Kung Fu Panda 2 / Tropes A to H

Kung Fu Panda 2 Trope Examples
A - H | I - Z

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A

• Absurdly Long Stairway: Po and the Furious Five are taken to Lord Shen's throne room at the top of a tall tower. Po has to be carried by one of Shen's guards for half of the way.
  Po: My old enemy... stairs.
• Accidental Suicide: When Lord Shen is trying to stab Po, he unintentionally cuts a rope that holds up his largest cannon (that he invented himself!) and he is crushed to death.
• Achilles in His Tent: Masters Storming Ox and Croc spend most of the movie in jail, as they're still reeling over Master Thundering Rhino's death and Shen has threatened to turn his cannon on the city if they try to stop him. With some convincing by Shifu, they finally return during the climax.
• Action Film, Quiet Drama Scene: Two major examples:
  • The nighttime boat scene that shows how close as friends Po and Tigress have become, and Po and the Soothsayer in Po's home village where he remembers his horrific past and comes to terms with it.
  • Lord Shen and the Soothsayer have a short one before the climax, where she begs him to let go of his anger but is refused when he tells her it's too late to stop now. She sadly gives up, and knowing they have nothing more to say to each other, Shen lets her go free.
• Actionized Sequel: While the original is an action movie, there is a LOT more here thanks to Po getting out of training.
• Actor Allusion: When Master Croc arrives to help Po and the Five, he jumps out of the water and lands in a perfect split. Croc is voiced by Jean-Claude Van Damme.
• Actually Pretty Funny: When they first come face-to-face, Po and Shen have a brief Snark-to-Snark Combat that ends with both of them laughing at each others' comebacks.
• Advertised Extra: Master Thundering Rhino is shown in the website and press release. In the actual movie, he barely gets two minutes of screentime before Shen kills him. Masters Storming Ox and Croc have somewhat larger roles, but not by much.
• Adults Are More Anthropomorphic: Baby Po looks similar to a Nearly Normal Animal unlike his Funny Animal adult form.
• An Aesop:
  • If you had a sad/difficult beginning to your life, it doesn't make you who you are. What matters is the rest of your life: who you choose to be.
  • Someone who's raised you and loved you since you were a child counts as your father/mother, even if you're not related.
• Alas, Poor Villain:
  • Lord Shen. After a very miserable and empty life, he finally faces the warrior destined to defeat him whose entire species he tried to destroy... and the warrior has found inner peace, and doesn't want revenge. He cannot grasp how that is, how he could be free of all that pain, and tries one last time to kill him... only to accidentally kill himself. But he accepts it gracefully, because death is the only peace he could find.
  • Also, the Boss Wolf. He follows Shen's orders without hesitation or mercy, but when Shen orders him to fire the cannon at the heroes, not caring that their own soldiers would be killed in the crossfire, Boss Wolf refuses. Enraged, Shen strikes Boss Wolf with his throwing knives and fires the cannon himself.
• All There in the Manual: The movie's official website offers far more detailed information about all the new characters, especially Lord Shen. Lord Shen's motivations seem much more simpler in the movie proper. This leaves out the fact that his parents were ashamed of his albinism and poor health, and often left him to the care of his soothsayer nanny. The context puts a very different spin on some of the exchanges between Shen and Po: the movie only shows Shen's parents looking understandably horrified at the destruction of the Panda village, and Shen only references being wronged by the exile. You can see traces of this whenever the soothsayer gives Shen a hard time and he only responds with angry words; when Po unintentionally insults her, Shen loses his temper; and Shen simply sets the soothsayer free before starting his campaign.
• Amazingly Embarrassing Parent: Ping when he packs Po a backpack with embarrassing old paintings and Po's action figures of his teammates... in front of his teammates.
