Kung Fu Panda

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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
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,^[1] the idea for the film was conceived by Michael Lachance,^[2] a DreamWorks Animation executive. Work on the film, didn't begin until 2004 and the film premièred at the 61st Cannes Film Festival in May 2008. The film was released in the US on June 6, 2008 and will be released in the UK on July 4, 2008. The film is distributed by Paramount Pictures.

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.

Contents 1 Plot 2 Opening sequence 3 Cast 4 Production 4.1 Development 4.2 Technical specifications 4.3 Music 5 Release 5.1 Reception 5.2 Box office performance 6 References 7 External links

[edit] Plot

Po (Jack Black) is a panda who works in the noodle shop owned by his goose father Mr. Ping (James Hong) and is a kung fu fanatic, but whose defining characteristic appears to be that he is the klutziest animal in ancient China.

Master Oogway (Randall Duk Kim) has a premonition that the evil warrior Tai Lung (Ian McShane), the former student of his own protege, 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. The Dragon Warrior is presumed to be one of the Furious Five (Angelina Jolie as Tigress, Jackie Chan as Monkey, Seth Rogen as Mantis, Lucy Liu as Viper and David Cross as Crane), a quintet of supremely skilled martial artists trained by Shifu.

While the Five demonstrate their skills at the ceremony, Po finds himself locked outside. He attempts desperately to gain entrance. Following a series of increasingly foolhardy methods, Po gains entry, landing in the middle of the grounds just as Oogway makes his selection. Inspired by this sudden appearance, the old master designates Po the Dragon Warrior. To everyone's shock and despite Po's protests and Shifu's pleas to reconsider, Oogway stands by his decision.

Alarmed at having a 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 being upstaged by the panda, similarly dismiss Po as a worthless interloper. Although he becomes aware of Shifu's true intentions, Po endures all the abuse willingly for the growing dream to become something better while Master Oogway encourages the panda to believe in himself. Eventually, the affable Po endears himself to the Five 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 Clark Duncan) inadvertently enables Tai Lung to escape — overwhelming numerous rhinoceros prison guards. In the Valley of Peace, Oogway passes away, his dying wish that Shifu train a deeply discouraged Po. In the meantime, the Five take it upon themselves to intercept Tai Lung. After a long night of pondering how to train the panda, Shifu discovers 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 vigorous training regime where the student is offered food as a reward, but only if he learns his lessons properly. Thus motivated, Po learns swiftly and finally becomes an impressive 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 that promises great power to the possessor. When Po opens it, he finds nothing but a blank reflective surface. Now in despair, 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 speaks to his father who tries to cheer him up by telling him a secret; not that he is adopted, but that the secret ingredient of his noodle soup is nothing but what you, the cook, put in it yourself, and that the soup is only special if you believe that it is special. When Po realizes that truth is the very point of the Dragon Scroll, that the power promised is already inside him, he rushes off to help Shifu. At this time Tai Lung confronts Shifu and soundly 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 protege, whom he loved like a son, turning to evil.

Before Tai Lung can kill his 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 a deeper wisdom explaining the scroll that the villain cannot match. Frustrated at his apparently worthless prize and facing a spiritually superior enemy, Tain refuses to accept the truth and tries to kill Po with his nerve strikes. However, the attack proves useless on the panda with his body fat protecting his nerves. Emboldened, Po effectively counter-attacks with a unique improvised combat style that takes advantage of his girth to absorb and reflect the force from Tai Lung's attacks back at him. In the end, Po uses the Wuxi Finger Hold which he claims to have learned on his own, destroying Tai Lung with a devastating explosion that ripples through the valley.

The Furious Five, impressed at Po's victory, acknowledge the panda as a kung fu master. The villagers, including Po's father, return and hail Po as a hero. Remembering his teacher is wounded, Po rushes back to Shifu who appears to be dying, but is only resting after taking such a beating. Po shares a meditation with him, but soon asks him if he would like to get something to eat.

