Watch: ‘Turning Red’ animator on the inspiration for Ming’s ‘disgusted shudder’ in DVD, Blu-Ray extra

May 2, 2022

Disney and Pixar’s “Turning Red” is now digitally available on 4K Ultra HD and will be released on Blu-ray and DVD tomorrow.

The film’s debut on major digital platforms and physical media feature never-before-seen bonus material, including seven deleted scenes and three featurettes.

“Turning Red” follows the story of a 13-year-old Chinese Canadian girl, Meilin “Mei” Lee, as she inherits the ability to transform into a giant red panda while going through puberty. Set in the year 2002 in Toronto, the film explores Mei’s struggles with balancing her responsibility as a daughter to her slightly overbearing mother, Ming, while going through the chaos of adolescence.

“Ming is like a kettle boiling inside and she’s trying to contain it as much as she can, but the fun part is once in a while she’ll let out a little bit of steam,” animation supervisor Aaron Hartline said.

One of the deleted scenes titled “Taming The Panda” shows Mei learning certain techniques to control her ability under the guidance of her mother. In a featurette, the animation team also shows how they tackled Ming and Mei’s “heightened emotionality” with expressive anime.

“Turning Red” is Pixar’s first feature-length film directed by an Asian woman. Domee Shi, who won an Academy Award for her Pixar short “Bao” in 2019, managed a historically all-female creative leadership team for “Turning Red.”

The film features voice actors Sandra Oh, Rosalie Chiang, Ava Morse and Maitreyi Ramakrishnan as well as Disney Pixar’s first-ever boy band 4*Town with singers Jordan Fisher, Finneas O’Connell, Grayson Villanueva, Topher Ngo and Josh Levi.

The digital copies will also include an audio commentary with Shi along with producer Lindsey Collins and director of photography Mahyar Abousaeedi.

“I really wanted to explore the conflicts of a young teen girl—how she’s torn between being a good daughter and embracing her true messy self,” Shi said. “Ming is a compilation of all of the very strong and awesome Asian women in my life. Ming can be intense, but all of the crazy stuff she does is motivated by her love for her daughter.”

“It’s a coming-of-age story about change and those transitional moments. It’s about that time in our lives when we’re trying to figure out who we are,” Collins said. “We have a girl who is torn between her family and her friends, learning that she’s not at all who she thought she was. And we have the mother whose daughter is suddenly interested in strange music and boys—a mother who struggles with letting go so her child can become who she needs to be. It’s a universal theme that rings true whether you’re the parent, the child, or maybe both.”

Feature Image via Pixar

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