• Analogy Backfire: Played with. When Po claims that "scars heal", Shen attempts to call him on this. Po's response, "Oh yeah… what do scars do? They fade, I guess." is, if anything, more accurate to the situation.
• Animate Inanimate Object: The radish that Po's parents replaced him with in his dream sequence. It can do kung fu, too.
• The Anticipator: Shen laughs at the prophecy that a panda will defeat him, because he's killed them all off.
  Shen: That's impossible, and you know it.
  Soothsayer: It is not impossible, and he knows it.
  Shen: Who?
  [Wolf Boss comes running up the stairs]
  Wolf Boss: Lord Shen, I saw a panda!
• Arc Symbol: The red-eye-with-rays symbol for Po, and the Yin-Yang symbol for Shen. Po grows, and the eye symbol stops holding any fear for him. Shen doesn't, and Po eventually takes on the yin-yang symbol as he wipes out Shen's gunships with their own cannonballs.
• Arc Words:
  • "Who are you?"/"Who am I?"
  • "Your story may not have such a happy beginning..."
• Armor-Piercing Response: When Shen is preparing how he will greet Po, the Soothsayer calmly states that he's afraid of his foe. When Shen tries to argue against her statement, she reiterates that he is afraid, which leaves him speechless.
• Arrow Catch: Tigress dodges a bunch of arrows and catches the last one an inch from her cheek. Bonus points for the arrows being on fire. More bonus points for the fact that she wasn't even looking at it and didn't seem all that concerned by it, as she does it completely offhandedly.
• Artistic License – Biology:
  • Both of Shen's parents are referenced as peacocks. Peacocks are called peacocks because they are male. A female peafowl would be a peahen. Gets jarring in that Shen's mother was shown as a genuine peahen, namely lacking the train characteristic for males.
  • Lord Shen uses his tail to help him glide a long distance. While peacocks can fly short distances, this is done with their wings, not their tail. Then again, pandas can't do kung fu, so...
  • Peacocks only sport their trademark tail feathers during spring and summer time for mating purposes, while Shen in the film seems to permanently boast his (both presently and during flashbacks). In the context of the film it makes sense as they're part of the factor that makes Po remember his past, and it would serve no narrative purpose for Shen to shed the feathers.
• Art Shift: The movie is primarily filmed in CG, but the opening prologue is shot in a style resembling metal shadow puppets, and Po's dreams and memories are animated traditionally (though the memories become 3D CGI once Po fully recalls them).
• Ascended Fanboy: Even though Po is now The Dragon Warrior, he still treasures his Furious Five action figures, and still gushes like a kid about everything related to kung fu, even while being captured.
  Po: No way! Eight-point acupressure cuffs? Just like the ones that held Tai Lung! The more you move, the tighter they get... YAAH! [gets yanked to the ground] These are the best cuffs!
• Ash Face: Happens to Mantis when he tests a small amount of gunpowder.
• Attack! Attack! Attack!: Shen decides to blast everything in his path. Ironically, that's how he meets his defeat.
• Attack! Attack... Retreat! Retreat!: When the Furious Five attempt to bring down Shen's cannon factory.
  Monkey: [after dropping a dozen barrels of lit explosives] Here's your New Year's gift!
  Mantis: Hope you like it, 'cuz you can't return it!
  Tigress: [hears Po scream and sees him fighting Shen inside] Po!? What's he doing here?
  Monkey: Return it! Return it! [starts snuffing out the burning barrels]
• Audible Sharpness: All of Shen's blade weapons.
• Awesome, but Impractical: Turns out Shen's cannons can be a pain to aim at moving targets.
• Awful Truth: Subverted in that Po is determined to find out what happened to his biological parents, and only Big Bad Lord Shen knows (besides the Soothsayer). As such, Po screws up a chance for the Five to destroy the cannon foundry to face the peacock, only to have him claim his parents abandoned him because they didn't love him. Of course, that's a blatant lie.

