'In Your Dreams' Delivers Laughs, Love, and Subtle AAPI Representation
By Romen Basu Borsellino | 11 Nov, 2025

Netflix's latest animated feature is primarily focused on telling a hilarious and heartfelt story, all while normalizing AAPI characters.

As a writer for an AAPI-centered publication, I constantly find myself looking for the “Asian” angle.

I’ll scour Emmy nominations and Forbes’s Top 50 lists for members of our community. I’ll dine at new dim sum and sushi restaurants and check out the main stage at an Asian American-centric comedy festival.

So when I heard about Netflix’s latest animated feature “In Your Dreams,” which stars Simu Liu, Jolie Hoang-Rappaport, and SungWon Cho, is directed by Alex Woo and produced by Timothy Hahn, I was excited to check out the latest piece of AAPI content. 

Left to Right: Kuku Studios CEO Alex Woo and 'In Your Dreams' stars Christin Milioti, and Simu Liu at the film's premiere 

I watched the film on Wednesday, courtesy of an early screener from Netflix.

"In Your Dreams" is visually stunning. It’s a story fueled by imagination and whimsy that still manages to packing an emotional punch.

What “In Your Dreams” is not, is an “Asian” movie. At least not in an overly explicit sense.

And maybe that’s a good thing. 

The Film

“In Your Dreams" is the story of a brother and sister who enter into the world of their own dreams where they must get past numerous surreal creatures in hopes of ultimately finding the Sandman, the mythical creature who can make their ultimate dream come true.

Beyond, perhaps, the appearance of the Dad, a lovable if underachieving middle-aged man who still clings to his dream of being a rock star, portrayed by Simu Liu, I didn't catch any overtly Asian pieces of culture.

This is by design.  In the words of first-time director Alex Woo, the story “normalizes AAPI characters.”

And I’ve got to say, he did just that. I personally found myself strongly identifying with the story’s family.

But not simply because I'm half-Asian, something I shared with protagonist siblings Stevie and Elliot.

Rather, their home on a cozy Minnetonka, Minnesota street resembled the one I grew up on in Des Moines. The family’s love of French toast and pizza nights out with Dad, and siblings sharing a room evoked happy memories of my own childhood.

When Alex Woo and Tim Hahn, along with Stanley Moore joined forces to found Kuku studios in 2016, their goal was “to tell stories that delight audiences of all ages in every corner of the world.” 

If we think of viewers as strictly Asian or strictly midwestern, like my own biases might have led me to do, it may be hard to achieve that.

But a more subtle approach like Woo's, which sees viewers as the totality of their identities, ensured that this film has something that any viewer would relate to. 

And, yes, the film features a bologna-loving stuffed giraffe that shoots lasers out of its rear-end. But don’t be fooled into thinking it lacks depth.

The film begins with pre-teen daughter Stevie getting the sense that their parents’ marriage may be in trouble. 

While initially wanting nothing to do with the hijinks that come from exploring the whimsical worlds of her and her brother’s dreams, she relents with the realization that she could achieve the ultimate dream of keeping her family together.

The plot point was inspired by a core memory of Director Alex Woo’s own childhood. He recently explained in an interview that when he was a kid “My mom ended up going away for a little while.” All Woo wanted was to “keep my family together and just go back to the way things were.”

Divorce is certainly a traumatic event for any child of any family. It may even have been the personal experience of witnessing his parent’s divorce firsthand that led one Netflix producer to champion the film after first hearing Woo’s pitch.

Members of the AAPI-community certainly have their own unique experiences with divorce as well.  Much like, say, mental health, it has seldom been a topic that we discuss openly.  However subtly, this film may seek to change that. 

Kuku Studio

The name Kuku Studios is itself an homage to the founders’ culture. Ku is the Chinese symbol for “cry. “

Woo has explained that they landed on the name because “We wanted to tell stories, make TV shows and movies that make people laugh so hard that they would cry, and feel so deeply that they would cry.”

All three of Kuku’s founders previously worked at Pixar. Woo was an animator on hits like Wall-E, Ratatouille, and The Incredibles 2. He now serves as Kuku’s CEO.

Tim Hahn, Kuku’s VP of Production, was a producer at Pixar while Stanley Moore, Kuku’s VP of Creative, was a story editor.  One might also affectionately bestow upon Moore the title of “token white guy” on Kuku’s founding team. 

Pixar itself has seldom shied away from telling stories that embrace cultural identity. The 2020 film Turning Red, for example, is centered around Chinese-Canadian Culture. The 2017 hit CoCo is about Mexican culture. And 2021’ Encanto is about the traditions of a Colombian family. 

If one didn’t know any better, they might have thought that this film was in fact made by Pixar.  From the squeak of pacifier falling to the sky to the layers in Elliot’s moppy head of hair, this film’s animation at the very least matches the standard set by Pixar.

But for those wondering what distinguishes this studio from them — aside from a much leaner team and cost-efficient budget, I would imagine — one answer might be Kuku’s more understated approach to identity. Which is not to say that either studio is correct. 

Netflix

While In Your Dreams was released in select theaters this past Thursday — likely so that it could be Academy Awards-eligible – it will soon be available to all Netflix users.

Going from theatrical blockbusters to content that’s primarily available by streaming may seem like a downgrade for the Kuku team, but on the contrary, it’s why they started the company.

When Netflix simultaneously released all 13 episodes of its flagship 2013 political thriller House of Cards, a move that eschewed the tried and true method of a weekly episode released, Woo was quickly drawn to the idea of working outside of the confines of traditional film and television media. 

“One of the reasons I left Pixar is because I was so excited about what Netflix was doing, Woo has said. “I just had this gut feeling that they were going to change the industry in a big way and that sooner or later they were going to get into animation.”

In 2019, three years after the studio’s founding, Kuku would enter into an overall deal with Netflix under which they would “exclusively produce animated films and series for Netflix members worldwide.”

The following year, Netflix released Kuku’s first production, “Go! Go! Cory Carson,” a pre-school series about cars whose engine runs on fun. The series won three daytime Emmy Awards for directing, editing, and visual achievement.

Bay Area Animation Alliance

Kuku, based in Berkley CA is also a member of something called the Bay Area Animation Alliance (BAAA). 

Founded in 2020 by Woo alongside Dice Tsutsumi and Robert Kondo of animation studio Tonko House as well as Maureen Fan of animation studio Baobab, BAAA is “A community for Bay Area animation professionals that inspires creativity and raises the bar for indie animation worldwide.”

One might have wondered if the three studios saw each other as rivals and, as such, would not want to work together. But on the contrary, they see themselves as “Stronger together than alone.”

BAAA’s relationship with diversity is not unlike Kuku’s. One might immediately notice from the photo on the three smiling faces of their founders are all Asian. And there is a mention of their monthly meeting at Le Pho in Berkeley because “who doesn’t love pho”?

And yet identity is not used as a talking point. 

That’s not to say they’re shying away from it. The group has held at least one programming event focused on diversity in the animation industry.

As BAAA co-founder Maureen Fan told the San Francisco Chronicle “The three of us all happen to be Asian Americans, so it’s near and dear to our hearts. Our studio makes a concerted effort to make projects that represent diverse voices.”

'In Your Dreams' will be available on Netflix on Friday, November 14.