It was a peaceful and beautiful day for the Kung Fu Masters who had retired to the spirit world. The sun was shining, the tree blossoms were blooming, and one such Kung Fu Master—a turtle named Oogway—was in the process of finding his inner peace. Until Kai, a power hungry combat convict banned to the spirit world, crashed through the clearing to attack him.

That was the opening scene of the humorously captivating movie, Kung Fu Panda. A continuation of the ongoing adventures of Po, the crime fighting panda, the movie takes its audience along with Po on his quest to master “chi,” the final stage of Kung Fu. With this final skill mastered, Po hopes to defeat the evil Kai who has managed to escape the spirit world and enter Po’s.

Now, with Kai threatening the people he cares for the most, along with the rest of the world, Po must train to triumph over Kai in combat.

This family-oriented movie also has its sentimental side as Po is reunited with his long-lost father, who helps Po on his way to mastering “chi”. The good relationship between Po and his father incorporated into the movie is an example of how this movie has a positive influence on its younger audience. It enunciates how strong family relationships are an important part of any person’s life.

Much like the first and second movies of the Kung Fu Panda series where Po has one definite goal throughout the film that directly relates to Kung Fu, this movie’s plot enunciates on the sheer determination of the main character to reach his set goal. But rather than undermining the movie’s quality, this technique of the directors, Jennifer Yuh Nelson and Alessandro Carloni, brings a sense of nostalgia and unity to the hearts of the movie series’ previous fans and offers a positive influence on the audience’s newer young members in regards to setting and reaching a goal.

The two top voice actors in the film were Jack Black, who voiced Po, and J. K. Simons, who voiced Kai. Although the characters weren’t of the realistic kind, the comedic and cliché way that the actors voiced these characters seemed acutely purposeful. Black and Simons appeared to work together extraordinarily well in terms of making their audience and I believe that they made good use of comedic relief in the dark moments of the plot.

Though the movie is animated, the concepts contained in the film lend themselves directly to an adult’s life as well. The overarching idea of approaching and attending to a problem that seems larger than life itself is a difficulty faced by a very large portion of adults at least once in their lives, whether that was working on an enormous paper in college or putting their own kids through college.
Daija Burke, a junior here at Mayfield High School, agreed with this assessment of the movie’s importance when she said, “From this movie, you learn to believe in yourself no matter what you do.”

However, the movie’s plot and characterization could still be called redundant, despite the extremely important message that all three movies of the series contained. All the characters kept to the same sort of relationship with one another and the antagonist, Kai, could have obviously been called out as a placeholder for any villain ever. Therefore, I believe that an accurate rating for this movie would be 4 Kung Fu masters out of 5.

Kung Fu Panda 3

Stars Who Voiced: Jack Black (Po), Angelina Jolie (Tigress), and J. K. Simmons (Kai).

Directors: Jennifer Yuh Nelson and Alessandro Carloni

Running Time: 1 hour and 35 minutes

Rating: PG for martial arts action and some mild rude humor

Genre: Animation, Comedy, and Action

Grade: 4 out of 5 Kung Fu Masters