What is this film about?

Despite being a movie targeted at children, Kung Fu Panda has a lot to offer to all of us. The movie follows Po (Jack Black), a fat, nerdy, clumsy, gluttonous panda who is given the opportunity to pursue his dream of becoming a master of Kung Fu. Po’s journey starts with him being a massive fan of the Furious Five, the legendary practitioners of Kung Fu in the local temple; the Furious Five enjoy rockstar status in the local community, and Po in particular seems to be their biggest fan. When an unexpected turn of events presents Po with the opportunity to join his idols, Po has to bear the weight of grand expectations, transcend his shortcomings and earn his place amongst the greats.

The movie handles themes such as destiny, meeting your idols, choosing your path in life, self-doubt, faith in oneself, self-discovery, self-expression, and, last but not least, greatness, excellence, and their ingredients. Po is a most incompetent person who has to go on a journey into the unknown and undergo a transformation into something, in a way, familiar but brand new and evolved. Kung Fu Panda is a lovely movie about realising your dreams and becoming the best version of yourself despite all obstacles, including the one that holds most of us back, our very own self.

Who are the main characters, and what's intriguing about them?

Po is at the centre of the movie; he is a fat, clumsy, gluttonous, incompetent panda who is obsessed with Kung Fu lore and loves to play with his action figures of the Furious Five. Po is helping with his father’s noodle restaurant until he is unexpectedly chosen to become the Dragon Warrior, the most legendary Kung Fu fighter of all time. Now, he has to learn Kung Fu for real, and not only match his idols but also surpass them and prove himself worthy of the title. Faced with an enormous task, Po is forced to question his self-worth, since everything around him is a reminder of his unworthiness, especially his idols, who become his biggest haters in an instant, since he seems to have robbed them of their destiny.

The Furious Five are legendary Kung Fu masters who have trained their whole lives for a chance at earning the title of the Dragon Warrior. Tigress (Angelina Jolie) is ferocious in both body and character, the most powerful of the group, and no doubt the worthiest of the title. Monkey (Jackie Chan) is the most agile and possibly the most friendly; Crane (David Cross) is swift and somewhat silly; Viper (Lucy Liu) is nimble, explosive, and feminine; and Mantis (Seth Rogen) is precise, delicate, and humorous. Each warrior has his/her distinct fighting style and all together make up an unbeatable force; their fighting styles reflect their natures and so do their characters, and this makes them, in a sense, forces of nature, which elevates them to a high status as legendary warriors embodying the best—and worst—traits of the nature of their respective species. This contrasts, of course, with Po, who is likewise embodying laziness, slothfulness, clumsiness, and all other traits that would prevent one from excelling in Kung Fu.

However, even more ferocious and even more critical of the fat panda is the grand master of the temple and mentor of the Furious Five, Master Shifu (Dustin Hoffman). Shifu is an unforgiving mentor with the highest expectations; he is harsh, critical, and shows zero empathy for his students; his job is to produce warriors, and he takes it most seriously. But besides being a master of Kung Fu himself and the teacher of this fighting art, he is also the guardian of the temple, the one responsible for order and etiquette, and, one could say, somewhat of a religious leader; he is a monk after all. Shifu is convinced that Po is undeserving of the Dragon Warrior title and is set upon giving him a hard life to make him quit, so that the title may be passed to one of his apprentice specimens. Despite all this, Shifu is not a bad guy; he sees himself as carrying the responsibility of maintaining peace, and that means training the Dragon Warrior, and not wasting his time on a worthless Panda. Shifu knows very well, better than anyone else, what lies at the feet of whoever will have to defend the valley from what is looming on the horizon, but he is forced to train Po from zero to hero, as he is bound by a sacred promise to his own mentor and predecessor, Master Oogway (Randall Duk Kim).

