Trailer
Plot summary
Master Oogway, an ancient tortoise, tells his student Master Shifu that the snow leopard Tai Lung will break out of prison and come for the Dragon Scroll, which is said to grant limitless power. Shifu strengthens the guard at the prison and stages a tournament to name one of his five pupils, the Furious Five, as the Dragon Warrior, the hero who may read the scroll. Po, a giant panda, works in the noodle restaurant of his goose father, Mr. Ping, and is a devoted kung fu fan. Arriving late at the arena, he tumbles in among Tigress, Mantis, Viper, Crane and Monkey, and Oogway declares him the Dragon Warrior.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Kung Fu Panda (2008)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- DreamWorks almost made a very different animal film first: in spring 2004 composer Eric Whitacre set The Seal Lullaby from Rudyard Kipling's The White Seal for a planned feature. Weeks later the studio dropped it and started Kung Fu Panda instead.
- The idea came from DreamWorks Animation executive Michael Lachance and was meant to be a spoof of martial arts films. Co-director John Stevenson disliked that approach and steered it into a character-based wuxia comedy instead.
- The animation was harder than anything DreamWorks had attempted. When the head of production handed the script to visual effects supervisor Markus Manninen, she reportedly laughed and wished him "good luck".
- The film opens not with computer animation but with a hand-drawn sequence built to look like Chinese shadow puppetry, directed by Jennifer Yuh Nelson and produced by James Baxter. Manohla Dargis of The New York Times called it striking and unlike most mainstream American animation.
- Producer Melissa Cobb said Po started out as "more of a jerk" and softened once the team heard Jack Black in the part. Black recorded mostly alone, but a single day spent with Dustin Hoffman shaped the scene where their characters face off.
- In China the film took nearly 110 million yuan by 2 July 2008, making it the first animated feature of any kind to pass 100 million yuan in that market.
- The film won ten Annie Awards from sixteen nominations, including Best Animated Feature, and the sweep caused a row: critics accused DreamWorks chief Jeffrey Katzenberg of rigging the vote by buying ASIFA-Hollywood memberships, and their voting rights, for the studio's entire staff.
