Turning Red is a fun and vibrant animation about a 13-year-old girl called Mei Lee. She may seem like your typical confident teenager, but there’s something extraordinary about her — she turns into a giant red panda when she gets excited or stressed.
Turning Red is directed by Domee Shi, who won an Academy Award for her Pixar short film Bao. Shi has brought together a star-studded cast for the film. We can’t wait to see what happens in this movie and (hopefully!) we won’t turn into a giant red panda like Mei Lee.
Here’s everything we know about Turning Red, one of the big new movies of 2022...
Turning Red release date. Is it on Disney Plus?
Turning Red is released on Friday, March 11, 2022 on Disney Plus in both the US and UK.
Turning Red cast
The voice cast is led by Rosalie Chiang (Soiled) who will be voicing the main character, Mei Lee.
While Sandra Oh (Killing Eve, The Chair) will provide the voice for Mei’s mother, Ming, with Orion Lee (Only You) as Mei’s father, Jin Lee and Wai Ching Ho (Robot Stories) as Grandma.
Voicing Mei’s close-knit friends are Maitreyi Ramakrishnan (Never Have I Ever) as Priya, Ava Morse (Ron’s Gone Wrong) as Miriam, and Hyein Park as Abby.
Other stars include Jordan Fisher, Grayson Villanueva, Josh Levi, Topher Ngo and Finneas O’Connell who are lending their voices as the members of 4*Town, with many more famous names rounding up the voice cast.
International pop sensation Anne-Marie has also been announced to voice the character of Lauren, a schoolmate of Mei Lee.
Anne-Marie said: “I’m a massive fan of Pixar so it was an honor to be invited to have a role in Turning Red. It’s such a special film, I love the 00’s setting, it’s nostalgic and fun and I love the concept of Mei needing to figure out her journey about growing up in this weird world.”
Turning Red music
Grammy award-winning singers Billie Eilish and FINNEAS have written the songs for the fictional band 4*Town in the upcoming animation, including "Nobody Like U," which is featured in the trailer.
The Turning Red soundtrack will be released at the same time as the film, on March 11. It will have three original songs penned by Eilish and FINNEAS, including "Nobody Like U," "1 True Love", "U Know What’s Up" as well as a score by Oscar-winning composer Ludwig Göransson.
Producer Lindsey Collins said: “When we first started talking about Billie Eilish and FINNEAS — back before they’d won a billion GRAMMYS — we could see then how they had their finger on the pulse. We were big fans. We met with them and pitched this crazy idea of a boy band, asking if they’d be interested in writing and producing the songs. They were!"
Watch the lyric video for "Nobody Like U":
Turning Red plot
Disney has revealed the plot to be: “Turning Red introduces Mei Lee, a confident, dorky 13-year-old torn between staying her mother’s dutiful daughter and the chaos of adolescence. Her protective, if not slightly overbearing mother, Ming, is never far from her daughter — an unfortunate reality for the teenager. And as if changes to her interests, relationships and body weren’t enough, whenever she gets too excited (which is practically ALWAYS), she 'poofs' into a giant red panda!”
Mei also discovers the real reason as to why she transforms — it's because her ancestors had a mystical connection with red pandas.
Turning Red trailer
You can watch the trailer for Turning Red below, where we’re introduced to Mei and her friends’ widely different and refreshing personalities. But Mei isn’t happy when she morphs into a giant red panda and she soon finds out the real reason as to why she’s transformed!
