Kung Fu Pan­da 3

Bryan Cranston was tak­ing long, steamy baths in Trum­bo, but now he’s break­ing dumpling-eat­ing records all across ancient Chi­na in this fam­i­ly three­quel. He joins a heavy­weight voice cast which includes Jack Black, Dustin Hoff­man, Seth Rogen and Angeli­na Jolie, all lend­ing their voic­es to var­i­ous cute but dead­ly ani­mals. Cranston is Li, the long-lost father to Shaolin drag­on war­rior Po (Black), and like his son, he is a light heart­ed, clum­sy pan­da with a xiao­long­bao obses­sion. This time, Po and his mar­tial arts crew, the Furi­ous Five, are met with a new threat from the spir­i­tu­al under­world, Kai (JK Simmons).

Upon dis­cov­er­ing his roots and the nature of his pan­da home­land, Po realis­es he must deal with the impend­ing threat from mas­ter killer Kai, a task which takes over from ini­tial pan­da-relat­ed hilar­i­ty. Po must train his kind to con­nect with their inner ​“chi”, which in this case involves hon­ing skills like rolling down hills and back­break­ing bear hugs. The plot bor­rows heav­i­ly from clas­sic Chi­nese Kung fu cin­e­ma, ref­er­enc­ing end­less action sequences while also show­cas­ing tra­di­tion­al mar­tial arts tech­niques. The film also reflects the bur­geon­ing suc­cess of Ori­en­tal Dream­works, Dream­works’ first Asian out­post which opened in 2004 to coin­cide with the first Kung Fu Pan­da movie. They have been in con­trol of the fran­chise since its incep­tion and have ensured a cer­tain cul­tur­al authenticity.

Like its pre­de­ces­sors, Kung Fu Pan­da 3 looks great. High-octane fight scenes are char­ac­terised with smooth and del­i­cate move­ments from the fur­ry ani­mals. This adds ener­gy to the film, while the still moments are filled with dis­cus­sions on hav­ing faith in your abil­i­ties, work­ing hard to improve them and learn­ing to be your­self. The dif­fi­cult sit­u­a­tion that Li’s arrival into Po’s life cre­ates for his adopt­ed father, Mr Ping, is explored as he joins Po and Li’s jour­ney to the secret pan­da region. Pri­or to Li’s sud­den appear­ance, Po is thought to be the last pan­da in the ani­mal king­dom. This reflects an under­ly­ing theme of eco­log­i­cal destruc­tion, and the writ­ing is of a high­er stan­dard than expect­ed, adding a cer­tain legitimacy.

Yet, there is lit­tle evi­dence of any ground­break­ing changes being made to the franchise’s tried-and-test­ed for­mu­la. It’s as good as the pre­vi­ous two films, and a nice entry-lev­el kung fu film for the knee-highs.