The coming of age animated feature film centered on a Mei who upon hitting puberty finds out she can turn into a giant red panda. With the help of her friends she begins to embrace who that makes her while overcoming the generational trauma it caused her mother as family. Director Domee Shi really captured what it was like to be a teen in the aughts and theof a girl’s life.
The scenes with the mother where cultural clashes came to light were deeply relatable as a first gen first born american daughter. Filled with catchy music done by Billie Eilish and Finneas, we fell in love with Mei and her friends, who were each iconic in their own right. And then there’s the giant third act Kaiju Panda battle, which proved this should have been the movie Disney Pixar put in theaters.