We saw it last weekend at the Drive-In, too, and also with the new Indiana Jones flick (which wasn’t great, I’ll admit, but I liked more than Opal did. More than Temple of Doom, for that matter.)
Surprisingly good flick. I liked it much better than I thought I would. I agree with Rik – I was thinking the same thing about that moment.
Iy was MilliCal’s first time at a drive-in, and the first time I went to a drive-in with Pepper Mill. That was a weird experience – people tailgated and picnicked and socialized a LOT more than I ever saw them do at Drive-ins before. There were lots of games of frisbee and catch. And I was delighted to see so many people reading as they waited for the film to begin.
MilliCal’s favorite part was the Panda Po trying to get in and see who the Dragon Warrior was.
We stayed until the Atomic Blast in the Indiana Jones film.
It was MilliCal’s favorite part. We’d have stayed longer, but it was getting late. Just as well – it started raining right after we left.
Pandas really are cool. We have a couple of them over here on loan from China, in the Chiang Mai Zoo up in the North. We saw them last month. A special enclosure was built for them, which looked done out in luxury style for a panda. You pay an extra fee just to see them. You have to walk through a special disinfectant solution on your way in, to be sure of not carrying in any bad germs on your shoes or sandals. They put tape over your camera flash in case you forget to turn it off. There’s a staff member who’s sole job is to shush people who are too loud, lest they disturb the pandas. We stood and stared at them for a full hour, even though all they do pretty much is shit and eat. The enclosure is divided into two, and they are allowed to mix when it’s mating time. (Although they’ve not been succesful; the female is not inetrested, even though they’ve tried showing her videotapes of panda porn. Really.) When each panda does something cute, the entire crowd runs en masse over to the other side to watch.
Saw it last night, loved it a lot more than I thought I would.
Observation: The end credit music was neat, but the lyrics were changed to edit out almost all the ‘violent’ references from the original ‘Kung Fu Fighting’. I found it oddly disonant, but the song is still enjoyable.
Observation two: Loved the ‘fight’ over the dumplings. It was a great way to do a ‘classic’ are-you-well-enough-trained-by-the-master fight without actually resorting to serious violence.
Observation three: Loved the end-of-the credits mini-scene. Made me smile.
Question: We debated on the nature of Master Shifu on the way home: Was he supposed to be a fox, or a red panda? I think he looked like the latter, but my friends don’t agree.
Question Two: For those of you more up on asian languages, does “Oogway” (as in Master Oogway) mean anything?
Master Shifu, according to Wikipedia, is a Red Panda, which is somewhere in between a Giant Panda and a Fox, and related to neither, I understand. Most likely translation of his name from Mandarin is “Master”.
A question back, was his name pronounced “Sheefu” or “Shirfu” in the movie?
Also, Wugui, which would be pronounced about the same as “Oogway”, is Mandarin for “tortoise”. Well, the same word means “Cuckold”, but I don’t think that’s what they were going for in the movie.
And, fun trivia: “Tai Lung” is Mandarin for “Too Cold”, while Po’s entrance into the square during the choosing of the Dragon Warrior is reminiscent of the story of Wan Hu, a minor official in the Ming Dynasty who was said to have had a throne rigged with rockets to launch him into space (that said, the origin of this Chinese story appears to be an American author in 1945, later introduced to the Chinese via translation)
He’s just trying to make you feel good. There is one, but it doesn’t amount to much.
Shifu and Po, almost in silhouette next to a tree against a mountain backdrop, eating from bowls with chopsticks. No dialogue, and almost no action – refrring to their earlier dumpling-duel, I suppose
Um, don’t make the mistake of taking a statement of opinion as an assertion of fact. Especially when there’s a followup post that preemptively and, IMO, completely unnecessarily, but pretty clearly, restates for the record that this is, after all, a discussion of opinion and not of fact.
Hint for the future, RW: when someone is talking about their interpretation of art or a work of art, in a CS thread, they are, ipso facto, dealing in opinion and not fact. Most of us take this as a given.
Really? I don’t believe that. From what I’ve read, dealing with art is just like dealing with any other subject on the internet…people treat their opinions as if they are established fact. If you don’t, more power to you, you’re the exception.
The wife and I watched it today and enjoyed it. It made us, too, want dumplings. For me, I wanted a particular kind specific to Shanghai called xiaolongbao, or “dragon balls” (really). The best place for dragon balls in Shanghai is the Nanxiang Steamed Bun Restaurant, in the Yuyuan Bazaar. But dragon balls have a good deal of “juice” oozing out of them. The ones in the movie seem more dry; the wife thinks they may be a kind called (at least in Thai) hakao.
There is actually a small restaurant specializing in Shanghai cuisine not too far from where we live in Bangkok, and they serve dragon balls. There was no time to go there today, but maybe soon.
My kids and I went to see Kung Fu Panda on Father’s Day.
What a great movie! I’m a huge animation fan and I have to say I’d put it in my top ten of all time. Seriously. It’s in the same league as the best of Disney, Pixar or Ghibli. The character design was absolutely gorgeous – I’d pay good money just to watch the ducks, rabbits and pigs go about their day-to-day business in the village. The martial arts sequences were beautifully choreographed. The voice acting was impeccable. The facial animation was peerless.
One of the things that impressed me most is how often the movie only hinted at things that most movies would have pounded you over the head with. For example, when Po tells his father “Sometimes I don’t think I am your son.” Well … duh … you’re a panda and your father is a duck! I was expecting his father to give the expected "Well, actually, there’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you … " speech but the film does a total fakeout. Instead he tells Po something much more important and the whole question of Po’s ancestory is left unanswered. And then you realize that it really doesn’t NEED to be answered. Does his father keep talking about “noodles in our blood” because he actually BELIEVES Po is his son, or because he needs to keep to CONVINCING himself that he is? Ambiguity? In a kid’s animated feature! It’s such a subtle, nuanced bit of characterization.
No one ever says “Wow … you were actually learning Kung Fu while you were working in the noodle shop.” But it’s obvious that Po did. No one ever says “You enjoy Kung Fu, which gives you a power that Master Shifu has forgotten,” but that’s true too. So much in Kung Fu Panda is merely hinted at, rather than stated outright. It’s a pleasure to see an animated film that treats its audience with such respect.
And what’s particularly amazing is that this masterpiece comes from Dreamworks! I loathe Shrek and its sequels – the jerky oversold animation, the inconsistent character design, the mean-spirited snarkiness, the saccharine endings, the knuckledragging pop culture references. They’re ugly, nasty, stupid movies. It’s hard to believe that Kung Fu Panda came from the same studio.
Bravo, Dreamworks! You’ve changed my low opinion of you overnight! More please!
There is a good story here about how the movie’s success has touched a cultural nerve in China.
Excerpts: "The main question being asked is: how could Western filmmakers have used Chinese themes to create such a brilliant animated movie with such widespread appeal to the Chinese themselves? Why, in other words, doesn’t China itself doesn’t seem to be able to use its rich traditions to such brilliant cinematic and commercial effect?
“There are even a few signs that a different lesson is being drawn from the film’s success, a lesson that goes to the heart of China’s cultural situation, namely that a movie like ‘Kung Fu Panda’ could only have been produced in an atmosphere of cultural and artistic freedom that China doesn’t enjoy. Or at least a few comments along those lines have leaked through the country’s carefully monitored and censored Internet sites.”
That is a fascinating article. Every time I hear about the censorship laws in China, it never fails to amaze me just how seriously oppressive they are.