Kung Fu Panda

Admittedly, I'm not that keen on CG animated films compared to traditional drawn animation. For me, animation is still first and foremost about drawn cartoons that seemingly spring to life on the big screen. However, CG films have been steadily improving in their ability to show organic, "Squash and Stretch" character animation, so I must give them credit where it's due.

I just saw Dreamworks' latest film, "Kung Fu Panda", the other day and have to say that for the most part I was very impressed. As one who personally loathes the "Shrek" films, I was glad to see that "Kung Fu Panda" was refreshingly free of all the stupid pop culture humour that I usually associate with the Dreamworks product. In fact, it is a pretty good script with a slight but quite serviceable plot. Particularly impressive is the visual look of the film. The art direction is quite beautiful in its depiction of the Chinese landscape: all lyrical form and colour. As my forte is character design, I also have to state how appealing the characters are in terms of shape, colour and movement.

Martial arts films have never been my thing, so I can't say I was enthralled by all of the kung fu action, especially the battle between the "Furious Five" and the villainous Tai Lung on the bridge. However, I do understand that the filmmakers were hoping to appeal to fans of martial arts films, so I don't begrudge them skewing it to that audience where they could. From an animation point of view, though, I don't think animation has ever been the best medium to show that kind of fast action, as a lot of it fails to read clearly. Which brings me to my real concern with this film, and that is action at the expense of characterization.

In regard to characterization, I feel they did an admirable job at developing the relationship between the clumsy panda, Po, and the kung fu Master, Shifu. These animated performances I thought were top-notch. The animators deserve a lot of praise here, though I think it's only fair to acknowledge the vocals by Jack Black and Dustin Hoffman too, as these two actors gave a lot of personality in their dialogue to give the animators something really fun to animate in terms of body language and facial expression. Hoffman's performance was a real pleasure, considering this was his first role in an animated film, I believe. And the battle over the bowl of dumplings was terrific as well-choreographed visual humour.

But this is also where I have a big problem with the film, as Dreamworks has also hired a bunch of big name actors to voice the "Furious Five" group of kung fu animals. The problem is, having paid all that money to be able to put Angelina Jolie, Jackie Chan and Lucy Liu on the marquee, they haven't given them anything much to do. In fact, if I hadn't already read that they were in the cast, I'd have been none the wiser as to who the voices were, as none of them are given any significant amount of dialogue to perform, nor do any of them have particularly notable vocal qualities to begin with! Clearly, Dreamworks has only hired them for marketing purposes, as these actors really bring nothing to the table, though their relatively small amount of dialogue suggests that they really haven't been given an opportunity to show their potential either. I was hoping that Lucy Liu, in the role of a viper, might have been fun had she been allowed to revisit her "Ling" character from "Ally McBeal", for more comedic venomous dialogue. But, alas, she was denied the opportunity. As it is, these five characters don't amount to real personalities on screen, with only the Tigress showing some slight characterization as a jealous type who expected to be the chosen one.

Likewise, I felt that the Five were wasted in terms of their visual potential too. If one is using animals to portray their namesake kung fu moves, why not also use the animals' physical forms and personalities for more comedic effect in devising appropriate sight gags? When I teach "Anthropomorphism" in my Character Design class at Sheridan, one of the film clips I like to show is the soccer match from Disney's "Bedknobs and Broomsticks". This is a wonderful example of casting animals as human types, yet still allowing much of the animal's own physical traits and perceived personality to dictate the humour. All of the gags in this clip are unique to the individual animals and the way they might relate to each other in the wild. Here is that clip to illustrate what I mean. I really think "Kung Fu Panda" missed an opportunity in not utilizing the animal identities of the "Furious Five" to full effect.