YMMV / Kung Fu Panda

• Adorkable: Po. Look no further than when he first entered the Jade Palace and spent the next minute or two just gawking to himself over the cool kung fu artifacts.
• Alternate Character Interpretation: Tai Lung only escapes Chor-Gum Prison because he used one of Zheng's feathers to undo his shackles, Zheng was only at Chor-Gum prison because Shifu told him to go there, Shifu only told him to go there because Oogway told him that he had a vision of Tai Lung's escape. All of this begs the question - did Oogway actually have a vision and the rest was an accident (of course, there are no accidents) or did he merely say he had a vision knowing that it would lead to Tai Lung's escape, intending it as some Secret Test of Character for Shifu? As Oogway says - one often meets his destiny on the path he chose to avoid it. Oogway may also have known that his time in the material world was coming to an end and so set the whole thing in motion as a way to help Shifu improve as a mentor and overcome his inner (and outer demons).
• Aluminum Christmas Trees: Po's signature girth-based fighting style has been used by at least one real life kung fu master, Wang Shu Jin, who, very much like Po, had an immense waist and could use it to push and deflect attacks.
• And You Thought It Would Fail:
  • An animated 3D movie with colourful talking kung-fu fighting animals and the main character being a big fat panda voiced by Jack Black who has to learn kung-fu to beat the Big Bad? By that description alone, you'd think this would have been a flop at the time, but it became one of DreamWorks Animation's most successful movie franchises along with its sequels.
  • The European Spanish dub had Po voiced by Florentino "Flo" Fernández, a TV comedian whose primary persona out of imitations was a Fat Slob, which was seen as a bad joke of a choice that would drag the entire movie down. Instead, Flo went to give a shining performance, being not only accepted, but demanded for the role in the rest of the franchise.
• Angst? What Angst?: Compared to Shifu bearing tearjerking witness to the whole thing, the Furious Five's reaction to Oogway's death is one quick gasp before reverting instantly to arguing over the Dragon Warrior and Tai Lung.
• Awesome Music:
  • Perhaps one of the most cunning scores of Hans Zimmer and John Powell. There's "Hero", "Sacred Pool Of Tears", "Panda Po", "Oogway Ascends", "The Bridge", "Tai Lung Escapes"... One can almost say that the entire score is awesome.
  • Special recognition must go to Tai Lung's Theme (or more accurately the theme for Shifu and Tai Lung). First heard played by Shifu on his flute, it gets continual and awesome renderings throughout "Tai Lung Escapes" and "Shifu Faces Tai Lung", and has a presence in a variety of modes in the final confrontation. Even so, it's highly underused, and deserves a suite of its own.
  • What better way to end the movie than with Kung Fu Fighting? Not only that, but it's sung by Cee Lo Green with help from Jack Black!
• Base-Breaking Character:
  • Shifu. Some dislike him for being a cold, uncaring Sadist Teacher to Po and his other students, while others believe his rougher edges make him a deeper and more complex character. This mostly applies to the first film, however, as Shifu is significantly nicer and more supportive in the next installments, which caused most of his detractors to think better of him.
  • Tigress for similar reasons. Her cool design, charisma and Action Girl characterisation definitely earned her some fans from the get-go, but few could deny she was an utter swine to Po for most of the first movie, with a very understated amending. Like Shifu however, this mostly applies to only the first film (and parts of the first TV series), and when later works developed her into a much more sympathetic character, very few complained about her becoming the franchise's Breakout Character.
• Catharsis Factor: While it could almost be seen as pitiable for some, seeing Tai Lung suffer a brutal beatdown and Humiliation Conga at the hands of Po is extremely satisfying after he spent the whole movie as a seemingly unstoppable One-Man Army who absolutely demolished his enemies in battle, and had just attempted to kill his foster father.
• Cry for the Devil: Tai Lung, once we learn his backstory. He was originally a Ridiculously Cute Critter who desperately wanted to please his foster father Shifu, who built up his pride and made him think he was destined to be the Dragon Warrior. However, when he was told that he was unworthy by Oogway and Shifu did nothing to support him, he became driven to mass destruction and slaughter to take the Dragon Scroll by force, just because he wanted to be special. The fact that he spent twenty years in a Hellhole Prison without Shifu ever visiting him just pushes this further. Shifu even realizes his fault in turning Tai Lung into what he is and gives him a sincere, heartfelt apology. Unfortunately for him, Tai Lung is in no mood for forgiveness at this point.
• Draco in Leather Pants: While Tai Lung is sympathetic by design, many fans ignore that he's still very entitled, and was willing to take his frustration out on a valley of innocent people when he felt wronged. Shifu might've been responsible for encouraging him to pursue the Dragon Scroll, but it was still Tai Lung's choice to take it out on people who were not, in the slightest, responsible for his misery.
