Panda Packing a Punch (Kung Fu Panda (DVD))

Member Name: falcon1959

Product:	Kung Fu Panda (DVD)
Date:	25/07/09 (23 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: All round family film wih plenty of laughs

Disadvantages: It ends too quickly

The Story **************

Directed by Mark Osborne and John Stevenson, this is the story of Po the panda who works in his fathers noodle shop. Po also happens to be a real kung fu fan and sets off to watch the spectacle as the local kung fu monastery selects its next Dragon Warrior. Through a series of accidents Po becomes the chosen one and gets to study alongside his heroes, The Furious five, Tigress, Crane, Mantis, Viper and Monkey, under the critical eye of their teacher Master Shifu.

At first Master Shifu and the furious five do not take kindly to their new Dragon Warrior and master shifu promises the furious five that he will make sure that Po will fail. Po is an overweight cuddly panda not ideally suited to kung fu but he refuses to quit. They then find out that an ex master pupil of the monastery, Tai Lung, who when he was not chosen to be the Dragon Warrior many years before wreaked havoc, and was jailed for 20 years, has escaped and is heading back towards them. Everyone is expecting Po to defend then from Tai Lung, but is he ready yet?

The voices of the characters are played by Dustin Hofman - Shifu, Angelina Jolie - tigress, Ian McShane - Tai Lung, Jackie Chan - monkey, Seth Rogen - Mantis, Lucy Liu - viper, David Cross - crane and Jack Black as Po.


My Views ******************

The voice over for Po by Jack Black seems to fit the character completely. I must admit I do not really look to see who does the voice over's for which character in an animation film like this, until I have watched it for the first time.

This film will have you laughing out loud regardless of what age you are. This is animation meets kung fu and takes the martial arts to a whole new level. If you have never experienced a kung fu fight between master and pupil to see who wins the last dumpling, then you are in for a real treat.

Even in the middle of fight scenes there is so much humour that I had to watch it again, and I still found things that I had missed the first time. The fight scenes are something that you can easily let your younger children watch as they are some of the funniest I have ever seen in a film.

The actual animation by Dreamworks, was excellent, the way they took everyday objects into the fight scenes was very cleverly done. I think Kung Fu panda will do for animation fight scenes, what Bruce Lee did for real fight scenes. They were innovative amusing and enjoyable to watch

It was only after the film had finished that I realised it carried a message, that you can achieve whatever you want to achieve if you want it bad enough, and that you just have to believe in yourself. It is nice to see that a message like that can be brought to a young impressionable audience. It was a real joy to watch this film and I will be going back for a few more viewings I am sure.

The DVD*****************
There are special features on the DVD such as interviews with the cast, and the crew. There is an interesting look at how the animation was done, and also how the actors got in to their parts when they were doing the voice over's.

Running Time 88 minutes

Rating PG

Price £4.99 at Amazon

Summary: An excellent animated action comedy film that will make all ages laugh out loud