The Way of the Panda

Rating: Null/10 (20 June 2008)

I love Kung Fu and of course martial arts movies, I like a lot pandas and I'm a fan of Jack Black's work so since I knew that Black was going to be a panda (great choice since Black looks like one of them) I have true desires to watch this picture and NOT since the hype before its release started in my country due to the comedian that dubbed Po. That comedian works for the biggest and most manipulative media company of Mexico so you can imagine all the f*cking publicity that they are making for Kung Fu Panda and all the hype for this mediocre comedian. Anyway, today after 1month of its release, in the Cannes Film Festival, was finally released in my country and yes I really liked it.
There is a TV spot with the song Battle Without Honor or Humanity as background and that song is for most of us a direct reference to Tarantino's Kill Bill. That 2003 film was, as we all know, homage to the martial arts films and to some other genres. Kung Fu Panda works in the same line with a background full of the kung fu mythology and the look of the wuxia genre. The "serious" characters are the furious five that are homage to some of the Chinese mart arts styles that based their movements in animal's movements. We have Master Tigress (Jolie), Master Crane (Cross), Master Mantis (Rogen), Master Viper (Liu) and Master Monkey (Chan). All of them are students of Shifu (Hoffman) whose master is Oogway (Duk Kim). The philosophy and the discipline are some of the values that these martial artists perform and I really liked this background. The enemy is also part of this but mostly part of the classic relation between master and student. Tai Lung (McShane) is the name of this snow leopard that use to be Shifu's best student but also they created a father-son relation. Of course he always has a "dark side" and the master knows that and he was right. The master's philosophy make that a panda is the one, the Dragon Warrior. And our hero is the one who brings the laughs of course and the one that will change the things. The character itself is the classic one that is so useless for what he loves to do and Jack Black has made some very similar ones. "Precious Father, why have you given me this desire to wrestle and then made me such a stinky warrior?" used to say Nacho from Nacho Libre and also JB from Tenacious D movie was similar in his dream of being a rock star. "Precious Father, why have you given me this desire to be a kung fu master and then made me suck a fat panda?" yes that could be a perfect and funny line for Po (Black) that is a really funny character for obvious reasons. For a moment near the beginning the panda reminds a lot King Kong but the version of Homer Simpson and it was really funny as many cool dialogs, the fact that Po was hated by his own heroes or that scene when he fights for eat. The kids in today's audience were really enjoying the panda and it has a message in the end.
The visual part is nothing new but that doesn't mean that is jut OK, actually is terrific and I really liked the first sequence made in 2D animation. I saw it with the Mexican dubbing and it is decent but vastly and sadly overrated. Anyway, I found this picture a really good one that easily I can watch again but now with the original voices so take your kids or your little bros and sis to the cinema to see and enjoy the way of the panda.