Embrace the Panda: Making Turning Red

An interesting story about the (unwanted) transformation of a girl and its alter ego (for real). The plot is quite original and the evolution of the characters not bad. A teenage girl learns about what it means to grow up (with all its side effects) and the value of friends and family, while the mother learns that she must let go of her daughter, even if the latter wants to go other paths. A typical fantasy story with the obligational moral ending, with a strong Chinese flair. Watch it with your kids and prepare a lot of pop corn.

A neat look behind the scenes of 'Turning Red', though not the most interesting. The actual film is very good, fwiw. It's more about the people who made the film as opposed to the film itself, which is all fine but I'm always more interested in the onscreen stuff and the cast. We get to see a bit of Rosalie Chiang and a bit of Sandra Oh, but that's basically it. Animated films in general always seem to not showcase 'actors in the booth', which is kinda annoying. Like here, it's cool to see Oh in the booth - needed more of that for the whole cast! Of course, logistically that might not have been possible - though for this documentary they do send a separate camera crew to (pleasantly, I'd like to add) film a crew member's family so... This also completely sidesteps the controversy of theatrical release vs. Disney+ release. As expected, no doubt, but it feels like a massive elephant - or, should I say, panda ... sorry - in the room throughout. In conclusion, this serves a purpose but it's not as interesting as it could've been - in my opinion, obvs. It does, at least, shed light on important real world topics to be fair.

The behind scene showed us a great team that put a truely unique pixel movie together. I have been obsessed with the trailer and determined to see it on the big screen. Why is it not on big screen Disney? It is such a let-down to a great team.