LM23 Rating: A surprise that should have been saved for the big screen
When I heard Turning Red was being moved to Disney+, I thought I would be similar to other shows on Disney+ or straight to streaming. They’re good quality, but they just lack that extra oomph that makes you recognize it as a MOVIE.
I guess you can say a lot of the streaming shows tend to be like those movies you never bothered to pay the full price at a theatre, but you were glad you rented it or caught it on TV. Because this movie is from Pixar and it’s about an Asian girl in Toronto, I was like I better check this out. I lived and worked in Toronto for many years up until last year. I worked in the downtown area and lived in the midtown area. Although, I moved to Toronto after the 2002 time period Turning Red is set in.
I at first missed it that the movie was set in the early aughts even after Mei and her gang of cool misfit friends talk about listening to the CD from 4 Town. And even after the references to flip phones and the Tamagotchi, I still thought it was set in present day. Present day is filled with too many throwbacks and the look of the film doesn’t seem like it’s from back in the day. Or maybe I’m just of that age where 20 years ago doesn’t seem so far away when it actually was.
Turning Red was a huge surprise. I found myself dying of laughing and trying so hard to notice any winks or hints at things maybe only us Canadians can understand or those of us who know what downtown Toronto is like. I can’t say I spent a lot of time in the Chinatown area. I maybe went there a few times as its not directly on the subway line, but most of my friends who are of Asian descent, we would go and hang out in the North York area or we’d drive to Markham or places like that that are hubs for Chinese and Korean Torontonians.
I also had only gone to the formerly named Skydome once for a concert and even then I didn’t understand its history as I spent most of my time at the Air Canada Centre (now Scotiabank Arena) and the Molson Amphitheatre (now known as the Budweiser Stage).
But it was still fun to see a big movie dedicated to a city that I could technically understand more than just a casual tourist. And even if you’re not Asian or not Canadian from Toronto, this movie is similar to all Disney Pixar films in that it’s a universal feeling you get when you watch it.
Mei is a proud and confident overachieving geeky girl and lives her life according to her terms with her parents and her close circle of pals. That is until she gets her period and then her hormones and turning into a red panda turns her life upside down.
I don’t know why but I loved that Mei had chubby-ish legs. She and the kids in the film were drawn in such a way that they all looked like real life kids. I haven’t read any of the reviews that accuse the film as being “woke” but it seems to me that people now use the term “woke” to describe anything that happens to be non-white and non-mayonnaise.
Let’s be honest. Is it because there’s a school security guard in the film who wears a turban that Turning Red is “woke”? Or is it because we see another character wearing braces or we see actual kids of different ethnicities as cartoons? For anyone who’s lived in Toronto, you know that that is the majority scene there. I’m from a very white town and grew up and worked in mainly white spaces and I was very startled to suddenly be in places that were loud and proud to be all south Asian or all Korean or Black or anything but homogenous white. After a while, it became normal and nothing “woke” to me. People are just people living their lives. There’s nothing “woke” about depicting reality.
Rosalie Chiang’s sweet and earnest voice is perfect for Mei. She brings a down to earth but typical teen angsty tone to Mei. I laughed so hard when she first turned into the red panda and was freaked out at her body’s transformation.
But let’s not forget the film’s other vocal VIP, Canada’s leading lady, the underrated Ms. Sandra Oh. Her voice as the mom of Mei beautifully captured the annoying and overbearing but we guess she means well mom. It was hilarious poetic justice when Mei’s grandmother came calling and then it was the mom’s turn to be a scared little girl shaking underneath her covers.
The red panda that Mei turns into could not be made more cuddlier and real. I felt as if I could reach out and squeeze the panda it was so cute. The main plot of the film is that Mei and her girls want to raise money to see 4 Town and so Mei purposefully turns into the red panda and they charge other kids to take pictures of her or buy her merch. There’s a part where the red panda is wearing sunglasses in one of the fundraisers and that just made me laugh like crazy. The sunglasses just seem so real on the bear. You think you’re actually watching a real life red panda hanging out.
But Mei’s dream concert is almost dashed when the night she’s supposed to get the red panda taken out of her lands on the same night as the concert. It’s not just Mei who has the panda in her but all of the other women of the family. Mei’s grandmother and a gaggle of aunts all show up to help her rid herself of the panda. But things go awry when Mei’s mom turns into an angry red panda that’s taller than the Skydome and wreaks havoc at the 4 Town concert. This was possibly the funniest part of the movie. Sandra Oh’s voice though she’s being the angry and upset mom, comes off as hilarious as she busts open the dome’s roof and stops the concert and yells at the kids to go home and wear some clothes.
If there were Oscars for voice acting, Sandra Oh and Rosalie Chiang deserve nominations. The emotions in their voice brought the characters to life and into the 4D. You could feel how embarrassed Mei was. You could feel how unimpressed the mom was. The movie really moved beyond an animated film because of their vocal acting abilities.
After watching the film, I was disappointed that Disney chose to release Turning Red on Disney+ and not in theatres. Turning Red deserved the red carpet treatment and the movie going experience. The other big Asian-inspired film, Mulan, was pushed to streaming and so it would have been nice if Turning Red would have had its turn on the big screen.
Congratulations to director and writer Domee Shi and the entire cast for representing Canada and Asians.
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