned one of the rooms in her parents' house into a makeshift recording studio.

Sandra Oh was Shi's top pick for Ming. Besides the fact that Oh was a fellow Asian Canadian, Shi believed Oh could convey the range of complex emotions they wished to portray in Ming.

## Design

#### Setting

The film takes place in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, in 2002 as confirmed by a production designer in February 2021. As the film takes place through the eyes of a 13-year-old girl, the entire environment has been stylized to convey a specific feeling; Shi described the film's overall look as an "Asian tween fever dream". According to executive producer Dan Scanlon, "It feels more like a very soft, colorful, magical, idyllic, almost youthful version of the city". Shi also considered how video games like *Pokémon*, *EarthBound*, and *The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild* were able to "stylize their world in such an appealing, chunky, cute kind of way". Part of this desired setting was capturing the popularity of boy bands at the turn of the millennium and how teenage girls reacted to them. Pixar animators visited various locations around Northern California for inspiration and visual references. They studied red pandas at the San Francisco Zoo, and looked at architecture in Chinatown in San Francisco and the Bok Kai Temple in Marysville.

#### Inspirations

Shi said that several anime influenced the film, including *Sailor Moon*, *Ranma ½*, *Fruits Basket*, and *Inuyasha*. To capture these anime influences, hand-drawn 2D animated effects were added atop Pixar's 3D animation. Shi was also inspired by *My Neighbor Totoro*, in creating an "iconic grabbable giant animal that you just want to rub your face in". Nintendo games, such as *Earthbound*, *Pokémon* and *The Legend of Zelda*, have also been cited as a major influence for the film. Shi also compared the plot of the film to Disney's *A Goofy Movie*, a similar coming-of-age movie involving a parent and child trying to mend their relationship, with a pop band as part of the film's climax. The film also deals with puberty, though the film does not directly talk of biological changes. For example, Mei's mother mistakes Mei's reaction to her transformation for her first menstruation. Shi said they were "unapologetic" about the discussion of these topics in the film; the title *Turning Red* is an allegory for menstruation. The color red also reflects other feelings experienced by teenagers, according to Shi, such as embarrassment or lust. Shi and her staff had feared that studio executives would want the scenes referencing puberty removed, but the scenes were accepted.

Liu oversaw the production of the food scenes, as she had done for *Bao*. They partnered with the non-profit organization Gold House that specializes in promotion of Asian and Pacific cultures to identify what foods to include. For rendering the foods, they were inspired by the approach that Studio Ghibli had done with foods in their works, as well as exaggerating their look in the same manner that Sanrio uses to bring cuteness into their products, and the way the film *The God of Cookery* showed food in a "dream glow".

### Music

Main article: Turning Red (soundtrack)

Ludwig Göransson composed the film's score, making it his first animated film composition. Billie Eilish and Finneas O'Connell wrote three original songs performed in the film by the fictional boy band 4★Town. According to Collins, "U Know What's Up" was intended to be a confidence booster, "1 True Love" was intended as the group's love ballad, and "Nobody Like U" was the song that everyone knows from the group. Collins said she had decided to approach Eilish and O'Connell at the start of the production, near the same time that Eilish was coming to fame herself; Collins said that her own child had become a fan of Eilish's music which has inspired this choice. To pitch the idea to the pair, production created a scrapbook based on scenes of Mei and her fascination with 4★Town they had already developed for the film, at times putting cutouts of Eilish' and O'Connell's heads in place of the 4★Town members to show their appreciation for the pair. Both were already animation fans, and Eilish said that when they saw the concept from the material they got, she immediately got the idea they were aiming for, as she had been a fan of boy bands herself and recognized the bond Mei had with 4★Town.

The film includes a Cantonese chant used as part of the ritual to contain the red panda spirit that was created with help of Herman Wong, operations director for Disney Character Voices International. This chant then also had to be integrated with Ellish's and O'Connell's "Nobody Like U" as part of the film's climax, which was done by Göransson to make sure the two rhythms matched in beat and key.

Walt Disney Records released the soundtrack album digitally and on CD on March 11, 2022. Subsequently, tracks from 4★Town appeared in multiple languages, some of which were performed by boy bands such as Da-iCE for Japanese and W0LF(S) for Mandarin. "Cha Cha Slide" (2000) by DJ Casper and "Bootylicious" (2001) by Destiny's Child are also heard in the film. The album debuted at number 187 on the *Billboard* 200 chart on the week of March 21, 2022, and later peaked at number 87 on the week of April 9, 2022.

## Marketing

### Promotion

A first look of the film was shown at the Disney Investor Day on December 10, 2020. The teaser trailer premiered on July 13, 2021, as the official trailer premiered on November 17, 2021. In the lead up to the film's release, Disney partnered with Mozilla to promote the film via the Firefox web browser, as red pandas are also known as "firefoxes." Users on mobile and desktop are able to apply custom backgrounds and themes within the browser, respectively. According to Mozilla's chief marketing office Lindsey Shepard, the collaboration gives Mozilla the opportunity "to bring [the] Mozilla ethos to the new generation." One of the red pandas at the San Francisco Zoo was renamed Meilin on the day of the film's release. Air Canada decorated an Airbus A220 with images of Mei and her "red panda form" to fly over Canada promoting the film, and also had a contest for the public to attend the premiere in Toronto and win special prizes. A large statue of Mei as a red panda was placed in Toronto next to the CN Tower, Ripley's Aquarium, Roundhouse Park, Scotiabank Arena and the Rogers Centre (formerly known as Air Canada Centre and the SkyDome, respectively) where passerby could have their photos taken with the statue. iSpot.tv reported that Disney had spent $23 million on television spots for *Turning Red*, which was more than what the studio spent on *Black Widow*, *Jungle Cruise* ($19.5 million), and *Cruella* ($12.6 million), and what Netflix spent on its most-watched film, *Red Notice* ($3.3 million). Since February 21, 2022, the trailer for the film had been the 16th-most-seen TV spot of all time.

