Kung Fu Panda
Kung Fu Panda teaser poster
Directed by	Mark Osborne John Stevenson
Produced by	Melissa Cobb
Written by	Jonathan Aibel Glenn Berger
Starring	Jack Black Dustin Hoffman Angelina Jolie Ian McShane Jackie Chan Seth Rogen Lucy Liu David Cross
Music by	Hans Zimmer John Powell
Cinematography	Yong Duk Jhun
Distributed by	DreamWorks Animation Paramount Pictures
Release date(s)	June 6, 2008
Language	English
Budget	USD$130 million[1]
Gross revenue	Domestic: $117,998,000 Worldwide: $157,304,976
Official website
IMDb profile

Kung Fu Panda is a 2008 animated film about a bungling panda who aspires to be a kung fu warrior. Kung Fu Panda is directed by John Stevenson and Mark Osborne and produced by Melissa Cobb. Although the concept of a kung fu panda has been around since at least 1993,^[2] the idea for the film was conceived by Michael Lachance,^[3] a DreamWorks Animation executive. Work on the film did not begin until 2004 and the film premièred at the 61st Cannes Film Festival in May 2008. The film was released internationally on June 6, 2008, but will be released in the United Kingdom on July 4, 2008. The film is distributed by Paramount Pictures and DreamWorks.

The film stars the voices of Jack Black, Jackie Chan, Dustin Hoffman, Angelina Jolie, Lucy Liu, Seth Rogen, David Cross and Ian McShane. In the United States, it has been rated PG by the MPAA for sequences of martial arts action, and in the United Kingdom, PG by the BBFC.

[edit] Plot

Po (Jack Black) is a panda who works in the noodle restaurant owned by his goose father Mr. Ping (James Hong). He is also a kung fu fanatic with secret dreams of becoming a great master in the discipline, but Po's defining characteristic appears to be that he is the clumsiest of all the animals in ancient China. Mr. Ping hopes that Po will one day take over the restaurant.

The tortoise Master Oogway (Randall Duk Kim) has a premonition that the evil snow leopard warrior Tai Lung (Ian McShane), the former student of his own protégé Master Shifu (Dustin Hoffman), will escape from prison and return to menace the Valley of Peace. While Shifu sends Zeng (Dan Fogler), a messenger goose, to Chorh-Gom Prison to have the security increased, Oogway orders a formal ceremony to choose the mighty Dragon Warrior who can defeat Tai Lung. Everyone assumes that one of the Furious Five — Tigress (Angelina Jolie), Monkey (Jackie Chan), Mantis (Seth Rogen), Viper (Lucy Liu), and Crane (David Cross) — a quintet of supremely skilled martial artists trained by Shifu, will be chosen for this honor.

While the Five demonstrate their skills at the ceremony, Po finds himself locked outside the walled palace square. He attempts desperately to gain entry through a series of increasingly foolhardy methods. He finally does get over the wall by making a chair out of fireworks, lighting them and waiting for Oogway to choose the Dragon Warrior. Suddenly the chair zooms into the air with Po and burns up, leaving the charred panda to crash into the center of the arena. Inspired by this sudden appearance, the old master designates Po the Dragon Warrior to everyone's shock. Despite Po's protests and Shifu's pleas to reconsider, Oogway stands by his decision.

Alarmed at having this slovenly and obese noodle vendor with no martial arts training whatsoever under his tutelage, Shifu attempts to discourage Po by berating and humiliating him into leaving, including threatening to use the apparently deadly "Wuxi Finger Hold" on him. The Five, profoundly disappointed at being upstaged by the panda, similarly dismiss Po as a worthless interloper. Although he becomes aware of Shifu's true intentions and is deeply hurt by his heroes' disdain for him, Po endures their abuse willingly for the growing dream to become something better than the failure he thinks he is, gradually earning some sympathy from them. In addition, Master Oogway, still certain that the clumsy panda is the right choice, strengthens Po with sage advice to encourage the panda to believe in himself. Eventually, the affable Po endears himself to the Five (except for Tigress) with his tireless tenacity, good cooking, and sense of humor.

