Kung Fu Panda (film)

In the Valley of Peace, a land in Ancient China inhabited by anthropomorphic animals, Po is a fan of kung fu, and idolizes the Furious Five–Tigress, Monkey, Crane, Viper, and Mantis–a group of kung fu masters trained by Master Shifu. However, Po is unable to pursue his dream of learning kung fu while he helps his adoptive father, Mr. Ping the goose, in his noodle restaurant.

Grand Master Oogway, Shifu's mentor, has a vision that Shifu's former protégé, the evil Tai Lung, will escape from prison. Oogway fortells that Tai Lung will return to the valley to exact his revenge for being denied the dragon scroll, which is said to hold the secret to boundless power. Panicked, Shifu sends his messenger, Zeng the goose, with a request for the prison to tighten its security. He then holds a tournament for the Furious Five so that Oogway can identify the Dragon Warrior, the one kung fu master worthy of receiving the Dragon Scroll. Po arrives too late to enter the arena; desperate to see the Dragon Warrior, Po straps himself to a set of fireworks and launches himself into the middle of the arena. He crash-lands in front of Oogway as he points towards the Dragon Warrior. To the astonishment of everyone present, Oogway proclaims Po as the chosen warrior.

Believing Oogway's decision to be an accident, Shifu tries to dispose of Po with a harsh training regime, while the Furious Five berate Po as an enthusiast with no potential in martial arts. Po considers resigning, but after receiving encouragement from Oogway, he endures his training and gradually befriends the Five with his resilience, culinary skill, and good humor. During this time, Po learns that Shifu's cold and distant behavior stems from his own shame over Tai Lung's betrayal, having raised him from infancy.

Meanwhile, Tai Lung escapes from prison by picking his locks with one of Zeng's feathers. Shifu learns of Tai Lung's escape from Zeng and informs Oogway, who extracts a promise from Shifu to believe in Po, and then passes on to the heavens in a stream of peach blossoms. Still unable to grasp the basics of kung fu, Po despairingly admits that he has no chance of defeating Tai Lung. Overhearing this, Tigress leaves to stop Tai Lung by herself being joined by the remaining members of the Furious Five before she departs. However, Shifu discovers that Po is capable of impressive physical feats when motivated by food. Using food as positive reinforcement, Shifu successfully trains Po by incorporating these feats into an innovative kung fu style.

Meanwhile, the Furious Five return after being defeated by Tai Lung's nerve strikes. Shifu decides that Po is ready to receive the Dragon Scroll, but the scroll reveals nothing but a blank, reflective surface. Believing the scroll to be useless, Shifu orders Po and the Five to evacuate the valley while he faces Tai Lung. As Tai Lung arrives and fights Shifu, a distraught Po finds Mr. Ping. In an attempt to console his son, Mr. Ping reveals that the secret ingredient to his famous "secret ingredient soup" is "nothing", explaining that things are special when believed to be. Po realizes that this is the message of the Dragon Scroll (as the scroll reflected him) and goes back to confront Tai Lung.

Po proves himself to be a formidable challenge for Tai Lung, frustrating him with confusing fighting techniques. Additionally, his excessive body fat bestows on him an incredible ability to absorb damage and grants him immunity to Tai Lung's nerve strikes. Tai Lung momentarily beats Po and retrieves the scroll, but he is unable to understand it and continues attacking Po. Eventually, Po defeats Tai Lung in combat by using the mysterious Wuxi Finger Hold to vanquish him.[lower-alpha 1] Po is praised by the Valley of Peace and earns the respect of the Furious Five, who fully acknowledge him as a true kung fu master, while Shifu finally attains peace.

From left to right: Viper, Monkey, Mantis (on Monkey's head), Shifu, Tigress, and Crane. The Furious Five are homages to the actual Snake, Monkey, Praying Mantis, Tiger, and Crane styles of Chinese martial arts.[4]

• Jack Black as Po, an energetic yet accident-prone giant panda and die-hard kung fu fan.
• Dustin Hoffman as Master Shifu, an elderly and stern red panda and kung fu master to the Furious Five and Po.
• The Furious Five:
  • Angelina Jolie as Master Tigress, a ruthless and tough-as-nails South China tiger and leader of the Furious Five.
  • Seth Rogen as Master Mantis, a dry-humored Chinese mantis.
  • Lucy Liu as Master Viper, a sweet and good-natured green tree viper.
  • David Cross as Master Crane, a pragmatic and sarcastic red-crowned crane.
  • Jackie Chan as Master Monkey, an easygoing golden snub-nosed monkey.
• Ian McShane as Tai Lung, an arrogant and aggressive snow leopard who was formerly Shifu's adoptive son and student.
  • Riley Osborne voices a younger version of Tai Lung
• James Hong as Mr. Ping, Po's adoptive father, a happy-go-lucky Chinese goose who runs a noodle restaurant.
• Randall Duk Kim as Grand Master Oogway, an ancient Galápagos tortoise and Shifu's mentor.
• Dan Fogler as Zeng, a timid Chinese goose and Shifu's messenger.
• Michael Clarke Duncan as Commander Vachir, a hubristic and boastful Javan rhinoceros who is the warden of Chorh-Gom Prison, where Tai Lung is imprisoned.
• Robert Clotworthy and Steve Bulen as Anvil Of Heavens

DreamWorks and producer Jeffrey Katzenberg had previously produced the PS1 video game with a similar premise, T'ai Fu: Wrath of the Tiger, also published by DreamWorks.[6]Publicized work on the film began in October 2004.[7] In September 2005, DreamWorks Animation announced the film alongside Jack Black, who was selected to be the main voice star.[8]

