Critique: Turning Red (Film)

Meilin, a Chinese-Canadian teenager, starts becoming a large red panda when she becomes emotional. Her mother is Ming, her father is Jin and her grandmother is Wu. It turns out every woman in Meilin’s family could transform into massive red pandas and they had to go through a ritual to lock its spirit up in a piece of jewellery.

 

*****SPOILERS*****

 

Good

 

Meilin is ethnically Chinese and this culture is expressed very well in this film.

The Pixar lamp jumps on the letter at the start of every Pixar film. In this one, the last jump ends with the thrums of a Chinese string instrument. So they mixed the tradition of Pixar with the tradition of China.

Meilin says that Chinese parents, “Put food on your plate. An epic amount of food on your plate.” Anyone who’s ever eaten at a Chinese friend’s house, or gone to a Chinese restaurant, knows how true this statement is.

Meilin’s female relatives arrive. One says that Meilin’s lost weight and another says she’s put weight on. I’ve seen Chinese friends get this exact same treatment so it’s relatable.

 

Appropriate cultural representations are made of Meilin’s friends, too.

Meilin’s friends try to convince her to come to karaoke, holding their hands like they’re praying. Priya, their Indian friend, also does this, but in a namaste. A smart way to showing her culture.

Abby says, “So fluffy,” when seeing Meilin as a panda, her eyes glistening and looking stary like an anime. She’s Korean so it’s a quick reference to her culture (she’s an animation, just like anime, so an animation reference is appropriate; yes, anime is Japanese in origin but it’s wildly enjoyed and practiced in Korea, too).

 

There are two good messages in this film.

Meilin says, “If you honour your parents too much, you might forget to honour yourself.” That’s a nice message.

Jin gives Meilin some good advice: “Don’t push the bad stuff away. You make room for it. Live with it.” In other words, you should neither hide the bad stuff away nor let it run and ruin your life. Take ownership of what’s wrong without letting it overshadow what’s right.

 

The Ming-Meilin relationship is an emotional roller-coaster. It often doesn’t make logical sense but it’s an accurate representation of some mother-daughter relationships.

Ming says to Meilin, “The ancestors would be so proud.” Yeah, that’s nice, but why didn’t Ming say she was proud of Meilin? That’s all Meilin wants. Considering she’s been the perfect daughter, it should be obvious to Ming that Meilin wants Ming’s approval above all else.

Meilin cries over a picture of her mother, saying sorry. She even slaps herself for not living up to her mother’s expectations. To think her upbringing brought on this response is upsetting.

Ming always tried to be the perfect daughter for Wu but felt she wasn’t good enough. Meilin feels the same way, but at least Ming had fun with Meilin. Ming didn’t let it become generational trauma. All until Mei started to be slightly imperfect.

 

Two aspects of the animation were amazing.

The animation of Jin’s dad cooking was superb. The salt, the steam, the sauce… give these animators a raise! Jin looked like a villain until he wipes his glasses: at this point, light flood the screen, just like light flooded his eyes. So clever!

In the ritual circle, Meilin’s robes flapping in the mystical wind was animated really well. It’s the best fabric-moving-in-the-wind animation I’ve seen.

 

 

Humour

 

Some of the humour is a play on situations that are otherwise sexual.

Tyler says, “I wonder if your mum knows her precious little Meimei’s been flaunting her panda all over school.” It seems like ‘panda’ is a euphemism for something much more risqué when considering what sentences like that usually refer to.

Tyler offers Meilin a lot of money to be at his birthday party. Mei’s tail then springs up erect because she’s excited. This film really isn’t going for subtle!

Meilin thumps her feet and says, “Awooga,” at Devon. Just like guys did in old cartoons when they saw an attractive woman. This flipping of expectations was great.

One of the bits of merch Meilin’s friends make is a shirt that reads ‘fur baby’. When those kids find out what that phrase means, they’re going to be mortified.

 

Meilin has a lot of moments to shine.

Meilin lists everything her parents do for her. “So all you have to do in return is every single thing they say.” Saying ‘all you have to do’ implies something extremely easy and non-time consuming. Having this contrasted with ‘everything’ is clever and funny.

A random girl sees Meilin as a panda so Meilin puts a paw over her face then slides the girl backwards out of sight. It’s even funnier because the girl moves like a single, one-piece object like a chair, not moving her joints or muscles, like a human usually would.

When talking about a five-piece boyband, Meilin lists the talents of three before stating, “And the other two are super talented, too.”

 

Ming is rather funny.

Ming says, “You’re late. Are you hurt? Are you hungry?” Worrying about your child on either of these counts is entirely normal. But to be paired together in one breath even though they are far different levels of seriousness was a fun contrast. Or maybe Ming thinks they are as bad as each other, which in itself would be hilarious.

Ming thinks Meilin’s scream was about her period. So Ming’s talking about how Meilin is, “a woman now and your body is changing.” That is, changing into a woman. But in reality Meilin has changed into a massive red panda. So Ming’s commentary is both so right yet so wrong.

