Kung Fu Panda 2
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For the video game, see Kung Fu Panda 2 (video game).
| Kung Fu Panda 2 | |
|---|---|
Theatrical release poster
| |
| Directed by | Jennifer Yuh Nelson |
| Produced by | Melissa Cobb |
| Written by | Jonathan Aibel Glenn Berger Charlie Kaufman(uncredited)[1] |
| Story by | Jennifer Yuh Nelson (uncredited)[2] |
| Starring | Jack Black Angelina Jolie Dustin Hoffman Gary Oldman Seth Rogen Lucy Liu David Cross James Hong Michelle Yeoh Jackie Chan |
| Music by | Hans Zimmer John Powell |
| Edited by | Clare Knight |
Production
company | |
| Distributed by | Paramount Pictures1 |
Release dates
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Running time
| 90 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $150 million[3] |
| Box office | $665.7 million[4] |
Kung Fu Panda 2 is a 2011 3D American computer-animated action comedy-drama martial arts film, directed by Jennifer Yuh Nelson, produced by DreamWorks Animation, and distributed by Paramount Pictures.1 It is the sequel to the 2008 film Kung Fu Panda and the second installment in the Kung Fu Panda franchise. In the film, Po and his friends battle to stop a would-be conqueror Lord Shen with his powerful new weapon, with the giant panda discovering a disquieting link to his past in the process. The cast of the original film reprised their voice roles while the new villain, Lord Shen, is voiced by Gary Oldman.
The film was released on May 26, 2011 in Real D 3D and Digital 3D. Kung Fu Panda 2 received positive reviews, with critics praising its animation, voice acting, action scenes and character development. It was also a commercial success surpassing the original film and, like the original film, was the highest grossing animated feature film of the year. The film was nominated for the 2011 Academy Award for Best Animated Feature at the 84th Academy Awards.
A sequel, titled Kung Fu Panda 3, and directed by Jennifer Yuh Nelson and Alessandro Carloni, is scheduled to be released on January 29, 2016.[5]
Contents
[hide]Plot[edit]
An opening prologue set years before the events of the first film tells that Lord Shen, the scion of a peacock clan that rules Gongmen City in ancient China, seeks to harness fireworks as a weapon. After discovering from the court's goat Soothsayer that "a warrior of black-and-white" will defeat him if he does not change his ways, Shen leads an army of wolves to exterminate the panda population to avert the prophecy. Shen's parents are horrified at this atrocity and exile their son, who swears revenge.
In the present day,[6] Po is living his dream as the Dragon Warrior, protecting the Valley of Peace alongside his friends and fellow kung fu masters, the Furious Five. His teacher Shifu tells him, however, that he has yet to achieve inner peace. While defending a village from wolf bandits who have been stealing refined metal for Shen, Po is distracted by a symbol on the wolf leader's armor, which causes Po to have a flashback of his mother and allows the wolves to escape. Po asks his goose father, Mr. Ping, about his origins. Ping reveals that he found Po as an infant in a radish crate and adopted him, but Po remains unsatisfied, wondering how and why he wound up in the Valley of Peace to begin with.
Shifu receives word that Shen has killed Thundering Rhino, the leader of the kung fu council protecting Gongmen City, and is plotting to destroy kung fu tradition and conquer China with his newly developed weapon, a cannon that fires weaponized fireworks. Po and the Furious Five set out to Gongmen City to stop Shen and destroy his weapon. They find the city occupied by Shen's forces, with the two surviving council members Storming Ox and Croc imprisoned. The six heroes ask the council members for help to liberate the city, but the two cite their helplessness against Shen's weapon and refuse. Po and the Five are discovered by the wolf boss and give chase, only to be arrested in front of Shen's tower.
Upon being brought before Shen in his tower, Po and the Five free themselves and destroy Shen's weapon. However, Po is again distracted by a flashback upon seeing the same symbol as before on Shen's plumage, allowing Shen to escape and destroy the tower with an arsenal of cannons. After Po and the Five escape, Tigress confronts Po over his distraction, who reluctantly explains that he remembers Shen's presence on the night he was separated from his parents, and wants answers about his past from Shen. Though empathetic, Tigress tells Po to stay behind for his own safety. Despite this, Po breaks into the factory to question Shen, inadvertently foiling the Five's plan to destroy the factory. Shen claims that Po's parents abandoned him, and then blasts Po out of the factory into a river with a cannon. Po is presumed dead.
