Review: Kung Fu Panda

When I first heard that Jackie Chan is working on a animation movie about a kungfu panda. I was not at all interested. Jackie Chan + Hollywood = Nightmare rubbish. Watching him in a English speaking is already painful, now have to just listen to his English...lucky God gives Malaysian theatre subtitles~!

When I heard that Jack Black is the main cast. Things get slightly better. But, a slow, lazy bamboo chewing creature with kungfu? How idiotic Hollywood studio can be?

It is until the trailer came out that I started to thing hey...this might be interesting. The panda really looks kind of like Jack Black. They have Dustin Hoffman as Shifu, Jackie Chan have around 5 speaking lines (thank God), they even have Angelina Jolie and Lucy Liu.

Now Angelina Jolie is suppose to be one of the coolest and sexiest actress but thing is apart from Lara Croft, I hard remember if she has any other more memorable role. Sad thing is I never watch a whole Tomb Raider movie. I remember that she was in Alexander, but that is one of those bad money wasting (maybe to escape tax) historical epic I ever let my eyeballs view. Not a good movie to relay with any actor.

Lucy Liu is of course, the must have Hollywood Chinese representative in a features set in China.

Of course Randall, the voice for Oogway the Turtle is one of the most well-known Hollywood Chinese regular that gives us numerous stereotype role.

Plot:

Plot wise, it is the same old stories. A zero to hero, underdog (or underpanda) stories. Something that you can find back in the late 70s and 80s starring Summo Hung. Fat guy doesn't know kung fu, fat guy wants to learn kungfu, master dislike fat guy, master later change is mind, master found a way to train fat guy, usual compulsory training sequence then final battle. Hardly any surprise at all. The good thing is the writer does not focus in to try bring us some new story, they used a cliche one, but spend more time and effort making the jokes and funny stuff. So as a viewer, we have no need to follow too closely on the plot, making logic whatever. Just sit down and enjoy the joke and laugh...wahahahahaha (you should hear the one laughing beside me).

Then as a Hollywood production, a lot of plot device will be typical Hollywood. The ultimate power always associated with Dragon; bizarre training ground most likely inspired by Five Venom, even the idea of Furious Five similar to the Venoms and also the father character that never understand his child's dream but able to inspire them at last minute. The no secret recipe secret recipe concept is too guessable, but it is almost a must in kungfu or action genre, in order to make kungfu more spiritual and Zen like.

For those who is familiar with the classics Kungfu movies, regardless the Shaw Brothers productions or the later Jackie Chan, Summo Hung action comedy, you will enjoy looking at how the classic scenes have been re-imagined using computer animation and cartoon characters. The training sequent, the "try-to-get-back-your-stuff-from-me" game + training between master and student, the battle on the dinning table and also the master's acknowledgement of the student's skill when he excitedly spar with the student.

Characterization:

Still, nothing new.

As usual, the lead will be a loser at first, with some not so cool talent, like making noodle.

There will also be a rival, in this case Tigress.
The old one who always ask people to believe.

The not so old one with a dark past that never believe until the old one dies.

Some other character than eventually make Friend with the loser.

The pure evil character with a sympathetic history.

Most of the voice actor done a decent job, Jackie as usual speaks in a quasi-Klingon style English. Each character adopts the personality that the public as accosted it with the actor or actress.

Jack Black - talk better than do, Jolie so cool, Hoffman full of experience, Jackie better don't talk...I think you get the idea. I like Hoffman's character. At the beginning it is almost like the high rank monk in Jet Li's film Shaolin Monastery that is so worried about the fate or the problem cause by the runaways and the government. Something that most people hate, but at the second half, when he realized the whole situation, and starting to like panda, you'll find it is getting more and more adorable. Shifu has the most depth and dimension in terms of characterization in this film. And they wouldn't possibly have done it without the acting of an actor like Hoffman.

Look:

Well, GCI cartoon. It will be an eye candy. The coolest part will be the 2D dream sequence at the beginning. If the just do that for a feature length movie, it will sure cooler than The Matrix.

Overall, this is a nice film. No matter you watch with your date, family or even you kaki bola. It is still enjoyable. Just don't bring any babies with you, unless you feed in some wine before watching.


As an animation film, nice.

As a Kungfu film, considered authentic.

As a film, successful.