How ‘Turning Red’ Avoided Chinatown Clichés

thewrap.com:

“Turning Red” that the filmmakers are most proud of is the movie’s depiction of Toronto’s Chinatown. Not a Chinatown full of offensive cliches or dangerous stereotypes, but the type of Chinatown that feels real and lived in and true to its real-world counterpart.

Director Domee Shi recently spoke about how much this aspect of the film meant to her. And it’s easy to understand why Shi is so proud, especially given the painful representations of Chinatown in the past.

TheWrap spoke to production designer Rona Liu about Chinatown in “Turning Red” and how the team was able to capture it so beautifully.If, incredibly, you haven’t seen “Turning Red,” which debuted on Disney+ last spring and is up for the Best Animated Feature Oscar, it tells the story of a young girl named Mei (Rosalie Chiang) who lives in Toronto in the early 2000s and discovers that she turns into a giant red panda when she’s excited.

Her transformation is connected to an ancient family curse and, on a story level, serves as a wonderful for the awkwardness of puberty.While it’s Shi’s debut feature, Liu had worked with her before – on Shi’s Oscar-winning short “Bao” and alongside her on Brad Bird’s “Incredibles 2.” Not that Liu’s involvement in “Turning Red” was a foregone conclusion. “They want the opportunities to be open to everybody,” Liu said about Pixar’s process. “There’s an interview process for every leadership role.