### Tie-in media

Disney licensed several books based on the film, which were released both before and after the US premiere. This includes: novelizations, short stories, sticker album, behind the scenes, coloring books and more.

## Release

### Theatrical and streaming

*Turning Red* was given special screenings that took place in London at Everyman Borough Yards on February 21, 2022, and in Toronto at TIFF on March 8, 2022. The film had its world premiere at El Capitan Theatre on March 1, 2022. It was originally scheduled to be theatrically released in the United States on March 11, 2022, by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures. On June 17, 2021, a Pixar insider reaffirmed the film would have a theatrical release after both Soul (2020) and Luca (2021) were assigned direct-to-streaming releases on Disney+ in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. However, as the Omicron variant cases rose, on January 7, 2022, the decision was made to shift the film from its planned theatrical release to its direct-to-streaming release on Disney+ as a Disney+ original. In international markets where Disney+ is not available, it was released theatrically. In February 2022, it was announced that the film would play a one-week theatrical engagement at Hollywood's El Capitan Theatre from March 11–17, 2022. The film also began playing at Manhattan's AMC Empire 25 and Oakland's Grand Lake Theatre the same day it was released to Disney+, as well as several Showcase Cinema de Lux venues across the United Kingdom. Disney canceled the Russian release in response to the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine on February 28, 2022. In addition to the film, a 48-minute documentary about the making of the film, especially focusing on its all-female creative team, entitled Embrace the Panda: Making Turning Red, was released on Disney+ the same day.

## Reception

The review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes reported a 95% approval rating with an average rating of 8.00/10, based on 203 reviews. The site's critical consensus reads, "Heartwarming, humorous, beautifully animated, and culturally expansive, *Turning Red* extends Pixar's long list of family-friendly triumphs." Metacritic reports a score of 83 out of 100 based on 50 critic reviews, indicating "universal acclaim".

Upon the film's first screening, critics praised its story, voice cast, and Shi's direction.

## Possible Sequel

Domee Shi has expressed interest in a follow-up, stating: "We are open, but we haven't talked about it. But yeah, it's an invitation at the end for more stories." Chiang and Oh also expressed interest and came up with ideas for a sequel or a prequel.

## Trivia

* This is the feature film debut for Domee Shi. She previously directed the short film *Bao*.
* The song heard in the teaser trailer is "Larger Than Life" by the Backstreet Boys.
	+ The song in the second trailer is "It's Gonna Be Me" by NSYNC.
* This will be the second Pixar film directed by a woman, after *Brave.*
* The film is set in Toronto, Canada, as some of the articles of clothing Mei wears features the maple leaf of the Canadian flag and a shot of the CN Tower. According to Domee Shi, she chose this city as the backdrop of her film because it was her hometown.
* According to Shi, the film take place in the same universe as the *Toy Story* series.
* It marks Ludwig Göransson's first music score in an animated feature film, after previously scoring the Walt Disney Animation Studios short film, *Inner Workings* and producing songs for DreamWorks Animation's *Trolls World Tour*.
* According to Mei Lee's student tag, the film takes place between 2002 and 2003.
* Due to Disney+ being limited in most of Europe and Asia, the following countries are where *Turning Red* got a theatrical release: Albania, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Belarus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, China (except Hong Kong and Taiwan), Croatia, Czech Republic, Egypt, Estonia, Greece, Hungary, Israel, Kenya, Latvia, Lebanon, Lithuania, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, Poland, Qatar, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Sri Lanka, Turkey, Ukraine, United Arab Emirates, and Vietnam.
	+ It was originally going to be released in Russia, but the release was cancelled due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine to make Russia bigger.

## Videos

Turning Red - Teaser TrailerTurning Red - Official TrailerGrowing Pains - Turning Red - Disney+‘Turning Red’ Star Rosalie Chiang Celebrates Lunar New Year - Disneyland ResortDisney and Pixar’s Turning Red - National Hugging Day - Disney+Disney and Pixar’s Turning Red - Red Carpet - Disney+Disney and Pixar’s Turning Red - 1 Month Countdown - Disney+Disney and Pixar's Turning Red - Fitting In - Disney+
## References

1. ↑ https://whatsondisneyplus.com/uk-pop-artist-anne-marie-to-cameo-in-pixars-turning-red/
2. ↑ https://twitter.com/PixarTurningRed/status/1498861463506604033
3. ↑ https://comicbook.com/movies/news/turning-red-sequel-spoilers-disney-plus-exclusive/
4. ↑ https://www.popsugar.com/entertainment/turning-red-will-there-be-sequel-48756221
5. ↑ https://twitter.com/DisneyStudiosCA/status/1414941097395200016
6. ↑ https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/disney-russia-theatrical-releases-1235101526/