Kung Fu Panda franchise

I dont agree on the series and or the 2nd movie handling the mix of comedy and Drama all that well. Simple as that.

Irrational means its cannot be understood or rationalized. Its normal you dont really get it.

For me, while I like all three of them, Kung Fu Panda 1 still wins out for me mostly because Tai Lung is the most effective villain of the three in my mind.

I agree, though Shen comes in at a close second. Kai is a distant third, for while he is fun to watch, his actual motivation is rather vague, and his backstory meagre. Also, the rules of the spirit realm seem rather arbitrary to me. No one can leave the spirit realm, except when you collect enough chi from other masters? And then Po just can, because he can control chi... except so could Kai, so what was keeping him, then?

I wouldn't call any of the three films bad, although I do feel 3 is the weakest. It's a decent enough film, but I agree that it leans a little too much into comedy with the Panda village and Kai isn't as strong a villain as Tai Lung or Shen. But I feel the stuff with Po and his dads is pretty good. I also remember hearing that the film was subject to some last minute rewrites, such as how Mei Mei was going to be Po's arranged wife before Kate Hudson had to leave the role. Kai was also recast a few months earlier, so that might contribute to some of the film's issues.

I think the first two films are still some of the best Dreamworks has put out. The first I think told a much tighter story and had some great thematic imagery going throughout. The second I think had a stronger villain, more hard-hitting emotional moments, and a very cathartic finale, even if it's a bit less focused on its central theme as the first film. They compliment each other very well, and I still think it's the best trilogy Dreamworks has made (don't hurt me HTTYD fans).

Edited by chasemaddigan on Nov 3rd 2019 at 9:31:25 AM

Given how much HTTYD 3 dropped the ball, I definitely agree with you that the KFP trilogy is Dreamworks' best movie franchise overall. Albeit, KFP 3 sucked.

And KFP 2 is definitely the pinnacle of all Dreamworks movies.

Edited by BrightLight on Nov 5th 2019 at 9:22:27 AM

For all its faults, though, it must be said that 3 is probably the most gorgeous Dreamworks movie ever made.

Yeah. Personally I think each one has their merits in their own way. 1 is much more of a Kung Fu movie, I think 2 has the best villain, 3 is visually stunning.

3 is great if you think of it as ice cream. It may not be very healthy or nutritive but its fun and sweet!

My problem with Kai is that he has zero parental issues.

Seriously, Tai Lung and Shen had major parental issues, Tai Lung always striving to be the best just to make Shifu proud and Shen being the textbook definition of a Hungry Ghost.

Um... yes. It does break the monotony lol.

Monotony?

How?

At least Shen and Tai Lung were nuanced villains, and they deeply challenged Po and Shifu, rocking them to their core.

Kai barely seemed to be a convincing threat to Po, let alone Oogway, his supposed former nemesis.

Edited by BrightLight on Nov 4th 2019 at 6:45:55 AM

Kai didn't have parental issues, but he did have sibling issues.

Indeed, but they just weren't explored enough.

Generally Tai Lung & Sheng both got a scene where they poor their heart out that allows us to witness or understand the immense tragedy of their situations.

Kai on the other hand didn't get as much. Compare his scene of calling out Oogway out for his betrayal of him with Tai Lung calling Shifu out for his betrayal of him.

Edited by slimcoder on Nov 3rd 2019 at 10:03:40 AM

I remember comparing Kai (unfavorably) to the villain of HTTYD 2. He's a guy with a potentially interesting backstory, an objective that runs counter to the hero's ideals, and a perhaps even a legitimate point deep down under his evil, but for whom none of that is really important because he's actually just there to be dangerous and undefeatable up until the point where he's not, resulting in flat bad guy who only really has the personality their voice actors gave them.

Kai's backstory with Oogway is explored slightly and the dropped about halfway through, and ultimately he was just a Really Strong Guy for Po to overcome once he was strong enough. Which puts him far below the other antagonists of the series, who are all Evil Counterparts to Po tied up intricately with the message of their respective films, and get lots of attention to how they're strong where Po is weak and - more importantly - weak where Po is strong.

Bright Light, I love the KFP villains. I was just pointing out the absurdity of complaining about them not having parental issues for the third time. I really dont mind either way.

I don't think you need parental issues to have a good villain. Villains with parental issues is a bit overdone in media in general, I think.

Some people just want to wage war and conquer the world for power, glory, and honour. There are certainly plenty of historical examples of that. I think Kai could have fit that mould, being a warlord who was obsessed with amassing more power for himself.

I personally liked 2 best visually. 3 looked great too, of course, but I think 2 used it's graphics more effectively for storytelling, especially with the art shifts.

A good KFP villain — well, any deep villain for that matter — should have nuance and a comprehensive motivation.

Tai Lung and Shen had that.

Kai, on the other hand...

Well... why did he want to betray Oogway for more power again?

He got drunk on chi.

Which effectively is a stand in for getting drunk on power. He was a powerful general, and it corrupted him, making him a power hungry warlord who just wouldn't stop conquering.

I think they could have made a genuinely deep character out of that, if they had delved a bit deeper into that backstory, and allowed Oogway to play an active role in the movie, instead of spending most of it as a bracelet charm.

Oogway's ascension was very moving, but in hindsight, with this villain that is very personal to Oogway in particular, that was not the best decision for movie 3, because it removes the main driver of the villain's story from the movie. Or else they could have used Shifu for that, but they instead chose to make him somewhat of a butt monkey (which is a shame all on it's own, honestly).

Kai's two main motivations once returning to the mortal realm were taking all the chi and destroying Oogway's legacy, and the reason he wants to destroy Oogway's legacy was because Oogway betrayed him and had him erased from history (or at least helped).

He was also damn close to destroying Oogway's legacy at the Panda village.

I don't think it was Oogway's fault that Kai was forgotten. Remember that it had been 500 years since Kai was around. How many of you could name a random warlord from feudal China? And remember, there were a lot of warlords around back then.

Tai Lung was actually the weakest villain to me, but I don’t really consider that a bad thing. He was a perfect Starter Villain, but Shen had stronger motivations and presented a greater threat, while Kai was a lot more fun to watch and also presented a greater threat.

I also liked that he was different from the other two, but more in the sense that he always seemed to be kind of a bad guy, along with Oogway, and simply decided to STAY one instead of reforming. Like the “bad crowd” in high school that Oogway grew out of, while Kai didn’t.

But I am aware that most people didn’t seem to get that interpretation out of the warlord backstory, which I feel is a bit of a shame because I like that interpretation more than him just being another good guy turned bad.

I think that is mainly because 3 kinda rushes over that part of Oogway's backstory to focus on how evil Kai was.

Maybe they ran out of budget for that really cool Art Shift.

But I would’ve liked to learn more about their conquests together. I see Oogway back then as an Iroh sort of warlord, while Kai was more Ozai. (Wow, that comparison actually works a lot better than I thought.)