A 2011 movie
? running time was 40 minutes produced by
Renegade Animation
(same studio who brought us
Hi Hi Puffy AmiYumi,
MAD and
The Mr Men Show)
The plot is pretty much...well, think
Kung Fu Panda, abridged and suffered a great deal of
Ink Stain Adaptation... The main character is Zibo/Lu(?) (the latter coming from the back of the box which in the movie, he wasn't called with that name
at all)—a daydreaming martial arts fanboy. He tries to impress his son, Ming, by saying that he’s a student at the local dojo, when he’s actually the janitor. The story, set in the present day, is about the attempts of the dojo master’s evil twin—a tiger with stripes that look like scars—to steal The Amulet Of Fury from his Star Wars-quoting brother. In the end, Lu proves himself to be a hero to his son (and to his son’s friends, one of whom is a farting monkey) when he takes to heart the master’s lesson that everyone has a special gift.
It has often been derided for being a blatant rip-off of, as mentioned above,
Kung Fu Panda albeit the movie feeling more like a pilot episode that hasn't been picked-up considering how short the running time was. However,
Netflix tries to claim that it isn't. Once you've watched the movie, you'll be deceived once you see that its animation is a far cry from how the DVD's box cover (as shown here) has illustrated it.
The following tropes include:
- Acting for Two: At least each voice actor had to voice two characters with the exception of Ming, who seems to be voiced by an actual kid.
- Aerith and Bob
- Amulet of Concentrated Awesome: The Amulet of Fury of course. When used on Zibo—well, you know the rest.
- Bumbling Dad: Well, duh.
- Big Ball of Violence: The, err, "epic fight" between the two brothers are replaced with this complete with meows.
- Covers Always Lie: See Flash Animation
- Crush Blush: To Shiva. Oh Ming...
- Deadpan Snarker: Rex, the lion cub with the Nerd Glasses.
- Department of Redundancy Department: "A fighter so legendary, that his legend was legendary."
- Do Not Call Me Paul: Slade's name is... Sherman? Not embarrassing though it is a bit off.
- Dull Surprise: One of its many problems. Some just can't emote right.
- Earn Your Happy Ending
- Evil Twin: Master Hahn has one: Slade. Or Kudo if you've read, yet again, behind the box. That would've been more fitting though, since they're in an Asian setting.
- Flash Animation: It looks awfully cheap but at least it's better than horrible CGI that some infamous studios have made. This rip-off at least had some decent looking designs.
- Follow the Leader: And how!
- Funny Foreigner: Bali is from England.
- Genre Savvy: The Dojo master is this in a nutshell. The quotes, dear Lord...
- Improvised Weapon: A mop for Zibo.
- Irony: Lampshaded during a conversation between the villain and his assistant.
- Large Ham: The felines (the tiger brothers and the panther) have somewhat cheesy, eye-rolling attitudes. Obviously the villain is hammiest while his brother was just Genre Savvy.
- Malaproper/Rouge Angles of Satin: The fact that Zibo called Koji with different sounding names (see Mind Screw).
- Mind Screw: The names.
- Lu or Zibo? Slade, Kudo, or... Sherman Nevil? Koji, Kobe(!), or...Kerchak (actually pronounced Ko-jak)!?
- Oh and if "Nevil" is the villain's surname, meaning that that would be Master Hahn's surname either, would that mean that they're immigrants?
- Missing Mom: Ming hinted as such that she died.
- The Mockbuster
- Mood Whiplash: Attempted as such, a la Missing Mom.
- Ridiculously Cute Critter: The kids.
- Running Gag: Every time Zibo "trains", he breaks his back.
- The Speechless: Koji, the monkey who farts.
- Tough Room: When Zibo made a joke, the kids didn't react much.
- Was It All a Lie?: Ming, how the heck can you believe your dad?
- Where the Hell Is Springfield?: "In the small Asian village of Serenity Falls—" and that's it... Mind you that describing a village as Asian won't make the conclusion that it's located in Asia, so this counts.
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