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

[edit] Opening sequence

The film opens with a hand-drawn, vividly colored dream sequence that has been made to resemble Chinese shadow puppetry^[3], then the film shifts into a more modern style of computer animation that uses bright, offbeat colors to evoke the natural landscape of China.^[3]

[edit] Cast

Actor	Role	Animal
Jack Black	Po	Panda
Dustin Hoffman	Master Shifu	Red Panda
Angelina Jolie	Master Tigress	South China Tiger
Ian McShane	Tai Lung	Snow Leopard
Randall Duk Kim	Master Oogway	Tortoise
David Cross	Master Crane	Red-crowned Crane
Seth Rogen	Master Mantis	Praying Mantis
Lucy Liu	Master Viper	Viper
Jackie Chan	Master Monkey	Gee's Golden Langur
James Hong	Mr. Ping	Goose
Dan Fogler	Zeng	Goose
Michael Clarke Duncan	Commander Vachir	Javan Rhinoceros

Two additional voices were provided by winners of a Nickelodeon competition.^[4]

[edit] Production

[edit] Development

"...we love martial arts movies. I wasn't interested in making fun of them, because I really think martial arts movies can be great films, they can be as good as any genre movie when they're done properly […] Let's try to make it a real martial arts movie albeit one with a comic character and let's take our action seriously. Let's not give anything up to the big summer movies. Let's really make sure that our kung fu is as cool as any kung fu ever done, so that we can take our place in that canon and make sure it's a beautiful movie, because great martial arts movies are really beautiful-looking movies and then let's seen if we can imbue it with real heart and emotion." —co-director John Stevenson on the comedic approach to the martial arts film[5]

Publicized work on the film began before October 2004^[6] at about the same time the PlayStation 2 videogame Ribbit King was released with its kung fu panda character, "Pan-Pan."^[7] In September 2005, DreamWorks Animation announced the film alongside Jack Black, who was selected to be the main voice star.^[8] 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.^[5] Reportedly inspired by Stephen Chow's 2004 martial arts action comedy, Kung Fu Hustle,^[9] 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.^[10] 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.^[10] 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."^[11] In November 2005, Dreamworks Animation announced that Dustin Hoffman, Jackie Chan, and Ian McShane joined Jack Black in the cast of Kung Fu Panda.^[12]

[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 get to know the Chinese National Symphony as part of his preparation. Timbaland also contributed to the soundtrack.^[13]

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.^[14]

[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.^[15][16] A video game adaptation of the film was developed and published by Activision.^[17]

[edit] Reception

Kung Fu Panda has received very positive reviews from critics. As of June 6, 2008, Rotten Tomatoes reported that 85% of critics gave the film positive reviews, based on 104 reviews. The film has a rating of 75% from select top critics and a rating of 86% from users of the site.^[18] Metacritic reported the film had an average score of 73 out of 100, based on 12 reviews.^[19] The movie received an average score of 76.3% from 58 film critics according to Movie Tab.^[20]

[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 an animated film (behind Shrek the Third and Shrek 2).^[21][22][23]

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• 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

v • d • e DreamWorks Animation Computer-animated films Antz (1998) • Shrek (2001) • Shrek 2 (2004) • Shark Tale (2004) • Madagascar (2005) • Over the Hedge (2006) • Shrek the Third (2007) • Bee Movie (2007) • Kung Fu Panda (2008) Traditionally animated films The Prince of Egypt (1998) • The Road to El Dorado (2000) • Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron (2002) • Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas (2003) Films produced with Aardman Animations Chicken Run (2000) • Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (2005) • Flushed Away (2006) Future films Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa (2008) • Monsters vs. Aliens (2009) • How to Train Your Dragon (2010) • Shrek Goes Fourth (2010) • Master Mind (2010) • Puss in Boots: The Story of an Ogre Killer (2011) • Shrek 5 (2013) Direct-to-video Joseph: King of Dreams (2000) Shorts Far Far Away Idol (2004) • The Madagascar Penguins in a Christmas Caper (2005) • Hammy's Boomerang Adventure (2006) • First Flight (2006)

Preceded by Sex and the City: The Movie

Box office number-one films of 2008 (USA) June 8, 2008

Succeeded by Incumbent