B

• Badass Boast:
  • "I am Po. And I'm gonna need a hat." It Makes Sense in Context.
  • Hilariously parodied later on when Po makes his epic return and attempts this trope towards Shen. Problem is, he's standing too far away for Shen to hear him.
    Po: Shen! A panda stands between you, and your—
    [cuts to Shen's POV who only hear indistinct shouting]
    Shen: ...WHAAAT?
    Po: Prepare yourself, for a—
    [another cut to Shen who exchange confused looks with the Wolf Boss as they still can't hear him]
    Shen: ...what?
  • Mantis after he repeatedly thwarts Wolf Boss's attempts to light the fuse on the cannon.
    Shen: Well?! Light the... thing!
    Wolf Boss: I did!
    [he makes numerous more attempts, but the fuse is doused by a blur of green every time, until finally...]
    Mantis: FEAR THE BUG!!!
    [Shen stares at the cage Po is holding; the "Mantis" inside turns out to be an action figure; Po laughs]
• Badass Crew: With Po as the new addition to the team, the Furious Five are, if possible, even more badass than in the first film with all the crazy combo moves they show off in this film.
• Badass in Distress: The Furious Five near the end of the movie. While Po is presumed dead, they all end up as Shen's prisoners.
• Bait-and-Switch: When Shen sees his father's throne again after years of exile, he reminisces about how his father let him play beside it and how he'd be told that one day the throne would be his. Cue the throne being thrown out of the window and replaced by Shen's cannon.
• Bait-and-Switch Comment: After finding baby Po abandoned in a (now empty) box of radishes, Mr Ping makes a monumental decision... to make his soup without radishes. And raise Po as his son.
• Bamboo Technology: Literally! Shen's cannon foundry features, among other things, a bamboo Conveyor Belt o' Doom.
• Battle Discretion Shot: Po and the Five, hidden in a huge dragon costume, pull several wolf Mooks inside and rough them up before kicking them out the back, turning a string of rapid beatdowns into Toilet Humor.
• BFG: Lord Shen's big freakin' cannons. Which shoot exploding cannonballs.
• Big Bad: Lord Shen.
• Big Damn Heroes:
  • Po, near the end of the film, coming to rescue the Five and stop Shen.
  • Master Shifu and Masters Croc and Ox, shortly afterward, coming to help Po and the Five.
  • Po's father in Po's flashback when two wolves were about to attack baby Po.
• Big Eater:
  • Baby Po, which Mr. Ping points out repeatedly as he fed the cub multiple times in a single day. Then there was the time he ate all the bamboo furniture...it was imported, too.
  • Subverted by present Po. Every time Po's father offers him a hearty meal, he refuses, and is generally shown to be much less of a glutton than in the first movie. Po eats when he's upset. As the Dragon Warrior, he's happier than he's ever been.
• Big Good: Though it's only for the time period in this movie, Shifu takes on this role following Oogway's passing.
• Big "NO!": By Tigress when Po is hit by Shen's cannon-fire.
• Big "WHAT?!": When Po is making his big speech to Shen in the climax, Shen yells "WHAT?!" due to Po being too far and thus, his speech being too inaudible for anyone to hear coherently.
• Bilingual Bonus: During the end credits montage of Po's childhood in the Valley of Peace, one scene shows him attending school. In the background, there is a blackboard with the Chinese characters for 1 to 10 on it (一, 二, 三, 四, 五, 六, 七, 八, 九, 十).
• Bittersweet Ending:
  • Leaning a bit more towards sweet. However, even though Po has managed to save the day, he still believes that the rest of his kind is gone. And though the audience knows that is not the case, and that Po's father finally knows his son is alive, they are still miles apart from each other, and the remaining pandas, while managing to repopulate, have fled in exile from the rest of the world to seek safety.
  • The fate of the villains in this movie also add to the bittersweet-ness of the ending. Yes, they were defeated, but they were more than just Punch-Clock Villains, and Shen himself was a Tragic Villain who only wanted to achieve his dreams and make his parents proud — but failed utterly in accomplishing either.
• Blatant Lies: Shen's claim to Po that he was abandoned because his parents didn't love him. Shen's belief that his parents hated him being the main source of his anguish, he turns this on Po as it's the most painful thing Shen can imagine.
• Blind Musician: The rabbit who keeps playing music during the fight scene in the Musicians' Village seems to be blind, since he's wearing dark glasses and doesn't react to any of the violence happening around him. Which may be a Shout-Out to the wuxia film Hero, which has a similar scene where two martial artists square off with a blind musician providing accompaniment.
• Blue-and-Orange Morality: Mantis' mother ate his dad's head before he was born, but he sees nothing strange in this since this is normal for his species. He even imagined himself dying like this.
  Mantis: I thought I'd meet a nice girl, settle down, and then she'd eat my head.
• Bond Villain Stupidity: When the Furious Five and Po are all Shen's prisoner, he has them brought before him so he can gloat and then kill them dramatically with his giant cannon, instead of just having them efficiently killed, which gives them a chance to escape. Later, when everyone thinks Po is dead and he has the Five captive again, he keeps them alive to witness his triumph, which gives Po time to recover and come to their rescue.
• Book Ends: A very subtle one. Po arrives at Mr. Ping's in a crate of radishes. In the end, baby Po's little panda doll is in a crate of radishes that Po brings Mr. Ping.
• Boring, but Practical: By the final battle, Po figures out a way to negate Shen's cannons. Dodging. Mixed with his new Catch and Return technique and he decimates Shen's fleet.
• Broken Ace: Po when he learns he was adopted and his entire family of pandas was wiped out by Lord Shen.
• Break Them by Talking: When Po confronts Shen in the foundry, the peacock manages to gain the upper hand by claiming that Po's parents didn't love him and abandoned him.
• Brick Joke: When entering the prison, Monkey promises to warn the Furious Five with a "Caw-CAW!" to which it is pointed out how much it sounds like Crane, who protests by saying he never says that. At the finale of the film, Crane uses his "Wings of Justice! Caw-CAW!"
• Bus Full of Innocents: Done by the Wolf Boss with a box of brand-new bouncing baby bunnies.

