I Watch Films: Kung Fu Panda

 

Kung Fu Panda

Po, a giant Panda, lives in the Valley Of Peace in China, working for his father, a goose, in their noodle shop. (Most of the inhabitants of the valley of Peace are pigs, rabbits and geese). The Valley Of Peace is dominated by The Jade Palace high up the mountain. The Jade Palace is home to lots of kung fu memorabilia, as well as Master Oogway, a giant tortoise who invented kung fu several hundred years ago, Master Shifu, a grumpy red panda, and Master Shifu’s students, the Furious Five; Tigress, Crane, Viper, Monkey and Mantis. They protect the valley.

Oogway prophecies trouble; that Master Shifu’s former apprentice Tai Lung, a snow leopard kung fu expert, will escape his prison and return, seeking the Dragon Scroll, which Oogway previously refused him. Only the Dragon Warrior can read the Dragon Scroll. Shifu sends a goose to check on the prison, inevitably allowing Tai Lung to escape.

In the meantime Oogway holds a ceremony to choose a Dragon Warrior. Po, a big fan of kung fu and the Furious Five wants to go (to watch); his father has him take the noodle cart to sell to people so he’s late and left outside the gate. He shoots himself in on fireworks arriving just as Oogway points and declares it’s him. Shifu and the Five are incredulous but Oogway insists.

The rest of the film moves amiably and predictably forward through botched training, encouragement, the Five’s defeat by Tai Lung, Oogway evanescing to the Spirit Realm and the final confrontation. Perhaps a highlight is the duel with dumplings between Shifu and Po, where Po breaks through and learns how to kung fu. The film look good, and if occasionally the animated animals doing acrobatic kung fu makes the screen confusing, that’s okay, a fight is confusing.

Watch This: Entertaining and funny anthropomorphic animal kung fu cartoon
Don’t Watch This: Runs through the indirect teaching of lessons to not make assumptions on appearances in a perfunctory manner