Kung Fu Panda

When the Oscar nominations were announced I found that I had seen almost all of the nominated films. There are a few I haven't seen, and a few of them are on DVD, so I can catch up over the next few days. I start with one of the nominated animated films, Kung Fu Panda.

I'm not quite sure what to think of this. It's impressive animation, but frankly I've gotten to be blase about technological advances in computer animation. You want to see an animated film that's impressive? Try Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, in which every cel was hand-painted. Does being a computer whiz make one an artist? I'm not sure. Besides, the action in Kung Fu Panda is so fast that it's hard to appreciate all the hard work that went into it. In the DVD extras it's easy to see how difficult it is to create one of these films, and they refer to a fight scene on a rope-bridge that was very time-consuming. But in the movie it's over in a minute or two, and it goes by in a blur. Sometimes I think animators are making movies for other animators.

But ostensibly Kung Fu Panda is a children's film. It's about Po, a sad-sack panda whose father runs a noodle shop (in a bizarre joke, Po's father is a...duck). He worships the kung fu warriors who live in the Jade Palace, and are known as the Furious Five. There is a prophecy that one day a fighter will be chosen as the Dragon Warrior, who will get to read a scroll giving him or her unlimited power. A bad guy, a snow leopard, wants the scroll, and he escapes from prison to get it. A wise and ancient turtle ends up choosing Po as the Dragon Warrior, even though he is fat and clumsy, and this angers the Furious Five and their master, Shifu.

Po is voiced by Jack Black, who provides the comedy, while Dustin Hoffman is Shifu and Ian McShane the evil snow leopard. Also in the voice cast are Angelina Jolie, Seth Rogen, Lucy Liu and Jackie Chan. Once upon a time the voices in animated features were almost anonymous, but somewhere along the line it was decided that celebrity voice talent was advantageous. I'm not sure why, is there really any reason to employ Jackie Chan strictly for his voice?

The message in this film is that people should believe in themselves, even if they are fat and clumsy (the movie had a lot of fat jokes, which I'm sure obese children didn't appreciate). That's a noble sentiment, but no matter how much I believe in myself I'd never be able to win a kung fu match against the world's greatest. There's also a lot of warmed over fortune-cookie-type Chinese philosophy. Do the Chinese like to be considered to be so wise?

The most impressive thing on the DVD is one of the extras, in which a chef from Mr. Chow's in Beverly Hills takes a lump of dough and turns into noodles, without using anything but his hands.

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