Letters To Films

Dear Kung Fu Panda,

It was good to see you the other night. There were so many things I enjoyed. The awkward, fat Panda discovering his true awesomeness (for which apparently, there is ‘no charge’). Tai Lung, the snow leopard was everything a bad guy should be - the kind of guy you lock in a maximum security dedicated prison for years, but he can use any small change to defeat everything. Sheer menace, and with just a tiny flicker of heroism and self awareness to show the tragedy of how great he could have been.

I could almost forgive the ridiculous speed in which Po the Panda goes from klutz to master because in place of the standard montage showing hard work, there was a genius sequence of food based training. It had me chuckling in my seat.

This did highlight a moral weakness though. Your philosophy seems to be “believe in yourself and you can achieve your dream”. On the one hand, we’ve all seen Dumbo, and the million other stories with the same emphasis on how all you need to do is believe in yourself, on the other hand, it obscures an enormous part of the true story. No unfit person (or panda) will become a Kung Fu master with a couple of days of training. Your point seems to be trying to tell obese children that they don’t have to worry about fitness, or years of training, they can excel in their chosen field (even a very physically demanding one) just by “believing in themselves”.

This is a lie.

There is no question that believing in yourself is enormously important. Without at least some measure of self belief, it is very difficult to learn something new, and to stick at it until you become good at it, but the simple truth is that it takes the normal person about 10 years of effortful study to become expert at something, and even if you’re a genius, it will take more than 5. This is why it’s so important to love the process of learning.

I’m not saying that every film that portrays this kind of transformation needs to take at least 5 years, it’s just that without at least a nod to the kind of effort any worthwhile endeavour requires, it devalues the whole goal. No skill worth learning can be mastered in a few days.

There was also some weakness in the backing characters. The villagers were an undifferentiated mass of duracell bunnies and geese (Po seems to be the only Panda, an odd thing that is referred to, but never explained). Monkey was played by Jackie Chan, something I realised when he gave his one (or was it two) lines, of no relation to the plot. It’s funny to have him and Lucy Liu in the film, but only as an in joke. (Strange to have a character play a cameo, when he’s actually in so many of the scenes).

That brings me to the casting of Jack Black. Was he cast just because he’s known to be a bit fat? He was funny, yes, but when it comes to portraying the character, I found it pretty hard to believe at any point that Po was really suffering from self-belief issues. Shame to have the central character undercut the story.

I wonder if the style of the opening dream sequence is a direct reference to “Samarai Jack”.

The most compelling story was actually that of Master Shifu, the Kung Fu master who has lost his peace because the child he loved reflected back to him the worst of his own obsession.

It was a fun evening, with lots of in jokes and references for me to chuckle over, and lovely, over the top fight scenes - the final defeat was surprisingly unseen, but I think a fitting end.

Yours,

An amused Panda fan.