Film of the Week: Kung Fu Panda 3

The Kung Fu Panda franchise has given us an original story of a Panda, Po (Jack Black), being selected by an old master of Kung Fu to be the Dragon Warrior. Po must learn the ways of Kung Fu and who he really is along the way as well as fighting alongside the Furious Five against powerful enemies to save the valley from harm.

Back in 2008, when I first watched Kung Fu Panda, I wasn’t really looking a film critically, I just wanted to watch it because it looked interesting and I was glad that I did. I was laughing all the way through. Now that I have a more open eye than I did before, I can see that it was engaging, well-thought out, and an original idea, which was nice to see after seeing so many sequels and reboots. The first film follows the character, Po, who is a panda and dreams of one-day learning the art of Kung Fu. He lives with his adoptive father, Mr Ping, who is a duck and works in a noodle restaurant. After giving Po the order of delivering noodles to the arena where Master Oogway, (Randall Duk Kim) is about to choose who will become the Dragon Warrior. The Furious Five (Master Tigress, a tiger – Angelina Jolie, Master Viper, a snake – Lucy Lu, Master Mantis – Seth Rogan, Master Crane, a bird – David Cross, and Master Monkey – Jackie Jan) present themselves as they believe that one of them will be chosen. Desperate to see who will be chosen, Po does everything he can to get inside the arena, including strapping rockets to his back. This doesn’t quite work and he lands right in the middle of the arena. To everyone’s surprise, Master Oogway is pointing at him and confirms that Po is the Dragon Warrior.

Po’s journey begins but doesn’t start off well at all. Making mistake after mistake, Master Shifu, a red panda (Dustin Hoffman) tries to push Po so far that he will give up and quit, but determined to show that he is capable of doing it, actually manages to impress the Furious Five enough to become friends with him. The first film sees Po going up against the enemy, Tai Lung, a snow leopard (Ian Mcshane) who seeks revenge against Master Oogway for denying him the Dragon Scroll.

The second film sees Po training some more and is told that he has yet to learn inner peace. The enemy in this film is Lord Shen, a peacock (Gary Oldman) who seeks to harness the power of fireworks to take over the valley. Once again, it was funny throughout. Po’s clumsy manner actually helping him win his battles makes for an unpredictable foe towards his enemies, and whilst that isn’t all that helps him win, he does learn the lesson set by Master Shifu by the end of the film.

The third film adds another element to Po’s story by introducing his real dad. His dad, Li Shan (Bryan Cranston) says that the universe told him to find his son and lead the way to the valley. The main enemy in this third instalment is the toughest yet. Kai, a yak, who possess the power of taking other warrior’s chi. In the spirit realm, after defeating all the Masters within, he fights Master Oogway who willingly accepts his defeat as he claims it is not his destiny to defeat him, but the Dragon Warrior – someone who is the true master of chi.

I had to admit that I was surprised. Sometimes the sequels don’t live up to the first instalment and lets the story down, but Kung Fu Panda 2 ramped up the action sequences, as well as the comedy which made for an enjoyable experience once more. Kung Fu Panda 3 did the same. Both sequels introduced a unique story – Po had to learn a new element within the art of Kung Fu and identify who exactly he is. Instead of completing his journey in the first movie, his story was well-thought enough to extend over to the other sequels, making you feel as if his journey is truly complete.

Being a kids film, I knew when I sat down to watch it that I was an adult, and while it is a family-friendly film, they are aimed directly at the kids instead, but all three films didn’t just aim the story at the kids and say that it’s a family-friendly film, they incorporated the adults who would be sitting with their kids as well, so everyone in the family would enjoy the film in their own way. It can be said that the film was following the standard formula of putting the main character through a tough challenge that he nearly fails, but right at the very moment he was going to fail, he discovers the secret to defeating the enemy and does so with ease, but who cares about the formula when you have the original and funny story of Po and his friends surrounding it.

Kung Fu Panda did what Shrek couldn’t. I can understand where Dreamworks wanted with Shrek, but it didn’t quite work out the way it was intended. I believe they were a little surprised with how people took to the first film that they knew the audience would automatically like the second one, and so may not have put as much thought in as we would have liked. I don’t want to say they were greedy; I just think they needed to see if they could run before they did after discovering they could walk – for lack of a better analogy. Kung Fu Panda on the other hand – even if they didn’t – feels as if they had learnt what they did wrong and thought about exactly what they can do and how to do it.

I did learn yesterday that Dreamworks is planning three more movies in the franchise, making the total number of films 6. I don’t know if that’s the best thing to do at the current moment. Instead of announcing three straight from the word go, they need to see if the story – which ended well at the end of the third film by bringing it full circle – can continue onwards without repeating itself or losing quality. They increased the quality by a substantial amount across all three films, it would be a shame to ruin it now.

Thanks for reading

Antony Hudson

(TonyHadNouns)