Master Oogway is the reason this review is being written. Oogway is the embodiment of wisdom; he is gentle, benevolent, most insightful. Unlike the other characters, who seem to represent Buddhism, Oogwey is an apparent Daoist; he moves fluidly and does not strive but lets himself be carried by life. Master Oogway is so special to me because he was the one influence that initiated me into Philosophy. Even to this day, when I think of what it means to be a philosopher and a sage, Master Oogway pops into my mind; he is a fascinating character (one could say he is reminiscent of Master Yoda); he moves so slowly and you get a sense that he is about to crumble, yet at the same time he seems to be the most graceful and competent; he is so old that you could say he is almost dead, yet he is at once most youthful and lively. Master Oogway is an exceptional character representing the benevolence of wisdom, acting as a masterful exemplar of the sage archetype.

https://youtu.be/IYvXg3bzN24?si=06zDZ_hePjbjAY4v

Master Oogway’s role in the movie is to set Po on his new path. When Po appears out of nowhere in the ceremony where Oogway is supposed to name the Dragon Warrior, Oogway picks him to everyone’s surprise. It is unclear what drove him to choose Po. Perhaps he saw something in him, a spark coming from the panda’s love for Kung Fu; perhaps it was the way Po showed up, literally falling from the sky; Oogway may have intended to pick randomly only for Po to land in front of him; or perhaps, as I think is most likely, Oogway was making a point: that anyone can become the Dragon Warrior, as long as he has faith in himself and works hard for it. This may have been Shifu’s final trial; maybe Oogway trusted in Shifu’s ability to turn anyone into a great fighter; after all, he had trained him himself. Whatever the case, Oogway chooses Po and is convinced to see him succeed, initially being the only one who trusts that he will do so. But no one else does so, and Shifu most of all, who knows firsthand what awaits the Dragon Warrior.

Whereas Master Oogwey is the reason I chose to review this movie, Tai Lung is the reason I knew it deserved to be reviewed. Tai Lung (Ian McShane) is the movie’s villain and by far the most interesting character. Tai Lung was Shifu’s original apprentice and essentially his adopted son. He was, by all means, a most excellent student, by far the most promising warrior China had ever seen; he was skilled, strong, ferocious, driven, and Shifu loved him and admired him as any parent would. Up until Oogwey denied him his destiny. Both Shifu and Tai Lung had no doubts that Tai Lung was more than worthy to become the Dragon Warrior. But Oogwey was not so convinced; he claimed that he could see darkness brewing in him, and he thus denied him the Dragon Scroll, a scroll containing the secret to limitless power, being the key to becoming the legendary Dragon Warrior. Tai Lung, having trained his whole life for this, would not have it. Thus, he demanded the scroll and with it his destiny, which had been stolen from him. Tai Lung defeated Shifu, who tried to stop him, which was essentially a double-sided betrayal, only to be stopped by Master Oogway, who sentenced him to spend the rest of his life in a maximum security prison.

Tai Lung’s character does not feature heavily in the movie, acting mostly as Po’s foil, and thus his character isn’t really explored to the fullest, but where his character shines is in what may be one of the best character introductions in the history of cinema. We first hear of Tai Lung after Oogwey reveals to Shifu that he has seen a vision of his eventual return; Shifu is overwhelmed by anxiety and sends a messenger to the prison where Tai Lung is kept to ensure that measures are kept to the highest standards. When the messenger arrives, the commander of the prison guard brags about the prison and its defences; we truly get to see a seemingly impossible-to-escape prison, only for Tai Lung to escape moments later, easily. We see Tai Lung immobilised by heavy chains, humiliated and mocked, only for a single feather carried by the wind to be enough for him to escape the most inescapable of prisons. Tai Lung gracefully and most ferociously works his way up the prison’s defences, finally reaching the outer gate, having proved most indisputably that he is a force to be reckoned with. Tai Lung is one of the very few characters that, despite being characters in a children’s movie, have earned themselves a spot amongst the greatest and most fearsome villains of all time.