Kung Fu Panda
In Theaters Now






Po (Jack Black) is a panda who works in the noodle shop owned by his goose father Mr. Ping (James Hong) and is a kung fu fanatic, but whose defining characteristic appears to be that he is the klutziest animal in ancient China.

Master Oogway (Randall Duk Kim) has a premonition that the evil warrior Tai Lung (Ian McShane), the former student of his own protege, Shifu (Dustin Hoffman), will escape from prison and return to menace the Valley of Peace. While Shifu sends Zeng (Dan Fogler), a messenger goose, to Chorh-Gom Prison to have the security increased, Oogway orders a formal ceremony to choose the mighty Dragon Warrior who can defeat Tai Lung. The Dragon Warrior is presumed to be one of the Furious Five (Angelina Jolie as Tigress, Jackie Chan as Monkey, Seth Rogen as Mantis, Lucy Liu as Viper and David Cross as Crane), a quintet of supremely skilled martial artists trained by Shifu.

While the Five demonstrate their skills at the ceremony, Po finds himself locked outside. He attempts desperately to gain entrance. Through a series of increasingly foolhardy methods, Po succeeds, but lands in the middle of the grounds just as Oogway makes his selection. Inspired by this sudden appearance, the old master designates Po the Dragon Warrior. To everyone's shock and despite Po's protests and Shifu's pleas to reconsider, Oogway stands by his decision.

Alarmed at having a slovenly and obese noodle vendor with no martial arts training whatsoever under his tutelage, Shifu attempts to discourage Po by berating and humiliating him into leaving, including threatening to use the apparently deadly "Wuxi Finger Hold" on him. The Five, profoundly disappointed being upstaged by the panda, similarly dismiss Po as a worthless interloper. Although he becomes aware of Shifu's true intentions, Po endures all the abuse willingly for the growing dream to become something better while Master Oogway encourages the panda to believe in himself. Eventually, the affable Po endears himself to the Five with his tireless tenacity, good cooking, and sense of humor.

Meanwhile, Zeng's errand backfires disastrously when a tour of the prison given to him by the overly confident head of security, Commander Vachir (Michael Clark Duncan) inadvertently enables Tai Lung to escape — overwhelming numerous rhinoceros prison guards. In the Valley of Peace, Oogway passes away, his dying wish that Shifu train a deeply discouraged Po. In the meantime, the Five take it upon themselves to intercept Tai Lung. After a long night of pondering how to train the panda, Shifu discovers that Po is capable of impressive physical feats when motivated by food. Realizing that he has found the right focus for the panda, Shifu leads Po to the countryside for a vigorous training regime where the student is offered food as a reward, but only if he learns his lessons properly. Thus motivated, Po learns swiftly and finally becomes an impressive martial artist in his own right.

The Five battle Tai Lung but are eventually beaten and paralyzed with a specialized nerve-striking technique. When they return defeated, Shifu finally decides Po is ready to take the villain on and gives him the sacred Dragon Scroll that promises great power to the possessor. When Po opens it, he finds nothing but a blank reflective surface. Now in despair, Shifu orders his students to evacuate the village while he stays to delay Tai Lung from pursuing them for as long as he can.

As Po participates in the evacuation, he speaks to his father who tries to cheer him up by telling him a secret; not that he is adopted, but that the secret ingredient of his noodle soup is nothing but what you, the cook, put in it yourself, and that the soup is only special if you believe that it is special. When Po realizes that truth is the very point of the Dragon Scroll, that the power promised is already inside him, he rushes off to help Shifu. At this time Tai Lung confronts Shifu and soundly beats him for his perceived betrayal of not arguing with Master Oogway's rejection of Tai Lung as Dragon Warrior. Tai Lung also wants the Dragon Scroll for himself. For his part, Shifu is crippled by his profound feelings of guilt and responsibility for his former protege, whom he loved like a son, turning to evil.

Before Tai Lung can kill his mentor, Po arrives to challenge him. Although the snow leopard scoffs at the fat panda being the Dragon Warrior, the ensuing fight proves Po to be an extremely formidable opponent. Tai Lung temporarily stuns Po and gains the Dragon Scroll, but is aghast when he examines it, unable to understand its spiritual symbolism. As he recovers, Po strikes a critical spiritual blow on Tai Lung when he reveals a deeper wisdom explaining the scroll that the villain cannot match. Frustrated at his apparently worthless prize and facing a spiritually superior enemy, Tain refuses to accept the truth and tries to kill Po with his nerve strikes. However, the attack proves useless on the panda with his body fat protecting his nerves. Emboldened, Po effectively counter-attacks with a unique improvised combat style that takes advantage of his girth to absorb and reflect the force from Tai Lung's attacks back at him. In the end, Po uses the Wuxi Finger Hold which he claims to have learned on his own, destroying Tai Lung with a devastating explosion that ripples through the valley.

The Furious Five, impressed at Po's victory, acknowledge the panda as a kung fu master. The villagers, including Po's father, return and hail Po as a hero. Po rushes back to Shifu, who appears to be dying, but is only resting after taking such a beating. Po shares a meditation with him, but soon asks him if he would like to get something to eat.

At the end of the credit scroll, Po and Shifu are seen eating together by a peach tree. A seed planted by Shifu earlier has begun to sprout.


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