Critics of Kung fu Panda2Plot SummaryThe film Kung Fu Panda2was released on May 28, 2011, directed by Jennifer ·Yuh. The main roles in the film are Master Po, Master Shifu, Master Tigress, Master Monkey, Master Crane, Master Viper, Master Mantis, Mr. Ping, Lord Shen, The Soothsayer, Master Croc, Master Thundering Rhino, Master Storming Ox, Wolf Boss.Role analysisPo (Jack Black) is a panda who works in a noodle restaurant owned by his goose father Mr. Ping (James Hong). He is a kung fu fanatic with secret dreams of becoming a great master in the discipline, however his weight and clumsiness seem to make his goal unattainable; Mr. Ping hopes instead that Po will one day take over the restaurant, and waits for the perfect opportunity to disclose the secret ingredient to his family's noodle recipe.The tortoise Master Oogway (Randall Duk Kim) has a premonition that the evil snow leopard warrior Tai Lung (Ian McShane), the former student of his own protégé, the red panda Master Shifu (Dustin Hoffman), will escape from prison and return to threaten the Valley of Peace. While Shifu sends Zeng (Dan Fogler), a messenger goose, to Chorh-Gom Prison to have the security increased, Oogway orders a formal ceremony to choose the mighty Dragon Warrior who can defeat Tai Lung. Everyone assumes that one of the Furious Five —Tigress (Angelina Jolie), Monkey (Jackie Chan), Mantis (Seth Rogen), Viper (Lucy Liu), and Crane (David Cross) — a quintet of supremely skilled martial artists trained by Shifu,[4] will be chosen for this honor.While the Five demonstrate their skills at the ceremony, Po arrives too late and finds himself locked outside the walled palace square. As a last-ditch attempt to get in, he ties several fireworks to a chair and ignites them, which sends him crashing into the center of the arena. Inspired by this sudden appearance, Oogway designates Po the Dragon Warrior. Despite Po's protests and Shifu's pleas to reconsider, Oogway stands by his decision.Revolted at having Po under his tutelage, Shifu attempts to make him quit by berating and humiliating him. The Five similarly dismiss Po as a worthless interloper. Although he becomes aware of Shifu's true intentions and is deeply hurt by his heroes' disdain for him, Po endures their abuse willingly for the dream to become something more than the failure he thinks he is. Master Oogway, still certain that Po is the right choice, gives him sage advice to believe in himself. Eventually, Po endears himself to the Five (except for Tigress) with his tenacity, good cooking, and sense of humor. At this time Tigress reveals to Po how Tai Lung came to be so evil. Shifu raised him from a cub and treated him like a son. When Oogway refused to make Tai Lung the Dragon Warrior, he became enraged and laid waste to the Valley. He then tried to take the dragon scroll. Shifu tried to stop him, but could not bear to destroy what he had created. Tai Lung was defeated by Master Oogway and imprisoned. Tigress ends her story by saying that Shifu loved Tai Lung like he never had before, or since.Meanwhile, Zeng's errand backfires when a tour of the prison given to him by the overly confident head of security, Commander Vachir (Michael Clarke Duncan), inadvertently enables Tai Lung to escape. Tai Lung orders Zeng to send word of his arrival to Shifu. In the Valley of Peace, Oogway passes away and ascends to the heavens, leaving his final wish that Shifu train Po. However, upon learning of Tai Lung's return, and realizing that he has to face the evil warrior, Po attempts to flee. Shifu stops the panda and promises to train him if he is truly destined to be the Dragon Warrior. When Po confesses his belief that he may never be a match for Tai Lung, Shifu is at a loss for a solution. Overhearing this argument, Tigress takes it upon herself to intercept Tai Lung, and the rest of The Five follow her to assist. The following morning, Shifu discovers that Po is capable of impressive physical feats when motivated by food. He leads Po to the countryside for an intensive training regime in which Po is offered food as a reward for learning his lessons. As Shifu hopes, Po swiftly becomes a skilled combatant.The Five battle Tai Lung but are eventually defeated with a specialized nerve-striking technique, and they retreat to the valley. When they return, Shifu decides Po is ready to face the villain and gives him the sacred Dragon Scroll, which promises great power to the possessor. When Po opens it, he finds nothing but a blank reflective surface. Stricken with despair at the scroll's apparent worthlessness, Shifu orders his students to lead the villagers to safety while he stays to delay Tai Lung for as long as he can.As Po participates in the evacuation, he meets