Meanwhile, Zeng's errand backfires disastrously when a tour of the prison given to him by the overly confident head of security, Commander Vachir (Michael Clarke Duncan), inadvertently enables Tai Lung to escape — overwhelming numerous rhinoceros prison guards. Tai Lung orders Zeng to send word of his arrival. In the Valley of Peace, Oogway passes away, his final wish that Shifu train Po. However, upon learning of Tai Lung's return, the death of the tortoise who is the only one to have defeated him, and realizing that he has to face such a villain without any skill in fighting, Po attempts to flee, only to be stopped by Shifu who realizes that the panda must be trained. Unfortunately, when Po confesses his deep self-loathing and the fact that he will never be a match for Tai Lung, Shifu is at a loss for a solution. Overhearing the argument between Po and Shifu, the Five take it upon themselves to intercept Tai Lung, especially Tigress, who is confident in her training. After a long night of pondering, Shifu discovers the following morning that Po is capable of impressive physical feats when motivated by food. Realizing that he has found the right focus for the panda, Shifu leads Po to the countryside for a intensive training regime in which Po is offered food as a reward for learning his lessons properly. Thus motivated, Po learns swiftly and finally becomes a talented martial artist in his own right.

The Five battle Tai Lung but are eventually beaten and paralyzed with a specialized nerve-striking technique. When they return defeated, Shifu finally decides Po is ready to take the villain on and gives him the sacred Dragon Scroll, which promises great power to the possessor. When Po opens it, he finds nothing but a blank reflective surface. Stricken with despair at the scroll's apparent worthlessness, Shifu orders his students to evacuate the village while he stays to delay Tai Lung from pursuing them for as long as he can.

As Po participates in the evacuation, he comes across his father, who tries to cheer him up by telling him the secret ingredient of the family's popular noodle soup: nothing. Things become special, he explains, because people believe them to be special. Realizing that this truth is the very point of the Dragon Scroll, that the power promised is already inside him, Po rushes off to help Shifu. At this time, Tai Lung confronts Shifu and savagely beats him for his perceived betrayal of not arguing with Master Oogway's rejection of Tai Lung as Dragon Warrior. Tai Lung also wants the Dragon Scroll for himself. For his part, Shifu is crippled by his profound feelings of guilt and responsibility for his former protégé, whom he loved like a son, turning to evil.

Before Tai Lung can kill his former mentor, Po arrives to challenge him. Although the snow leopard scoffs at the fat panda being the Dragon Warrior, the ensuing fight proves Po to be an extremely formidable opponent. Despite Po's skill, Tai Lung temporarily stuns him and gains the Dragon Scroll, but is aghast when he examines it, unable to understand its symbolism. As he recovers, Po strikes a critical blow on Tai Lung's spirit when he reveals his comprehension of the deeper wisdom of the scroll, a comprehension that the villain cannot match or understand. Now deeply frustrated with an apparently useless prize and facing a superior enemy, Tai Lung tries to subdue Po with his nerve strikes. However, the attack proves useless on the panda, as his body fat protects his nerves. Emboldened, Po effectively counter-attacks with a unique improvised combat style that takes advantage of his girth to absorb and deflect the force from Tai Lung's attacks back at him. In the end, Po uses the Wuxi Finger Hold on Tai Lung (which he claims to have learned on his own), destroying him with a devastating explosion that ripples through the valley.

The Five return to the valley to investigate the cause of the explosion and find a slightly dazed but triumphant Po. Deeply impressed at Po's victory, Tigress leads the Five to acknowledge the panda as a Kung Fu master. The villagers, including Po's father, follow suit and hail Po as a hero. Po remembers his teacher is wounded, and rushes back to Shifu, who is now finally at peace, though he is not dead — he is only resting after such a trying battle. Po lays on the floor with him for a few seconds, then finally asks if he would like to go and get something to eat; Shifu takes him up on the offer.

At the end of the credit scroll, Po and Shifu are seen eating together by a peach tree. A peach seed planted by Shifu earlier on in the film has begun to sprout beside them.