 

Humour associated with Jin is gentle rather than belly-laughs. However, having different levels of humour allows the really funny stuff to shine without appearing stale. Still, this Jin humour is my favourite in the film.

Ming won’t let Jin have a doughnut. So when Meilin screams and Ming is distracted, Jin takes the opportunity to snag a doughnut. Something could be seriously wrong with your daughter but instead you focus on a doughtnut.

Meilin didn’t want her mother to come with her. Meilin suggests Ming spend time with Jin. Jin looks hopeful but Ming walks out without a thought. Poor Jin!

 

Abby is the main comic relief in this film.

When Abby is angry, she shouts in Korean. This is the only time she speaks Korean. Hence it seems so random, making it far funnier.

Meilin taps her arm, saying, “Abby, hit me?” So what does Abby do? Punch Meilin right in the face!

Abby declares, “My mum called it stripper music. What’s wrong with that?” So unexpected. So my favourite line in the film.

 

 

Nonsense

 

The biggest problem was the massive plot hole. Throughout the film, they kept on saying that the ritual to seal away the red panda could only be done once per person. This is why Meilin’s family is so focused on Meilin behaviour because this would make the ritual easier.

Ming’s panda breaks free of its amulet, so why did they think they could repeat the ritual to trap her panda again? Wu and Meilin’s other relatives release their pandas to help with Ming’s. Then all of them go through the ritual for the second time and it works.

Meilin flaunts the rules that would make the ritual easier; the ritual failing is what drives the finale of the film. The plot’s conclusion depends on everyone doing the ritual for the second time: this is a serious inconsistency that collapses the plot. All they had to do is remove ‘it can only be done once’.

 

Meilin transforming into a massive red panda is a metaphor for her period.

She becomes a panda when she isn’t calm, such as her being panicky to being excitable. She thinks things aren’t adult-like.

So, she’s turning into a panda because she’s becoming an adult, yet the emotions that bring this transformation on aren’t adult-like? If they’re bringing on the adult transformation, shouldn’t that mean they are adult-like?

 

At the end, Meilin concludes, “We’ve all got an inner beast. All got a weird part of ourself hidden away and we never let it out.”

But she does let her inner beast out: Meilin doing exactly this is how the film ends! So this ending monologue isn’t relevant to the film.

Also, conflating an inner beast (something violent, hence negative) with weirdness (neutral) is a bad decision because it emphasises how society disapproves of difference.  Especially as Meilin accepting her inner beast as a positive thing is the lasting message of the film.

 

There are also smaller issues. They don’t really affect the plot but they are nonetheless distracting.

Meilin and her friends think they will become women once they walk out of the concert. Um, what. That makes no sense.

The shaman and the family start Meilin’s ritual. Meilin doesn’t understand her family’s chanting. I find it hard to believe they didn’t teach Meilin their native tongue. Meilin helps Ming run a temple so tradition and culture are clearly very important to the family. Language is a big part of tradition and culture so there’s no way Meilin wouldn’t have been educated in this.

Mei’s ritual fails. Wu and the others ask how Ming could have let this happen. Considering they were all there, and were as equally involved as Ming, how they can land the blame on Ming is beyond me.

 

 

Inappropriate

 

Let’s start with the minor issues.

Priya crosses her legs like she’s meditation and she holds her hands in the position of a mudra. Considering she wasn’t meditating, and nor was she worshiping a deity, her being in these positions didn’t make sense. It was done for cheap humour.

Ming thinks Devon is thirty, and he says he’s seventeen. To which Ming declares it’s the result of doing drugs. Talking about drugs in a film that otherwise has an innocent feel intended for young teenagers is some serious dissonance.

 

The biggest issue is the film’s obsession with Meilin’s bottom.

On the title screen, Meilin is swishing her bum (it facing the screen) side to side. This is uncomfortable because she’s thirteen. If her bum hadn’t been facing the screen, then it would have just been fun (which was clearly the intention).

Meilin dances to ‘Bootlicious’. In it, her bum cheeks are defined. They’ve not defined before or after this point so it can be seen as inconsistent. However, it was consistent/appropriate for this scene. However, a teenager having a well-defined bum is not appropriate.

For several minutes to distract Ming, Meilin shakes her bum and even slaps it. She thirteen! As an adult watching this film (and many adults will watch it when looking after children), seeing a thirteen year-old, i.e. a child, do something like this is uncomfortable in the extreme.

 

 

 

To conclude, it was a mixed bag. The positives didn’t outweigh the negatives.

This film was fun. The focus on ethnic minorities. The metaphor of conflating becoming a massive red panda with a period was clever and original. It had so much potential.

But the plot holes thoroughly ruined it, as did the animator’s weird obsession with a child’s bum. I can’t fathom how the creators thought this was okay, let alone film regulators.

This isn’t a film I would recommend to anyone.