C

• Call-Back: Po geeks out over being restrained by the same type of acupuncture cuffs used to imprison Tai Lung (this also serves as foreshadowing, as Viper is able to pick the cuffs just like Tai Lung did).
• Call-Forward: Baby Po wears the wok on his head as adult Po did at the end of the first film.
• Calling Your Attacks: Po does this several times, as well as some of the Furious Five like Crane. "Wings of Justice!" and "Feet of Fury!" come to mind. Though quite a few times it's relaying instructions to the rest of the Furious Five for a double team attack with him (such as a "Double Death Strike" with Tigress), so it's justified.
• Calling Your Shots: At the climax, Po does this to tell Shen that the next cannon shot will be coming right back at him.
• The Cameo: Tai Lung, the villain of the first film, appears for a split-second during the flashback of Po's life up to the events of this film.
• Cardboard Prison: Po and the Five have no problem busting into the jail where Masters Storming Ox and Croc are being kept. In fact, they actually have more trouble convincing Ox and Croc to escape as they've been demoralized by Lord Shen's cannon and are convinced that Resistance Is Futile. Cue a hilarious scene where the various kung fu Masters keep kicking down the barred iron door or putting it back up again while they argue. And even when the cell door is destroyed during the struggle, Ox and Croc simply walk into the opposite cell and lock themselves in there. At the climax, Ox and Croc appear at the battle to stop Shen, revealing that Shifu talked some sense into them.
  Storming Ox: Like I said, you are NOT getting me out of this cell! [realizes he's been thrown out of the cell in the struggle; the cell door falls to the floor and smashes to bits]
  Po: YES! Whoo-hoo! Alright! Let's... [his triumph fades as Ox and Croc simply walk into the opposite cell and shut the door behind them] ...go.
  Croc: I get the top bunk.
  Storming Ox: It's time to surrender, panda. Kung fu is dead!
  [Po and the Five gasp, shocked to the very core]
  Po: Y-You... w-woo... kung fu is... de-eaah... FINE! You stay in your prison of fear, with bars made of hopelessness... and all you get are three square meals a day of... shame!
  Croc: With despair for dessert.
  Po: We'll take on Shen, and prove to all those who are hungry for justice and honor that kung fu still lives!
  Pig: [in another cell] Yeah...
• Carnivore Confusion: One of the wolves explicitly says to a rabbit: "If you are not going to cook my rice properly, I am going to cook you!" The sequel also confirms that cannibalism still exists among mantises.
• Catch and Return: Shifu practices catching rain drops and placing them on blades of grass without breaking them. Po uses this to defeat Lord Shen's cannon ships, by redirecting their cannon fire back to the source.
• Cats Are Mean: Gone now for Tigress, who has become Po's best friend of the Five. Although the one scene where she's ordering Po to stay in the dungeon is pretty scary (even more so that Viper tells Po to "stay down" after he is knocked around for a bit), she isn't doing it to be mean; she clearly states at the end that she was fearing for his safety.
• Character Catchphrase: Double duty as Pre-Asskicking One-Liner: You know when Po says "Skadoosh!" the bad guy is going down for the count...
• Chase Fight: Po chasing Wolf Boss across Gongmen City on rickshaws! Hilarity Ensues. Po wins the running battle, only to find that Wolf Boss isn't just running from him, he's running to the palace, guarded by an entire army of wolf soldiers.
• Chekhov's Gun:
  • Po's wooden action figures of the Furious Five, particularly Mantis's. This goes all the way back to the first movie, where Po comments that Mantis is about the same size as his action figure. In this movie, he swaps Mantis for his figure while they're all being locked in chains so he can help save them later.
  • One that goes back to the first movie: Po's recurring use of a wok as a hat, leading to the Disc of Destruction scene.
• Chekhov's Skill: Master Shifu's water-catching technique in the beginning of the movie; during the climax, Po uses it to catch cannonballs.
• Clip Show: This is used brilliantly to show Po's Progression from a gibbering fanboy from the last movie to the kung-fu master he is now. The clip show lasts just under 10 seconds, with a very dramatic musical score to it, and total silence from the clips themselves. It also symbolizes how he has come to terms with his tragic childhood and found inner peace, along with it ending with a shot of Mr. Ping, whom he truly realizes is, after all, as real a father as anyone could have.
• Color Motif:
  • As in the first film, gold is used to symbolize heroism, while red is used to symbolize power and/or violence (a rather ironic twist, as red is associated with luck and positive emotions in China while gold is traditionally more associated with power). This is especially apparent in Po's last confrontation with Shen, with Po standing in golden sunlight and Shen standing in the red glow of a cannon. A golden aura can also be seen around Po's mother when she makes her Heroic Sacrifice for him.
  • Here's an example towards the end that might've gone by too fast for a few people: The cannonballs that Shen fires are red. The cannonballs that Po catches turn gold.
  • An alternative for the meaning of the white/red combo, if we use the colors' traditional Chinese meanings (white for death and red for luck): Shen spends literally the entire movie causing death and destruction everywhere he goes in a desperate attempt to avoid his fate, becoming little more than a shell of a man driven by spite and hatred in the process. The white/red combo could mean he's merely a dead man walking, stubbornly surviving on borrowed time that's rapidly running out.
• Combat Pragmatist: While he clearly has at least some experience in kung fu, due to his smaller size and frail stature in comparison to the larger, stronger animals he faces, Shen primarily relies on his cannons and hidden blades to keep the upper hand.
• Combination Attack: While Po is not a slouch in the kung-fu asskicking department in this movie, all his best moves are performed in tandem with the rest of the Furious Five. Most of them are some variety of tossing him in the right direction and watching the fireworks.
• Comically Missing the Point: When infiltrating Gongmen City in their dragon disguise, Po and the Five see a sheep being threatened by one of Shen's wolves, due to her serving him raw rice after they took all her metal pots away. Crane urges Po to intervene, though Po gets the wrong idea at first.
  Crane: Po, do something!
  Po: How am I supposed to help her cook rice without getting caught?!
• Conceive and Kill: Master Mantis says he never had Daddy issues because his mother bit his father's head off. He also claims to be looking forward to the day he has a similar demise.
• Cool Chair: Subverted when Lord Shen is admiring the throne, saying how his father promised it would one day be his. Gilligan Cut to his gorillas chucking the throne out the window and plonking Shen's cannon in its place.
• Cooldown Hug: Tigress gives one to Po so that he won't go against Shen again, much to the shock of the rest of the Five.
• Creative Closing Credits: That of 2D images of Po's childhood after he's sent away in the radish crate.
• Crippling Overspecialization: Shen's cannons are great for destroying stationary targets such as buildings or slower opponents, but suffers when the target is moving; when Shen's henchmen try to fire at Po in the final act, they're stuck constantly having to readjust the cannon because Po won't stop moving.
• Crucified Hero Shot: When Tigress (along with the rest of the Furious Five) is chained to a mast.
• Cuteness Proximity: Mr. Ping had this reaction when feeding Baby Po radishes.