his father, who tries to cheer him up by telling him the secret ingredient of the family's noodle soup: nothing. Things become special, he explains, because people believe them to be special. Realizing that is the very point of the Dragon Scroll, Po rushes off to help Shifu. At this time, Tai Lung arrives at the palace. He blames Shifu for not granting him the title of Dragon Warrior just because Master Oogway did not choose him, and the two begin to fight. For his part, Shifu is crippled by his profound feelings of guilt and responsibility for his former protégé, whom he loved and raised like a son, turning to darkness.When Tai Lung discovers that the Dragon Scroll is gone, he attempts to kill Shifu in his anger. But before he can, Po finally arrives and challenges him. Although Tai Lung scoffs at Po's abilities, the ensuing fight proves Po to be a formidable opponent. Despite Po's skill, Tai Lung temporarily stuns him and gains the Dragon Scroll, but is unable to understand its symbolism. Po tries to explain the wisdom of the scroll to Tai Lung, but the frustrated leopard tries to subdue Po with his nerve strikes. The attack proves useless on the panda, as his nerves are difficult to find due to his body fat. Emboldened, Po counter-attacks with an improvised combat style that takes advantage of his girth to absorb and deflect the force from Tai Lung's attacks back at him. In the end, Po uses the Wuxi Finger Hold on Tai Lung (a technique Shifu had previously threatened to use on Po), destroying him in a large explosion of golden light that ripples through the valley.The Five return to the valley to investigate and find a slightly dazed but triumphant Po. Deeply impressed at Po's victory, Tigress leads the Five to acknowledge the panda as a Kung Fu master. The villagers, including Po's father, hailPo as a hero. Po suddenly remembers that his teacher is badly wounded, and rushes back to Shifu. At first the master appears to be dying, and Po panics. But it turns out that he is only resting after such a terrible battle with Tai Lung. Relieved, Po rests on the floor with Shifu. After a few seconds, Po suggests that they get something to eat and Shifu agrees.At the end of the credits, Shifu and Po are seen eating together by the sacred peach tree. A peach seed planted by Shifu before Oogway's passing has sprouted into a new plant.Master Shifu is the student of Oogway and the (at first) extremely militaristic trainer of the Furious Five. He is at first very unwilling to train Po, not believing he has what it takes to defeat Tai Lung; he therefore tries to make the training unbearable to force Po to give up. As such, Shifu is greatly annoyed at how Po embraces and endures all his attempts. At first, Shifu voices his contempt of Po by referring to him as "Panda" rather than his name. After much convincing from Oogway as well as his new responsibility as the guardian of the Valley of Peace after Oogway's ascension into the Heavens, Shifu trains Po until he is ready to face Tai Lung.Shifu once loved Tai Lung like a son after he was abandoned at his doorstep as a very young cub. He tried to subdue him after Tai Lung attacked the Valley and made a bid to take the Dragon Scroll by force, but froze, unable to destroy what he created through love, and failed. In Secrets of the Furious Five, it is revealed that he is Tigress' adoptive father as well. He taught her how to control her own fury by playing a game of dominoes with her and later adopted her as his own daughter from an orphanage despite all the other adults' fear of adopting her. His experience with Tai Lung otherwise stiffened him, unfortunately, causing him to train Tigress and the Furious Five in a harsher and more critical manner than he used with Tai Lung or uses with Po. When Tai Lung returns to the Valley to enact his revenge, Shifu is nearly killed in the battle that ensues until Po arrives to save him. Shifu admits to Tai Lung that his pride and love for him turned into complacency and Tai Lung angrily rants that Shifu drove him to training until his bones cracked, implying that Shifu had always been strict even when Tai Lung was a cub. Po's defeat of Tai Lung fulfills Master Oogway's prophecy, bringing him inner peace and forever breaking down the barriers over his heart. Since then, Shifu continues to be surprised by Po, such as being a more effective teacher than he expected in Secrets of the Furious Five, and underestimating Po's loyalty and compassion in Kung Fu Panda Holiday Special. In the latter, Shifu confesses to Po, "What goes on in your head I really don't always understand, but what goes on in your heart will never let us down."His sense of humor, before being cynical and sarcastic, is also shown returning during the end credits when he is seen laughing at Tigress, who has apparently tried some of Po's noodles, with one hanging above her lips in the same comical fashion as Po's earlier in the film. He enjoys playing his bamboo flute and is also able to use it as a striking and throwing weapon.Despite his age and limping on his left leg, which Tai Lung broke in their first battle, Shifu can move faster than any opponent. He is so strong and powerful that one or even all of the Furious Five combined cannot make him break a sweat.Master Oogway is an aged tortoise and the senior master of the Jade Palace.