Kung Fu Panda

Posted on: 4th July 2008  |

Director: Mark Osborne
Starring: Jack Black, Jackie Chan, Dustin Hoffman, Lucy Liu, Ian McShane, Dan Fogler, Angelina Jolie, Seth Rogen, Randall Kim, James Hong
UK Release date: 4 July 2008
Certificate: PG (91 mins)

Po is a panda with an eating disorder brought up by a noodle-purveying goose. In terms of life challenges, this surely ranks up there with anything the Sex and the City crowd have to deal with. What’s worse is that the standard array of jealous friends, over-protective parents and vicious snow leopards that we all have to face up to stand between Po and his dream of becoming a Kung Fu Panda.

Needless to say, this dream is achieved, through the particular self-sufficiency of the Hollywood Everypanda. “There is no special ingredient” to brilliance, we are told, nor is there “any such thing as an accident”, a curious paradox of combining the driving force of destiny with the belief that anyone can achieve anything if they a) want it enough and b) believe in themselves. This way you get the reassuring beat of an underlying destiny reverberating through every action, whilst you remain unique and self-believing: who would have guessed that Dreamworks would be able to solve that little knot of pre-destination vs. free will that baffled so many lesser thinkers?

But enough of such things: Kung Fu Panda is a genuinely entertaining children’s film. Not a family film, I reckon: it avoids most of Shrek’s parental in-jokes (unless you have a Tarantino-style knowledge of the Kung Fu genre and pick up on the references to the Shaw brothers – thanks, Imdb).  I don’t think this is such a bad thing, and certainly the friends who were eager to watch the film with me enjoyed it.  The ironic touches aren’t anything new – cod Confucian utterances, irreverent magic weapons, slow-motion facial shots in mid-fight – but that’s not going to bother the intended audience.  There is a preponderance of fat, slapstick jokes and it’s unlikely that the NHS will be celebrating Po’s ability to turn his obesity into his greatest strength – another hero in the long line of America’s love of jolly fat men.

We are also treated to more stunning animation – especially the opening sequences and Tai Lung’s epic escape from his prison.  The “China” we see in the film is an odd amalgam of various East Asian cuisines, architecture and scenery, and animation frees the film from the remaining vestiges of having to cling to reality: rope bridges span mountain tops protruding from seas of cloud, Tai Lung is imprisoned with boulders dragging either arm down into an abyss, freed peach blossom and stars become indistinguishable.

My only caveat is the unquestioning cultural narratives underpinning this film. In one light this is an inappropriately adult comment to make about a child’s film (the kind of sub-Gramscian critique that plagues the opinion pages of liberal broadsheets) but bear with me (the pun is partially intended). There’s a definite current of the American dream triumphing over those silly Eastern devotions to archaic rituals (as if Indiana Jones hadn’t already taught us that Edward Said was just a bit too sensitive for his own good).  Why would you want to follow your parent’s ideals if you have an overpowering dream for yourself?  Who needs disciplined adherence to a code of conduct if you’ve got a good heart and a cuddly exterior?  On its own the film isn’t going to indoctrinate a generation of children but put it in its cultural context and the orthodoxy of this message – YOU are enough on your own; listen to your OWN heart – shows itself to be the distortion of an age-old truth about the preciousness of each individual.  The consequences of a message of self-sufficiency rather than God-sufficiency are pretty horrible and pretty prevalent.

Perhaps that’s the best way to view the film: by itself, it’s great, predictable fun – and society’s problems should be dealt with in their own sphere.  92 minutes of awesome Panda action aren’t going to turn children into self-centred adults.  But then it’s also worth pondering the advice of the decrepit turtle Master Oogway: there’s no such thing as an accident…



Nathan Koblintz



 Visit this film's official web site

 

Kung Fu Panda - Trailer

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