• Evil Is Cool: From busting out of Chorh Gom Prison single-handedly to putting up an epic fight against the Furious Five, there's no denying Tai Lung's badassery.
• Fan-Preferred Couple:
  • Po/Tigress is the most popular ship in the fandom by far.
  • While not really having anything going for it in canon, Crane and Viper appear to be the secondary item to Po and Tigress.
• Foe Yay Shipping: Believe it or not, but there are people who ship Tai Lung/Tigress (Taigress). Compared to other pairings, this one sort of makes sense, genetically speaking.
• Germans Love David Hasselhoff: To say that the film was a massive hit in China would be an understatement. So much so there was a council meeting where the officials of the nation chided their own people for not doing something of the same detail.
• Genre Turning Point: Before this film, Western Animation feature films were often starkly afraid to show heroes getting into fights in which the actual trading of blows that actually connect regularly happens. Now, bruising hand to hand, albeit bloodless, combat is considered perfectly acceptable material for family films.
• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • Po's Oblivious Adoption, which was joked about in this film, takes on a darker note in the sequel once we learn he's a genocide survivor.
  • Po being bullied by Shifu and the Furious Five before Oogway encourages him to keep trying to learn Kung Fu becomes more heart wrenching when the main villain of Kung Fu Panda 4, The Chameleon, revealed she wanted to learn Kung Fu like Po, but was rejected by various masters because of her size and turned to stealing their skills with sorcery out of spite.
• He Really Can Act:
  • Thanks to Dustin Hoffman's tutoring, Jack Black surprised a lot of people with how good he was as Po. In particular, he gets to show his acting chops during the emotionally moving scene where Po argues with Shifu on the stairs over treating him like crap, perfectly expressing the panda's frustration, self-doubt, and deep-seated sadness.
  • Florentino "Flo" Fernández, Po's Spanish guest voice actor, was mainly known by his vulgar comedy work (and his excellent imitations, on the other hand) and was thought to be a bad choice for a character with the emotional depth of Po. However, his performance turned out astoundingly good, to the point an obligatory comment in reviews was how you would forget you were hearing Flo after some minutes into the movie — he just was Po.
• Heartwarming in Hindsight: Mr. Ping explaining the secret behind his Secret Noodle Soup becomes this when you realize he's looking at Po with an adoring expression, and the second movie reveals he adopted Po the same day he decided not to make a soup with radishes (because a baby Po ate them all in the crate where he was hiding). Mr. Ping in hindsight was talking about how he believes his son is special, and Po has to know it.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • In 2012, World of Warcraft would release the Mists of Pandaria Expansion Pack featuring the Pandaren, an entire civilization of Martial Artist pandas.
  • Seth Rogen and green insects are inseparable now.
  • The Chinese were so impressed by the series, that they held conferences about why they couldn't make animated movies like this. The third movie was even produced by the new DreamWorks Orient studio in China.
  • Think this is the last time Jackie Chan will voice a Chinese monkey? Well, think again!
  • Oogway, a wise old turtle, saying "One often meets his destiny on the road he takes to avoid it" becomes hilarious 15 years later when a turtle character voiced by Jack Black, an evil one at that, tries to prevent a romance from blossoming only for him to cause the very beginnings of a romance he was trying to prevent.
• Incest Yay Shipping: Even though they weren't raised together and they never refer to each other as siblings, some see the pairing of Tai Lung/Tigress as this due to the interpretation that Shifu is Tigress' father as well as Tai Lung's.
• It Was His Sled: Due to how much of a Signature Scene it is, even people who haven't seen the movie will likely know that Oogway dies.
• Karmic Overkill: Due to his status as a Tragic Villain and the fact that he almost seemed to come to a Heel Realization during his fight with Shifu, several fans thought that Po killing Tai Lung with the Wuxi Finger Hold after putting him through an absolutely brutal Break the Haughty sequence of slapstick was too much. Even those who weren't begging for him to have a Heel–Face Turn figured he could have at least been returned to prison since he was so worn-down by the time Po finished him off. And while Kung Fu Panda 3 would reveal he was actually sent to the Spirit Realm, it can be implied that it's the same as being dead, so the sentiment still stands.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • "I see you like to [X]. Maybe you should X... ON MY FIST!!!" ^ExplanationDuring Po's dream sequence at the beginning of the film, a thug exclaims this to Po, with the word chew being used in place of [X].
