Review of Kung Fu Panda (2008) by Chris O — 01 Sep 2018

A humorous, fun, and exciting animation that'll be enjoyable for kids and adults.

By day, Po works faithfully in his family's noodle shop, but by night he dreams of becoming a true master of the martial arts. Now an ancient prophecy has come to pass, and Po realizes that he is the only one who can save his people from certain destruction. With time running short and malevolent snow leopard Tai Lung (Ian McShane ) closing in, Furious Five legends Tigress (Jolie), Crane (David Cross ), Mantis (Seth Rogen), Viper (Lucy Liu), Monkey (Chan), and their wise sensei, Master Shifu (Hoffman), all draw on their vast knowledge of fighting skills in order to transform a lumbering panda bear into a lethal fighting machine. Now, if the noble Po can master the martial arts and somehow transform his greatest weaknesses into his greatest strengths, he will fulfill his destiny as the hero who saved his people during their darkest hour.

So up to this point, I've probably watched this film twice. Once when it came out and once just recently. While not remembering a lot of it, I remember enjoying it a lot. After watching it a second time, I remembered just how fun, exciting, and even deep this film is. It's got a lot of great things going for it and that's why it's become a bigger franchise today.

There's something about this that feels real, yet different, absurd, yet intriguing. A panda training to learn kung fu, accompanied by a plethora of other animals all living as regulars in China is probably something that's difficult to sell as a concept. But the fact that they went all in and gave us something that turned out to be really well is admirable. I think the story is intriguing enough where it can entertain anyone but it's got deeper themes at its core. I was interested the whole time, wanting to see our unlikely hero save the day and defeat the bad guys.

The animation on this film was also really beautiful. I thought combined with the voice acting, we had a crew of distinct, fun characters that gave us a lot to root for. I thought that there were some really awesome sequences of action and the smoothness of the animation was on point. I thought this film looked great and it had many moments of more than awesome visual effects.

In the end, "Kung Fu Panda" was a fun and humorous film, and I'm excited to see how its sequels panned out.