Mei is a well-behaved thirteen-year-old girl, that does good at school and obeys her obsessive mother. However, one day when she is sad and angry, she wakes up a red panda. She learned that this is a family curse. Whenever emotions are too strong, the women of the family turn into red pandas. This curse can be cured by sealing the red panda’s spirit into a talisman on a red moon evening. Mei goes through this ceremony but decides and the last minute that she wants to keep this panda. Her mother goes crazy and becomes a red panda again, giant and destructive. A cute film about adolescence, breaking bonds with family and not always being in control.
“People have all kinds of sides to them, Mei. And some sides are messy. The point isn’t to push the bad stuff away. It’s to make room for it, live with it.”