Had to go into work the other day from 4:00pm to close. (About 10:30 to 11:00pm) Movie tickets are becoming very expensive so I thought that today would be the perfect day for a matinée. My friend called me that morning on my cell phone (he actually woke me up) and recommended Kung Fu Panda. So that was what I decided to watch. Besides the recommendation from my friend, I have been wanting to see this one since I first saw the trailer. Animation, martial arts, and eastern style are all some of the things that I just dig. So naturally, I thought I would check this one out and see if it's right up my ally. Needless to say, I was satisfied.
Kung Fu Panda is the story of a Panda named Po. (Voiced by the talents of Jack Black who breathes life into Po's character.) Po is the son of a goose (Yes a goose. I wonder if his mom was a panda.) noodle chef. His father believes that Po's life is limited to the family noodle and soup restaurant but Po has bigger dreams. The opening of the movie illustrates Po's aspirations in a beautiful dream sequence of the Panda Dragon Warrior.
This was one of my favorite scenes in the movie. The artwork was an intriguing mixture of almost-anime style characters and sumi-ink designs. I really enjoyed the fact that it was 2D. So many western movies dismiss the traditional and simple beauty of hand drawn animation. It's nice to see that 2D animation still is put to good use and has its place in the 3D animated craze.
Anyway, Po wakes up from this dream and is suddenly in the real world and not fighting a 1000 man army with his new friends the fantastic 5 martial arts masters he instead wakes up at the aforementioned noodle shop and is in real life. (Don't you hate it when you have those amazing dreams and then have to wake up to real life? I can actually relate a little bit to this. Sometimes I have dreams and feel like there's no way to reach them. Maybe that's why I like the movie so much.)
To Po's surprise the new Dragon Warrior is going to be chosen on that day at the Jade Palace. In his excitement and fanaticism of martial arts he tells everyone they must go to the tournament and see who the new Dragon Warrior is.
Po makes it to the tournament late (A lot of stairs for an overweight panda.) and hence doesn't get in the gates. His determination pays off when he ingeniously--or insanely--invents away to get over the wall. His invention gets him over the wall in once piece but right in front of Oogway, the Turtle sage, picking the dragon warrior. To every one's surprise the sage picks Po as the dragon warrior after the fantastic five have just shown off their mad martial arts skills.
Shifu, (voiced by Dustin Hoffman) the master and teacher of the five warriors, promises his students the panda will be gone in the morning. Po then begins his own quest to prove himself to his new comrades and master. His comrades, Tigress (Angelina Jolie), Mantis (Seth Rogen), Monkey (Jackie Chan), Viper (Lucy Liu), and Crane (David Cross), all receive Po as a joke and give him a hard time. Later on, they appreciate his determination but realistically think there is no way he could be the Dragon Warrior.
To make matters worse, the wicked former student of Shifu, Tai Lung, has escaped from prison and is out to get revenge. Shifu must now choose to believe in Oogway the turtle sage and believe Po is the dragon warrior or fight Tai Lung himself.
The story is somewhat predictable and the message of belief is certainly familiar. However, Kung Fu Panda's success is in the charming characters and the kick butt style. The animation is top notch and puts beautiful colors to good use. The animal version of China is well designed and reminds us a little bit of the imagery seen in Asian movies like "Hero" or "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon." Tai Lung's prison looks like an underground great wall of China.
The music has a very Asian feel that works quite well with the movie. It doesn't land hard on the ear like some other Asian music. The sound of the movie is all done well but there isn't a lot of talking from the other comrades. The actors breathed life into these characters and we only get a taste. Seth Rogen has such a talented voice and thus makes really memorable characters. (Remember Hogsquel from the Spiderwick Chronicles?) But his character, Mantis, doesn't really even get that much screen time. I was also interested to see how Jackie Chan's first voice over role (unless you count his TV work for his own cartoon.) would turn out but Monkey only had like 4 lines.
But that's all alright. It is a kid's movie so the running time is an hour and a half and they only pick big names to play minor characters to get adults to see the movie too.
One of the other highlights of the movie is surprisingly it's action. The fighting between characters is actually some action pack martial arts. Sure it's a cartoon but it really does have some great style. There's this fight between two characters on a rope bridge that is cool to see. It's also nice to note that there isn't too many flashy powers in the fighting. It's all the basics hand to hand combat with just a tiny bit of flashiness for the pressure point attacks. The action seems to pay homage to old Kung Fu and even a few Anime movies.
So the consensus is that it's a good movie to see and I recommend it to anyone who wants a good laugh and a little bit of action, that they can take their little brother or sister to.
Peace Out, Stephen Larsen
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