D

• Dark and Troubled Past: Unbeknownst to Po himself, he does have one: more specifically, when he was just a baby, his village was attacked by Lord Shen's wolf army to prevent the prophecy of him being defeated by a panda from happening. His mother then hid him in a radish box and then lured the wolves away from him, sacrificing herself in the process.
• Dark Is Not Evil: Thematically used to symbolize Yin. Po finds inner peace in a dark, watery environment. This is further used when Po is reflecting Shen's shots back at his ships; the fight starts with Po alone in the dark, as opposed to Shen being lit up by the red fires he's set. Po deflecting the bright, shining cannonball and putting it out into the dark is the first sign of hope the heroes have that Kung Fu can defeat the cannons. This theme, along with water themes, are used for Po as an opposition to Shen's own themes of Light Is Not Good along with fire.
• Darker and Edgier: With more intense fight scenes, a genuinely horrifying villain, nuanced discussions of adoption and trauma, and a major plot point surrounding an attempted genocide, Kung Fu Panda 2 is by far the darkest and most mature instalment of the franchise, though there are still plenty of laughs and sweet moments to balance it out.
• Darkest Hour: All of the masters have been taken out by the cannon, and are floating helplessly on the sea.
• Death by Despair: The implied fate of Shen's parents, who were heartbroken at being forced to exile Shen.
  Shen: My parents hated me. They wronged me and I, I will make it right.
  Soothsayer: They loved you. They loved you so much that having to send you away killed them.
• Death by Looking Up: Lord Shen is killed when his own cannon falls on top of him, having enough time to look up and see it. Justified, however, in that by that point, he'd accepted his fate since he makes no attempt to get out of the way, merely closes his eyes and allows it to fall on him.
• Death Glare: Tigress does this to Po in the Gongmen City prison. Everyone else in the room is temporarily cowed into submission by the sheer force of it. It's so intense, it actually seems to cause a small circle of dust to kick up for a brief second, and we never actually get to see the expression, making the intention and thought of it that much more powerful.
• Defrosting Ice Queen: Tigress started to thaw a little in the first movie, but here she can be downright affectionate to Po, even giving him a Cooldown Hug.
• Demoted to Extra: Master Shifu gets a couple of brief scenes at the start, then sends Po on his way while he remains in the Valley of Peace until the very end when he does the Big Damn Heroes bit. Justified in that his character arc was mostly done with by the end of the first movie and someone has to watch the Jade Palace. Thankfully averted with the Furious Five, who appear much more this time around, and all of them actively help Po out throughout the film.
• Destroy the Villain's Weapon: Subverted somewhat hilariously when Po and the Furious Five do manage to destroy what they think is Lord Shen's cannon... Which is a miniature replica for the real deal, which they end up destroying anyway, only for Shen to reveal he has countless more already mass-produced. However, it then gets played straight when Po uses his newly gained inner peace powers to decimate all of Shen's cannons, ending their threat there and then for good.
• Disguised in Drag: Po, during the Stealth Mode sequence, pretends to be a woman briefly. Doubles as Paper-Thin Disguise, since it consists of only a kite, two watermelons, and a fan. When a leering wolf guard moves in for a closer inspection, Po headbutts him in the face.
• Does This Remind You of Anything?:
  • Shen's attempted genocide on the entire panda village, his desire to control all of China by force and letting his soldiers terrorize and beat up civilians in the streets could possibly be similar to one of the most disturbing times in modern Chinese history.
  • Shen's talk about old and new has shades of Mao Zedong's own beliefs, and was especially prominent during the Cultural Revolution. Yet, it appears to have been unnoticed by the Chinese censors. One of Mao's most hated policies (and greatest failures) during the Great Leap Forward was to confiscate and melt down household metal objects for use by the government, which is a crucial part of Shen's plan!
• Do I Really Sound Like That?: Crane denies sounding like Monkey's "caw caw" noise. He contradicts himself later with a tremendous "CAW CAW!!!"
• Doomsday Device: Lord Shen's cannons are viewed as the ultimate weapon that is going to end kung fu, and, possibly, the world as we know it.
• Doorstop Baby: Po was found by Mr. Ping in a crate of radishes.
• Double Take:
  • Po's reaction to Shifu somehow teleporting directly behind him in mid-sentence.
  • Also the reaction of a wolf soldier when Po says hello to him from inside a dragon disguise.
• Downer Beginning: Both the film itself (which begins with Shen's backstory of panda genocide) and Po's entire life.
• The Dragon: The Wolf Boss. He's not particularly intimidating or powerful, but both fights with him are relatively long fights, especially the second. In both occasions Po has the upper hand, but ultimately takes the last blow as The Wolf Boss leaves triumphant and victorious. Po never encounters the Wolf Boss during the final battle, due to the latter being unceremoniously killed by Shen after refusing to fire on his own men.
• Dragons Up the Yin Yang: In the first film, the dragon was a more prevalent image; here, the Yin Yang is a much more prominent symbol.
• Drama-Preserving Handicap: Po's traumatic flashbacks and inner turmoil cost him several battles he might have otherwise won.
• Dream Sequence: Po's nightmare, in which he meets his true parents only to find they've replaced him with a radish that is better at kung fu.