In November 2005, DreamWorks Animation announced that Dustin Hoffman, Jackie Chan, Lucy Liu and Ian McShane would join Jack Black in the cast.[9] This is also the second DreamWorks Animation film in which Black and Angelina Jolie have co-starred together, the first being 2004's Shark Tale.[10]

The idea for the film was conceived by Michael Lachance, a DreamWorks Animation executive.[11] Initially, the idea was to make it a spoof, but co-director John Stevenson was not particularly keen on it and instead chose the direction of a character-based wuxia comedy.[5]

Reportedly inspired by Stephen Chow's 2004 martial arts action comedy film, Kung Fu Hustle,[12] 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 films to help create the look of the film.[13] Zibach said some of the biggest influences for him are the more artful martial arts films such as Hero, House of Flying Daggers and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.[13] Stevenson's aim for the film, which took four years to make, was to make "the best looking film DreamWorks has ever made".

The hand-drawn animation sequence at the beginning of the film was made to resemble Chinese shadow puppetry.[15] The opening, which was directed by Jennifer Yuh Nelson and produced by James Baxter, was praised by The New York Times reviewer Manohla Dargis as "striking" and "visually different from most mainstream American animations".[16]

Other reviewers have compared the opening to the evocative style of Genndy Tartakovsky's Cartoon Network series Samurai Jack.[17][18] The rest of the film is modern computer animation, which uses bright, offbeat colors to evoke the natural landscape of China.[15] The end credit sequence also features hand-drawn characters and still paintings in the background.[15]

The computer animation used throughout the film was more complex than anything DreamWorks had done before. When the head of production handed the script to VFX Supervisor Markus Manninen, she reportedly laughed and wished him "good luck". "When we started talking," said Manninen, "the movie was still a high concept. But for everyone that looked at it, it screamed complexity. We launched off saying, how can you make this movie tangible? How can you find smart ways to bring this world to life in a way that makes it a great movie and not feel like the complexity becomes the driver of the story, but the story and the emotion being the driver?"[19] In preparation, the animators took a six-hour kung fu class.[20]

Producer Melissa Cobb said that originally Po was "more of a jerk," but that the character changed after they heard Jack Black.[20] According to Black, he mostly worked "in isolation", although he and Dustin Hoffman did spend a day together, which Cobb said helped with the scene where their characters face off.[20] Lucy Liu said that the film "was quite different because it was such a long process."[21] Liu said that when she was presented with the project they already had artwork of her character as well as a "short computerized video version of what she would look like when she moved."[21]

The film held its worldwide premiere at the 61st Cannes Film Festival on May 15, 2008,[22] where it received massive and sustained applause at the end of the film's screening.[23] Kung Fu Panda later had national premieres in IMAX in the US on June 1, 2008 at AMC & Regal Entertainment Group in Hollywood, Los Angeles, California,[24] and on June 26, 2008 at Leicester Square in London, for the UK.[25]

As with most DreamWorks animated movies, composer Hans Zimmer scored Kung Fu Panda. Zimmer visited China 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.[69] The soundtrack also includes a partially rewritten version of the classic song, "Kung Fu Fighting", performed by Cee-Lo Green and Jack Black for the end credits. Furthermore, in some versions, the ending credit was sung by Rain. Although Zimmer was originally announced as the main composer of the film, during a test screening, CEO of DreamWorks Animation SKG Jeffrey Katzenberg announced that composer John Powell would also be contributing to the score. This marked the first collaboration in eight years for the two, who had 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.[70]

The sequel, Kung Fu Panda 2, was released on May 26, 2011.[80] It was released in 3-D and was directed by Jennifer Yuh Nelson (who directed the 2-D opening sequence of the first film) with the original cast returning. The story features a new villain with a mysterious weapon so powerful it threatens the existence of kung fu, and Po must additionally confront his past.

• 2008: Susan Korman: Kung Fu Panda - The Junior Novel (Novelization), HarperFestival, ISBN 978-0-0614-3463-1

DreamWorks Animation was sued in 2011 by a writer, Terence Dunn, for allegedly stealing the idea for Kung Fu Panda from him.[81] Dunn alleged that DreamWorks Animation had stolen his pitch for a "spiritual kung-fu fighting panda bear" which he sent to a DreamWorks executive in 2001.[81] DreamWorks Animation denied any wrongdoing and after a two-week trial the jurors found in favor of DreamWorks.[81]

In 2011, another lawsuit was brought against the studio by an illustrator named Jayme Gordon. Gordon had supposedly created characters under the name "Kung Fu Panda Power" and registered them with the U.S. Copyright Office in 2000.[82] He had allegedly pitched this concept work to Disney while Jeffrey Katzenberg, who later left Disney and formed DreamWorks Animation in 1994, was working there. Gordon withdrew his claim just before the trial was due to take place.[83] On December 20, 2015, federal prosecutors charged Gordon with four counts of wire fraud and three counts of perjury for allegedly fabricating and backdating drawings to support the claims in his lawsuit, and for allegedly tracing some of his drawings from a Disney Lion King coloring book.[84] On November 18, 2016, Gordon was convicted for wire fraud and perjury, facing a sentence of up to 25 years in prison.[85] In May 2017, he was sentenced to two years in federal prison and ordered to pay $3 million in restitution.[86]

• Enter the Fat Dragon (1978)
• T'ai Fu: Wrath of the Tiger (1999)
• Legend of Kung Fu Rabbit (2011)
• Shifu (or sifu), which means skillful person or a master

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