[2] He is extremely wise and possesses considerable physical skill - to defeat Tai Lung, Oogway instantly subdued him with a series of lightning fast nerve strikes. Also, he proved skillful in his battle with Monkey, and encouraged him to use compassion towards others after deducing why Monkey played tricks on everyone. His selection of Po as the Dragon Warrior is strongly doubted by all, especially Po himself, but he stands by his decision, which proves to be the correct one. After convincing Shifu to train Po, Oogway ascends to the Heavens in the midst of dozens of peach blossom petals floating away in the cold night breeze as he dies. Among all the proverbs he recites, his most recurring is "There are no accidents."My feelingsMy feelings about the whole film can be divided into two parts, one is about the good.“The most important element” in any film will vary according to its genre. For a film like Kung Fu Panda clearly the most important element it needed to pull off was comedy. If a film like this one doesn’t make you laugh… then there isn’t much left to fall back on. Thankfully the movie succeeds quite well on this level. I can’t recall any more than 1 hard belly laugh (usually a decent comedy needs much more than that), but it felt like it at least always had me smiling or giggling through the run time. Almost none of the jokes were home runs… but then did all work. The end result was I found myself entertained almost all the way through.Coming up with a good villain in a kids film is no easy task. The character has to be menacing, but at the same time you can’t give kids nightmaris h visions and make them crap themselves. I mean come on… it’s Kung Fu Panda… you can’t exactly have Violator (from the Spawn comics) showing up can causing kids across the nation to spontaneously crap themselves in their theater seats… then requiring thera py for the next 3 years to make the nightmares go away! It is a fine and delicate balance… and the villain in Kung Fu Panda, Tai Lung, was perfect. He was certainly menacing… but at the same time easy enough for the kids to handle without needing pampers. I think the presence of such a villain really helped the film work.Doing good action in an animated film is also no easy task. I mean, it’s easy enough to do… just not so easy to do well. However, Kung Fu Panda and the folks at Dreamworks really did pull of some beautiful animation with complex yet extremely smooth kung fu fighting that was a treat to watch. It was also a lot of fun seeing how each character had a totally different fighting style in keeping with which animal they were. I mean come on… how on earth do you animate a snake doing Kung Fu and have it look cool? Well… they found a way!The other one is about the bad.There isn’t a lot to complain about in this movie, but I will raise a couple of issues. First of all, some of the voice casting felt completely wrong. I worship the ground Dustin Hoffman walks on… but him as the voice of the sage Chinese Kung Fu master that trains the furious 5 and Po??? It just didn’t fit. Seth Rogen as one of the furious 5? I hope I’m not just being picky… but whene ver these guys spoke (especially Rogen) it just kinda pulled me out of the movie. It was just reallyconspicuous.I would have liked to have seen more about the furious 5 characters (the tiger, crane, monkey, viper and the mantis. I think Jackie Chan had l ike 2 lines… but I mean more in the sense of seeing even just a 2 minute segment of where they each came from and how they ended up at the temple in the first place. Not a major complaint… but it did keep popping into my head as I was watching it.Contrary to my initial impressions, Kung Fu Panda ends up being a funny (not outright hilarious), exciting, well animated and beautiful to look at movie that both kids and yes, even adults will enjoy. Some poor voice casting and a few character left without be ing fleshed out much didn’t become major distractions to enjoying the movie. Could have taken or left Jack Black as the lead voice, but he didn’t detract from the fil m in anyway. It’s no Pixar film, but very good nonetheless.。