E

• Early-Bird Cameo: Master Ox, Croc, the wolf bandits, and even Shen's symbol were in Po's opening dream in the first film.
• 11th-Hour Superpower: The water droplet dance that is learned through "inner peace" becomes practically applied by Po, providing him with Catch and Return powers against the cannonballs.
• Empathic Environment: The color red accompanies Shen's presence very often. Sometimes justified, due to all the forge fires and torches; but sometimes the sky itself turns blood-red, even if it wasn't minutes ago, like when Shen marches in to challenge the Kung Fu Council. It only lightens up towards the end of the film once Shen is effectively losing.
• Empathy Doll Shot: The little panda plushie that Po finds in the remains of the Panda Village. At the end of the movie, the plushie is seen in a crate of vegetables that Po is carrying into the restaurant.
• End of an Age: Averted in that it seems like it is the end of kung fu as a relevant skill in battle with the advent of the cannon, but Po proves that wrong when he develops a kung fu Catch and Return technique that can stop cannoneers in their tracks. The portrayal of the cannon in the movie reflects actual history as it was primarily a symbolic weapon (at least at first). The fall of Constantinople in 1453 was declared the end of an era, but since the cannons were slow and difficult to aim, they weren't used that often.
• Even Bad Men Love Their Mamas: Out of all Shen's hostages, the Soothsayer is treated the least cruelly (though that's still not saying much), as she raised Shen when he was shunned by his family.
• Even Evil Has Standards: The Wolf Boss, Lord Shen's second in command, has no problem with theft or genocide, but firing on his own men? That's where he draws the line. He gets killed for it. Justified in that wolves are pack animals and he is the pack alpha. Additionally, the wolves are his men, but he has no requirement to care about the world around him.
• Everyone Has Standards: For a fleeting moment, Mr. Ping seems as if he'll leave baby Po in the alleyway. However, he couldn't leave a crying baby in the streets with no parents nearby and he brings him into his restaurant to provide some food and shelter. Then he fell in love with Po after bathing and feeding him, and decided to adopt him.
• Evil Brit: Lord Shen (voiced by Gary Oldman), in a parallel to Tai Lung (Ian McShane).
• Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: Shen is willing to kill or hurt anyone who gets in his way, even if it's his own men. He also continuously ignores any advice that the path he's taking will only lead to his eventual defeat by Po. In fact, Po listened to the same advice Shen rejected and attained inner peace, which is what Shen lacked, despite that Shen murdered his parents and wiped out his people.
• Evil Plan: Shen's goal is to take over China and destroy kung fu while he's at it.
• Evil Tower of Ominousness: Shen's ancestral home and base of operations for the first part of the movie until he destroys it trying to kill Po and the Five, who are all trapped inside.
• Evil Will Fail: The point of the "scars fade" metaphor. Evil does not exist unless deliberately inflicted by someone, and its effects heal over time unless someone reinforces them. Shen left the easiest and most natural path when he became a villain, and so the many people horrified by Shen's atrocities are able to defeat him.
• Eye Am Watching You: Po does this to Shen as he is deflecting the cannon blasts through inner peace.

