As I said before about Turning Red, it’s really a film about the Asian diaspora in the west and more specifically Canada, which makes you wonder what would happen if Turning Red were to be set anywhere else in the west. One would wonder what would happen if Turning Red were set in somewhere like Britain, would there be British references and perhaps a British sensibility had Domee Shi’s parents moved to somewhere like Croydon for instance? I kind of pondered and contemplated about what would happen if Mortal Kombat were made in Britain instead, wherein Jax would’ve been African-Caribbean instead among other things.
But this brings up an odder possibility of somebody like Ed Boon assimilating into the larger African Caribbean community, since the Latin American community in Britain isn’t that large and also if his own mum moved to Britain instead. Then another would be a stronger anti-Thatcherite streak in the earliest Mortal Kombat game, if it was made in Britain instead and possibly taking on a rather different tone or theme. Turning Red is very much a byproduct of a Canadian, it’s awash in references to Canadiana. Meilin Li doesn’t just live in Toronto, but also encounter an actual Canadian store and her parents eat food from a real Canadian restaurant, Tim Hortons, though it also has a branch in the Philippines.
British Turning Red would have a rather different sensibility, if not an entirely different feel and mindset, it wouldn’t be entirely different from regular Turning Red but more in the sense of having a somewhat different sense of humour. There are probably Asian Britons who relate to her without difficulty, like their Australian counterparts do, so a British Turning Red would turn out no differently in a sense. The only real differences would be the references, swap Tim Hortons for something like Greggs plc among other things. I actually have this story in the back of my mind that’s inspired by Turning Red, but where it’s set in early 1990s Britain.
Its versions of Meilin Li, Priya, Abby and Miriam are all into the rave scene and also tend to be late teenagers, this Meilin Li even has family in Hong Kong but that would mean it would’ve still been a British colony as it had yet to be returned to China. This Abby is from Myanmar, which was a British colony. India too was a British colony, well so are Jamaica, Barbados, Malaysia, Ghana and others and some of them even achieved true independence. Barbados recently became a republic, whilst Jamaica wants to become one itself. It would be the closest thing to what would happen if Turning Red were set in Britain, but being an original story it takes more liberties with the themes and leitmotifs.
It’s not a one-on-one copy of Turning Red, but rather something that has its own take on some of the same themes underlying it. Here’s the story that I wrote that’s inspired by Turning Red.
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