[edit] 2D animation sequences

[edit] Opening

The film opens with a hand-drawn, vividly colored dream sequence that has been made to resemble Chinese shadow puppetry.^[4] The opening, which was animated by James Baxter, was praised by New York Times reviewer Manohla Dargis as "striking" and "visually different from most mainstream American animations."^[5] Other reviewers have compared the opening to the evocative style of Genndy Tartakovsky's Samurai Jack.^[6][7] The film then shifts into a more modern style of computer animation, which uses bright, offbeat colors to evoke the natural landscape of China.^[4]

[edit] The Furious Five

The depiction of the five students of Master Shifu, or the Furious Five, plus Tai Lung are homages to the leopard (Leopard Kung Fu), crane (Fujian White Crane), snake (Snake Kung Fu), monkey (Monkey Kung Fu), praying mantis (Northern Praying Mantis Boxing), and tiger (Tiger Kung Fu) Chinese martial arts styles. ^[8]

[edit] Cast

[edit] Production

[edit] Development

Publicized work on the film began before October 2004^[10] at about the same time the PlayStation 2 videogame Ribbit King was released with its kung fu panda character, "Pan-Pan."^[11] In September 2005, DreamWorks Animation announced the film alongside Jack Black, who was selected to be the main voice star.^[12] Initially, the idea for the film was to make it a parody and spoof, but co-director John Stevenson was not particularly keen on the idea so instead chose the direction of simplistic comedy.^[9] Reportedly inspired by Stephen Chow's 2004 martial arts action comedy, Kung Fu Hustle,^[13] the co-directors wanted to make sure the film also had an authentic Chinese and kung fu feel to it. Production designer Raymond Zibach and art director Tang Heng spent years researching Chinese painting, sculpture, architecture and kung fu movies to help create the look of the film.^[14] Zibach said some of the biggest influence of him are the more artful martial-arts films such as Hero, and House of Flying Daggers and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.^[14] The aim for the film, which took four years to make, was to make it a good blend of the two, as well as to give it an "epic" feel, unlike other DreamWorks animated features which resorted to "pop songs and celebrity references."^[15] In November 2005, Dreamworks Animation announced that Dustin Hoffman, Jackie Chan, and Ian McShane joined Jack Black in the cast.^[16]

[edit] Technical specifications

Kung Fu Panda was the first DreamWorks Animation CGI film to be made in 2.35:1 widescreen format.

• Sound: Dolby Digital, DTS, SDDS
• Color: Deluxe Color
• Prints: Technicolor
• Mix: THX Certified
• Kodak Motion Picture Film
• Avid

[edit] Music

Main article: Kung Fu Panda (soundtrack)

As with most DreamWorks animated films, composer Hans Zimmer scored the film. Zimmer visited China in order to absorb the culture and got to know the Chinese National Symphony as part of his preparation; in addition, Timbaland also contributed to the soundtrack.^[17] The soundtrack also includes a partially rewritten version of the classic song, "Kung Fu Fighting", performed by Cee-Lo Green and Jack Black.

Though Zimmer was originally announced as the main composer of the film, during a test screening Jeffrey Katzenberg, CEO of DreamWorks Animation SKG, announced that composer John Powell would also be contributing to the score. This marked the first collaboration in eight years for these two, having previously worked together on Dreamworks' The Road to El Dorado and the action thriller Chill Factor.

A soundtrack album was released by Interscope Records on June 3, 2008.^[18]

[edit] Release

The film premièred at the 61st Cannes Film Festival, where it received massive and sustained applause at the end of the film's screening.^[19][20] A video game adaptation of the film was developed and published by Activision.^[21]

[edit] Reception

Kung Fu Panda has received very positive reviews from critics. Rotten Tomatoes reported that 87% of critics gave the film positive reviews, based on 121 reviews. The film has a rating of 75% from select top critics and a rating of 89% from users of the site.^[22] Metacritic reported the film had an average score of 73 out of 100, based on 12 reviews.^[23] The movie received an average score of 76.3% from 58 film critics according to Movie Tab.^[24] It received 4 out of 4 stars from the Rich Times Journal.

[edit] Box office performance

Kung Fu Panda grossed an estimated $20.3 million on its opening day. In its opening weekend, the film grossed an estimated $60 million, ranking #1 at the box office. It is also DreamWorks Animation's biggest opening for a non-sequel animated film, and the third-largest opening weekend overall for a DreamWorks animated film (behind Shrek the Third and Shrek 2).^[25][26][27]

[edit] References

[edit] External links

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to:

Kung Fu Panda

• Official Site
• Kung Fu Panda at the Internet Movie Database
• Kung Fu Panda at the Big Cartoon DataBase
• Kung Fu Panda at Rotten Tomatoes
• Kung Fu Panda at Metacritic
• Kung Fu Panda at Box Office Mojo
• Kung Fu Panda at Allmovie
• Trailers at Apple.com
• Kung Fu Panda at Conservation International