Po survives and is rescued by the same soothsayer, who takes him to the ruins of the nearby village where Po was born. Guided by the soothsayer to embrace his past, Po remembers that when he was an infant, his parents had sacrificed themselves to save him from Shen's army, his mother hiding him in a radish crate and luring Shen's forces away from him. Po attains inner peace, realizing that he has lived a happy and fulfilling life despite this early tragedy.
Po returns to Gongmen City to save the captive Five and prevent Shen's conquest of China. During the ensuing battle (in which Ox and Croc participate after being persuaded by Shifu, who also helps), Po modifies the movements used during his inner peace training to redirect Shen's firework shells against his own armada, destroying it. Po then urges Shen to let go of his own past, but Shen attacks Po until Shen slashes the ropes holding up his last cannon, which falls and crushes him to death. Victorious, Po returns to the Valley of Peace and reunites with Mr. Ping, lovingly declaring the goose to be his father.
At the same time, Po's biological father is shown to be living in a far-off, hidden village inhabited by surviving pandas, and senses that his son is still alive.
Cast[edit]
Main article: List of Kung Fu Panda characters
- Jack Black as Po
- Liam Knight as Infant Po
- Angelina Jolie as Tigress
- Dustin Hoffman as Master Shifu
- Gary Oldman as Lord Shen
- Seth Rogen as Mantis
- Lucy Liu as Viper
- David Cross as Crane
- Jackie Chan as Monkey
- James Hong as Mr. Ping
- Michelle Yeoh as Soothsayer
- Danny McBride as Wolf Boss
- Dennis Haysbert as Master Storming Ox
- Jean-Claude Van Damme as Master Croc
- Victor Garber as Master Thundering Rhino
- Fred Tatasciore as Po's Dad
- Conrad Vernon as Boar
Production[edit]
After the original Kung Fu Panda was released in June 2008, DreamWorks Animation planned a second film with the subtitle Pandamoneum,[7] which was changed by 2010 to The Kaboom of Doom[8] before simply being retitled to Kung Fu Panda 2. Jennifer Yuh Nelson, who was head of story for the first film, was hired to direct the sequel. The original film's cast members reprised their voice roles. Like the other DreamWorks Animation films that began production in 2009, Kung Fu Panda 2 was produced in DreamWorks' stereoscopic 3-D technology of InTru 3D.
Jonathan Aibel and Glenn Berger, screenwriters and co-producers for the first film, returned to write and co-produce the sequel,[9] with Charlie Kaufman consulting[10][11] on the screenplay early on in the development process.[12]
In Kung Fu Panda 2, the production crew showed increased familiarity with Chinese culture. In 2008, after the release of Kung Fu Panda, DreamWorks CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg and other DreamWorks members visited the city of Chengdu, which is considered as the "panda hometown".[13] In addition to seeing real pandas, crew members learned about the local culture. Katzenberg has stated that the sequel incorporates many elements of Chengdu in the film.[14] The film's landscape and architecture also found inspiration from those found at Mount Qingcheng, a renowned Taoist mountain.[15] In an interview with Movieline, Berger stated that "we never really thought of this as a movie set in China for Americans; it's a movie set in an mythical, universalized China for everyone in the world."[16]
Release[edit]
Kung Fu Panda 2 was screened at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival in early May before its commercial release.[17] In the United States, it premiered on May 22, 2011, at Grauman's Chinese Theatre, in Hollywood, California.[18] The film was widely released in the United States on May 26, 2011, in the United Kingdom on June 10, 2011, and in Australia on June 23, 2011. It was also released in IMAX theaters in the EMEAregion.[19]
Home media[edit]
The film was released on DVD and Blu-ray on December 13, 2011, accompanied with the short film Kung Fu Panda: Secrets of the Masters and a sneak peek of the Kung Fu Panda: Legends of Awesomenesstelevision series.[20]
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