“Ming is a compilation of all of the very strong and awesome Asian women in my life,” says Shi. There’s no doubt: Ming is fierce, stubborn, funny, controlling, and-as Mei would put it- a lot, but the deep love she has for her family is always apparent. Elegantly turned out and poised at all times, Ming takes her professional duties seriously-but she’s even more dedicated to keeping an eye on her precious daughter, Meilin. Ming is a proud wife, devoted mother, and hardworking keeper of the Lee Family Temple in Toronto’s Chinatown. “We’re basically using the red panda as an adorable metaphor for the very unadorable phenomenon of puberty,” Shi says. She may be fluffy and impossibly cute, but Red Panda Mei represents Mei at her most vulnerable, and messy, true self. is the same Mei her friends and family know and love-but in the form of an unpredictable, eight-foot-tall, smelly, and inadvertently destructive red panda. “She’s spunky, confident, nerdy, passionate, weird, and a little bit snooty,” says director Domee Shi of her main character. But when the teen mysteriously begins to “poof” into a giant, uber-emotional red panda at the most inconvenient times, a gulf opens up between Mei and her mom, forcing a reckoning between Mei’s two selves: the spirited teenager and the obedient daughter. Her posse of loyal besties always has her back they also share a borderline out-of-control obsession with boy band 4*Town-but what 13-year-old doesn’t? At home, Mei is a dutiful and driven keeper of the ancestral family temple, working contentedly alongside her mother, Ming. Exuberant, ambitious, and over-achieving, Chinese-Canadian Meilin excels at school and at home. Let’s take a closer look at Mei and her family and friends, in advance of the film’s big debut this Friday: whenever her emotions get the better of her, she “poofs” into a giant red panda! Mei discovers that this phase of growing up is marked in an unexpected, totally-can’t-hide-from-it, larger-than-life way. So naturally, Meilin-Mei to her friends-has every reason to expect smooth sailing throughout the rest of her middle-school career. That includes her protective, if not slightly overbearing mother, Ming. Disney and Pixar’s all-new original animated feature Turning Red will introduce audiences to Meilin Lee-a confident, slightly dorky 13-year-old with a solid group of friends, a more-than-admirable record in school, and a better-than-average relationship with her family.
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