Directed by : Domee Shi

Honoring your parents sounds great, but if you take it too far, well, you might forget to honor yourself.

A still from 'Turning Red'

Spoilers ahead.. 


Meilin (voice by Rosalie Chiang), a 13 year old Chinese-Canadian girl living in Toronto wants to be independent but with a very overprotective mother Ming (Sandra Oh), its asking for a lot. She participates in a daily duty of honoring their ancestor at her family temple. One day she wakes up as a red panda and learns it's a family thing/curse where any strong excited emotions would bring the panda out until its controlled through a ritual. 

I felt the themes of parents (in this case just the mother) having full control over their children and the age of 'almost becoming a woman' aren't explored well enough. Rather its the fluffy red panda that gets silly scenes to get laughs out which clearly meant the target audience here was not the adults. 

In past Pixar movies has brilliantly showed the dynamics of a child and parent, both struggling to come to terms with each other's interests, lifestyle and the whole coming of age. Whether its 'Inside Out', 'Coco', 'Luca' (with whom this movie's concept of turning into panda resembles too), or even 'Soul' where the only 2 scenes were so maturely handled. 

Meilin becoming a rebel and letting out her frustration towards her mom near end of movie didn't really needed a panda concept. Infact, watching all ladies of Meilin family turning into pandas by the end made it even worse to watch. Also, it didn't help how much stereotyped the friend circle of Meilin was, nor does the way Meilin handles the panda to make money out of it just to enter a concert specially when she is so smart always getting A's in subjects. 

There are few decent fun Panda moments specially when Meilin goes to school all worried if she gets excited which for her age she does a lot, she may reveal the panda side to everyone in class. I liked the scene where her friends is the reason she finds a way to control the panda for time-being.  Also, her father suggesting there's nothing wrong in keeping a little messy side with you, but why did it take him whole film's screen time to give this advice!

The best takeaway for me was the 4*Town's song 'Nobody like you', I instantly liked it.

Overall, apart from some laughs, Turning Red didn't work for me and the message it wanted to say never comes across as it should had. 

My Rating : 4.5/10