Kung Fu Panda 3 – Film Reivew

Directors: Alessandro Carloni, Jennifer Yuh

Writers: Jonathan Aibel, Glenn Berger

Stars: Jack Black, Bryan Cranston, Dustin Hoffman JK Simmons, Angelina Jolie, Jackie Chan, Seth Rogen, Lucy Liu, Kate Hudson

Kai (Simmons) has defeated the masters of the spirit world and can now return to the mortal realm, where he intends to exact revenge on the dragon warrior Po (our hero Panda). This situation is further complicated by Li’s arrival in the valley, voiced by Bryan Cranston. While Po was supposed to be the last Panda, Li is another Panda and comes looking for his long lost son with news of a secret Panda village high in the mountains. Will Po be able to beat Kai and free the valley one more time?

While the plot of this film is quite formulaic, the reason we are now in the third incarnation of this series is the depth of the characters. It is a film that focuses on a number of fun and unusual individuals all with their quirks and gags. These characters are voiced by an impressive team and the addition of Cranston, Simmons and Hudson to the mix only improve the line-up. While a number of the big names have relatively small parts, Cranston is a main stay of the story.

The Pandas are portrayed as fun loving bears who lead simple lives eating, sleeping and playing. They are content in their own environment and seek little more than each other’s company. It is unusual to see characters in a film who find contentment in the simple pleasures of life, without higher aims or ambitions. The individual Pandas are mostly comedic characters with Kate Hudson particularly catching the eye as Mei Mei the ribbon dancing Panda!

The animation works well and the use of Japanese style prints add variation. It has a simple message of ‘be the best you, you can be’ and romps along at a nice pace. It has enough laughs to keep the older members of the audience entertained while the smaller ones will fall in love with the cute and diverse world created. Thankfully the animated fight sequences are relatively short lived as they are the least interesting part. While not being radically different from what went before, this is an entertaining and enjoyable addition to the Po’s saga!