F

• Face Death with Dignity: After inadvertently severing the support cables on his ruined cannon in an attempt to kill Po, Lord Shen reacts to the cannon subsequently falling upon him with peaceful calm, closing his eyes right before the impact.
• Facepalm:
  • Tigress facepaws in the first official real trailer, in response to Po.
  • Tigress does this again upon seeing Po first using the goofy dragon costume during the Stealth Mode sequence.
  • Lacking hands, Crane pulls his hat over his eyes when Po makes an idiot of himself destroying the model cannon.
  • Po does a slight one himself when his hat-throwing trick turns out to be a Failed Attempt at Drama.
• Failed Attempt at Drama:
  • Shen is expecting a powerful warrior to arrive in the top floor of his room, since he hears loud noises, when it is revealed one of the gorillas is carrying an exhausted Po who admits to throwing up at one point early in the ascent due to climbing so many stairs. Then when Shen tries to introduce himself, Po immediately interrupts without even looking at him.
    Shen: [regal confidence] Greetings, Panda, we meet at...
    Po: [completely casual, barely looking at him] Hey, how ya doin'.
    Shen: [very confused and awkward] H-hey.
  • Po has a Not Quite Dead moment on the Conveyor Belt o' Doom... and then, while screaming his Pre-Asskicking One-Liner, begins riding a giant cogwheel. However, he mistimes it and as he reaches the top a full five seconds later, admits he probably should have waited a few moments for that to have been cooler.
  • Shen declares the Year of the Peacock, only for Wolf Boss to point out he's halfway through the year already.
  • The I Can't Hear You moment on the roof during Po's Big Damn Heroes speech, which Shen cannot hear a single word of since Po is over half a block away and on top of a building. It's pushed even further as he throws his hat attempting to save the Furious Five, except his hat is made of straw and flies less than a few feet before being affected by the physics of paper and wind. This one is so bad, even Po tries to cover his face out of embarrassment.
  • After deflecting Shen's first cannonball, Po glares back at Shen very dramatically, and lifts his hand to show it glowing with flame. Then Po looks at his hand and realizes that his hand is on fire. Cue the dramatic music cutting out and Po running around attempting to extinguish it, finally shoving his hand in his mouth to put it out.
• Family-Unfriendly Death: The film is significantly darker than the first was. At first, the deaths are off-screen, but still pretty gruesome, like getting blown to bits by a giant cannon, and being ripped apart by wolves. However, the one that really takes the cake is the Wolf Boss. Shen throws a knife in his stomach. On screen. Given that up to that point all deaths happened off camera and the generally cartoonish and larger-than-life violence, it is very shocking to see such a graphic, cold-blooded killing. Immediately after being hit by the knife, however, the Wolf Boss exits the movie, so a corpse is never seen, but heavily implied. Then of course, there's the genocide of the pandas which, while relatively low-key, is still freaking genocide. The death of Po's mother stands out, as we last see her leaving baby Po in a radish crate, luring the wolves and Lord Shen away off-screen, and then nothing but Po's crying as the scene fades away.
• Fastball Special: Tigress throws Po twice in a move he calls "Double Death Strike". The second time, Mantis performs this with Tigress so that she can get up enough momentum to pull the same trick with Po in a broken rickshaw. The force is so strong it leaves a trail of flames in the road.
• Fatal Fireworks: Lord Shen uses cannons that shoot firework-like projectile. In this universe, peacocks invented fireworks, but Shen was the first one to weaponize them and use them to take over China.
• A Father to His Men: The Wolf Boss counts when he stands up to Shen for ordering to fire on his own men.
• Faux Affably Evil: Even after crossing the Moral Event Horizon in the prologue, Lord Shen seems like a pleasant enough fellow.
  Lord Shen: Good afternoon, gentlemen. Now, we've got the pleasantries out of the way. Please leave my house.
  Storming Ox: Your house?
  Lord Shen: Yes, didn't you see the peacock on the front door?
• Firearms Are Revolutionary: Shen invented giant cannons with which he intends to take over China. Judging by Shifu's descriptions of them being weapons which breathe fire and spit metal, firearms were unheard of until then, and he further states that Shen's victory would mark the end of kung fu. However, numerous tactical flaws of the bulky cannons are exploited by Po until the end where he learns to deflect the cannonballs back, thus destroying all the cannons.
• Fire Is Red: As a consequence of the movie's strong color motifs, most fires on the film glow with an unusual crimson tone.
• Flash Step: Shifu is shown doing this several times, once even to avoid a hug from Po.
• Foe-Tossing Charge: A truly epic one happens at the climax. Too bad Shen's cannon ruins it.
• Foregone Conclusion: The movie opens with a narration about how Shen is destined to be defeated by "a warrior of black and white".
• Foreshadowing: The first film has hints of several things in this film:
  • Crane's Wings of Justice move was used early on in the first film.
  • Also, somewhere in the middle of the first film, Master Shifu is chanting about Inner Peace.
  • Po's dream about fighting alongside mighty warriors actually occurs in the end of the film.
  • Even Shen's symbol and the wolves that appeared previously in Po's dream appeared in the film. Po's memories may have been repressed but even little things like that still affected him.
  • In the second film itself, a quiet moment between Po and Tigress has her noting that hard-style kung fu isn't really his thing (being fat and fluffy). At the climax, Po doesn't block the cannon shots but dodges and redirects them Tai Chi-like (i.e. soft style).
• Freeze-Frame Bonus:
  • Look closely in Mantis' cage when Po is holding it. A couple of times he moves enough to cause "Mantis" inside to rock slightly but not move a muscle, making it clear that it is an inanimate object.
  • When Po is running on the conveyor belt, the wok pan with Tai Lung's Face indented in it from the first movie goes over the side right before Po himself falls and catches himself with the tuning fork.
  • During Po's flashback, if you look closely you can see that one of the wolves that his father strikes is scarred across his right eye by the hit. It's the Wolf Boss.
• Freudian Excuse:
  • Big Bad Lord Shen's family never loved him. From his perspective, anyway.
  • Reconstructed with Po, who after learning of his backstory which would make many characters go villainous, chooses inner peace over aggression and revenge.
• Funny Background Event: Viper faints dramatically behind the rest of the Furious Five just after Po manages to stuff 38 bean buns in his mouth.
• Furry Reminder: There are a few sprinkled throughout the movie, like when Mantis explains his dream woman, or when Tigress lets out a realistic tiger roar right before attacking. Soothsayer has a habit of eating non-food, like a real goat. Shen himself will occasionally let out a peacock screech.
• Futile Hand Reach: Tigress does a Futile Paw Reach as Po is blasted by Lord Shen's cannon. Later it happens again, but Tigress shoves Po aside in time and takes the impact herself. All the heroes are blown into the harbor, and Po swims up to Tigress, who is clinging to wreckage, to check that she's still alive. He gently pushes Tigress out of harm's way and swims off to confront Lord Shen's fleet single-handed. Tigress can be seen in the background, feebly reaching out to stop him.

