Kung Fu Panda 2
PG
As media interviewed stars at the glitzy Australian premiere of Kung Fu Panda 2 I rolled my eyes when one reporter announced that Jack Black, the voice of Po the portly panda, told him he wouldn’t have done this sequel if he hadn’t thought it was better than the original film. Well, he would say that, wouldn’t he?
So, naturally, I approached this with deep suspicion. I’d enjoyed the first film very much and money-making sequels tend to leave me cold. Yet preview snippets offered a grain of hope – as long as we didn’t see all the good bits in the ads.
We didn’t. Within the first five minutes of Kung Fu Panda 2 I had laughed out loud, and the rollicking ride continues until the final moments of the film (but more of that later).
To the story: Po is now revered in China as the Dragon Warrior and is an accepted and loved addition to the equally revered kung fu band the Furious Five. It makes me laugh at the mere thought of a praying mantis engaging in kung fu, but that’s part of the fun.
The troupe works and plays well together but their biggest test is looming. Shen, the evil son of a kindly lord and lady peacock, has returned from exile to take over his ancestral home and city, with plans to conquer the whole country. What is more, Shen hunted down the country’s pandas years before when he heard a prophecy that he would be “defeated by a warrior of black and white”. When all other good guys fall before Shen’s weaponry, our band of martial arts experts is sent to stop him. And so the fun begins.
In fighting members of Shen’s wolf guard, Po begins to have strange flashbacks from his childhood. He wants answers about where he came from – and discovers that his dad, Mr Ping the noodle restaurant owner, isn’t his real father. Amid the hilarity of such an obvious discovery when you’re a panda and your dad is a goose, is a tremendously poignant backstory. I won’t spoil it other than to say it’s a lovely example of choosing love and acceptance over rejection, and it’s a theme that runs through the whole film.
Mr Ping is filled with pride for Po (and happy to turn his fame into a business opportunity) but is also anxious every time he goes to fight. And is Po getting too skinny? Does he need his favourite tofu snack? It’s gorgeous.
In the mean time, Shen (voiced with tremendous effect by Gary Oldman) has thrown his father’s old throne out the window of the family pagoda – the interior of which is a feast of animated decoration – and is busy making more weapons for his conquest.
When the team arrives they find the city filled with wolf guards, with two of the heroes of kung fu in prison and unwilling to be rescued in case Shen unleashes havoc on the locals.
It sounds pretty serious and dark, and truth to tell there are a number of fight scenes and scary moments that would probably be too much for smaller kids, but the one-liners and funny set pieces come so fast that the rest of us will be having a ball.
How can you not love moments such as Po’s teacher sending the group on its way with the sobering news that Shen’s weapons could spell the end of kung fu: “But I just got kung fu,” Po complains, adding “How can kung fu stop something that stops kung fu?” Then there’s the creation of the word “awesomeness”, for which I’m sure many will be forever grateful.
Yet amid the wonderful artwork, the excellently planned (and enthusiastically over-the-top) fight scenes and surprisingly strong elements about the power of love to heal – and the choices we make to accept or reject this – there is one thing about this film that really irks me. The ending.
I don’t mean the penultimate scene, which is truly lovely. I mean the last few moments and the final line, which make it clear that Kung Fu Panda 3 is already on the drawing board. And given the usual odds with sequels, you can bet your bottom dollar we won’t get lucky again.