  • "There are no accidents." ^ExplanationSaid by Oogway and later Shifu for Po "accidentally" being The Chosen One. Has become a catchphrase for Contrived Coincidence and/or Accidental Pervert moments in pop culture
  • "My time has come." ^ExplanationOogway preparing to Ascend to a Higher Plane of Existence. Appropriated and used in place of "This Is Gonna Suck".
  • "Finally, a worthy opponent. Our battle will be LEGENDARY!" ^ExplanationTai Lung's response to learning the Dragon Warrior's name, often used for scenarios of people starting conflicts for no good reason or making light of trivial struggles.
  • Content Aware Po. ^ExplanationOriginating from this video, Po's expression seen in the thumbnail makes for a good reaction image. Used to express a faux-pas or intense confusion, it is used interchangeably with the "bruh" and "Unsettled Tom" memes.
  • "Mmm. Monkey." ^ExplanationFans latched onto the way Master Oogway reacted when asked why he'd saved Monkey's life. (Oogway could tell Monkey was only a prankster to be acknowledged, for the curious.)
• Moral Event Horizon: When Tai Lung confesses to Shifu that all he ever wanted was to make him proud, only to find out that he had Shifu's pride and love all along, he only spends one moment looking genuinely affected before he's right back to demanding the scroll, saying he doesn't care about apologies. Since he's basically thrown away any sort of redemption that might have been offered to him, that moment signals that he deserves everything that happens to him afterward.
  • Another strong contender for Tai Lung's MEH crossing is the villain attempting to attack Po after he becomes confused and angered by the contents of the Dragon Scroll (a blank reflection which Tai Lung calls "nothing"). This proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that Tai Lung never really cared about the true meaning of being the Dragon Warrior: what he truly wanted with the Dragon Scroll was to be physically the most powerful kung fu warrior in all of China, "secret to limitless power" be damned.
• Narm: More than a few people have compared the after-effects of the Wuxi Finger Hold to a gigantic fart cloud. The fact that it's produced by pulling someone's finger just adds to this.
• No Problem with Licensed Games: Kung Fu Panda the game is actually a well-made, fun Devil May Cry-style game, even though it departs from the film's story quite a bit. The same couldn't be said about the sequel's game.
• Rooting for the Empire: A sizeable portion of fans found Tai Lung to be so damn cool that they were hoping for him to stick around and maybe even have a Heel–Face Turn. Come the fourth movie, it seems that their wish came true.
• Signature Line: "Skadoosh!"
• Signature Scene: Oogway's death scene is not only the most iconic moment in the film but one of the most iconic moments DreamWorks Animation has produced thanks to the beautiful music, stellar animation, and heavy emotion involved. To many it proved that DreamWorks can make something as deep as their main rival Pixar.
• Superlative Dubbing: The Latin American Spanish dub has very fitting voices for each character and transmits the same fun energy the original had. However, many see this version of Tai Lung as even more sympathetic than the original because of his voice acting (provided by Blas García). In his fight against Shifu, Garcia's acting truly paints him as a tormented student confronting his master who's releasing all of his frustrations and broken promises against them. Even if he's beyond redemption, most who've heard it still feel bad because of this and elevate his Draco in Leather Pants status.
• Unintentionally Sympathetic: Because he Used to Be a Sweet Kid, Tai Lung receives more sympathy from audiences than was intended. In the original script, his only crimes were trying to take the Dragon Scroll and then attacking Shifu, who had arguably failed to teach him properly, so the filmmakers saw this coming. They added his later rampage specifically to make him less sympathetic, but since we only see fragments of it it still doesn't hit very hard, even though said rampage is also a good reason to incarcerate him in a prison specifically made for him. The fact he spent two decades in a prison with physically abusive guards and restrained to the pin the can barely move while Shifu never visited him even once can also make his rejection of Shifu’s apology seem far more justified than it was intended to be.
• Values Resonance: Despite not being actually made by the Chinese, if one actually were to look at things from a traditionalist Confucian perspective, Tai Lung becomes an even more fitting villain. He's guilty of filial impiety, a very, VERY severe sin in Confucianism. The one thing that really seems to anger Shifu is Tai Lung suggesting that he ignore Oogway's decision for the Dragon Scroll, in effect asking Shifu to commit his own filial impiety.
• Viewer Species Confusion:
  • It is common to assume that Mr. Ping is a duck when he is actually a goose.
  • Some viewers unfamiliar with red pandas aren't sure what kind of animal Shifu is, asking if he's a raccoon, rabbit, fox, or rat. Even his voice actor Dustin Hoffman thought he was a raccoon at first.
• The Woobie: Po, particularly when he reveals himself to be a Stepford Smiler and Sad Clown with self-loathing issues. He wants to be special, because he doesn't like who he is. Thankfully, he gets over these issues by the end of the first film.

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