G

• Genocide Backfire: Sort of. Lord Shen heard a prophecy that a black and white warrior would defeat him, so he destroyed the village of pandas close to his city. He later finds out that there was a survivor; Po. And a hidden village of pandas, including Po's biological father. Unlike most examples of this trope, this wasn't what directly caused the confrontation between Po and Shen, and traumatic memories of his early childhood actually weaken Po, instead of motivating him. Still, Po would never have become the Dragon Warrior and defeated Shen if Shen hadn't destroyed his village out of paranoia.
• Genocide Survivor: It's revealed that Po was the survivor of an attack on his home village.
• The Glomp:
  • Po tries to Bear Hug Master Shifu, only to find he's Flash Stepped away.
  • Then Po's dad tries to glomp him, but Po's a bit too big and Mr. Ping just bounces off.
  • After Po defeats Lord Shen, the Five tackle him with a hug. And remember that they thought Po was murdered before the final battle began.
• Green Gators: Master Croc is a saltwater crocodile who is yellowish green.
• Grievous Harm with a Body: Part of Po and the Five's battling the wolf Mooks in the dragon costume involves hurling the last few victims (out the back end) into oncoming Mooks.
• Growling Gut:
  • "My fist hungers for justice. *growl* That was my... fist."
  • Also happens to Po when Shifu starts talking to about the previous Dragon Warrior... specifically how he went for days without food.
• The Guards Must Be Crazy: Po sneaks into Shen's factory by knocking out two wolves and holding them in front of him.
  Gorilla: Wipe those stupid grins off your faces.

H

• Ham-to-Ham Combat: Po and Shen's first scene together.
  Shen: The only reason you are still alive is that I find your stupidity... mildly amusing.
  Po: Thank you, but I find your evilness extremely annoying!
  Shen: Who do you think you are, panda?
  Po: Who do you think I am, peacock?
  [Shen laughs]
  Po: [also laughs] Why are we laughing?
• Happily Adopted: Po and his father both admit that Po is adopted at the beginning. Po is okay with this by the end of the film.
• Hard Work Hardly Works: Played With. Po's kung fu has improved a lot since the last movie, but he's still somewhat clumsy and has a lot to learn. He is able to master Inner Peace and the redirection move rather quickly, though. Lampshaded by Shifu. Noting how Po was able to achieve inner peace at a young age, as opposed to him who had to wait a lot longer.
• "Hell, Yes!" Moment: Po returns and absolutely destroys the wolves on the boat as he goes to free the Five. Monkey, Viper, and Crane all look happy, but Tigress has a particularly awesome look on her face that's a mix of "I'm so proud of you" and "Shen, you are so fucked."
• Heroes Fight Barehanded: Po and the Furious Five are all unarmed kung fu fighters (though Monkey sometimes use a staff), while the Big Bad Lord Shen carries around a flame-like partisan and tons of daggers, and all his henchmen are heavily armed. Po and the Furious Five sometimes use the weapon of the henchmen against them, but usually throw them away after a few seconds.
• Heroic BSoD:
  • A certain symbol used by Lord Shen and his forces causes Po's most traumatic subconscious memories to suddenly flare up in his mind and overwhelm him. It's even worse when he sees all the eye spots on Shen's tail feathers, since they match the symbol almost exactly.
  • The Five, especially Tigress, enter this when they are captured by Shen's forces and they believe Po was killed during the Factory battle. They snap out of it when Po shows up alive.
• Heroic Sacrifice: Pulled by both of Po's parents during the panda massacre. His father stayed behind to hold off the wolves while his mother hid him in a radish basket and lured them away. The ending reveals that his father actually survived.
• He's Back!: Po, when he comes back to fight Lord Shen and save the Furious Five, after he discovered his background.
• "Hey, You!" Haymaker: Po takes advantage of hiding in a dragon costume to pull this off on one of Shen's wolf guards.
• Hidden Weapons: Shen keeps a multitude of blades in his sleeves.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: Lord Shen enables the destruction of his fleet by insisting that the cannons continue firing on Po, even though Po's deflecting and returning the cannon balls.
• Hope Spot: Po frees the Five and they succeed in blocking the canal entrance. Then Shen blasts everyone with a cannon, clearing the wreckage so the rest of his fleet can sail through into the harbour.

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