Remember Master Oogway the turtle? Yea, we start from there.
In the spirit realm, an evil master named Kai collected every master’s chi and went after the last one standing: Oogway.
Oogway became a jade pendant, one of the many Kai had collected – and with that, Kai had all that he needed to return to the living realm.
Before he turned into a mini stone, Oogway warned Kai of the one master of chi who would defeat him. And Kai swore to finding this master of chi and defeat him.
I love this turtle. Damn you, Kai. And yes, this is Kai.
Meanwhile, in the living realm, Master Shifu decided to retire and pass the teacher role to Po. And that went horribly wrong. Po could not teach, and he made everyone suffer.
The big question that kept on coming up throughout the movie was: Who was Po?
He was a Panda, but was he really one? And if he didn’t even know who he was, how could he be a teacher?
Post his failure as a teacher, Po went home to take a sad bath. His father Ping, told Po to get out and back to fight, instead of drowning sadly in a mini tub.
Then, out of nowhere, Po’s biological father, Li Shan, showed up, broke Po’s bun-eating record, and bonded with his long lost son.
I know, I know, a lot happened in this movie. And this movie was pretty fast paced.
So Po took Li around and showed him the cool stuff, all to make his biological father proud. In a way, Po wanted to prove himself worthy to someone.
Around the same time, Kai created chaos in trying to find the Dragon Warrior, the one who was promised to beat him.
Now, I know most of you have seen this movie, and it is pointless to talk about the story line. However, it is a good wrap of the trilogy.
We finally got to see Po’s clan – the big Panda community hiding in a secret Panda Village. And everyone was adorable, except for he ribbon dancer whose stare haunted me for few hours after the movie ended.
The backstory made sense when put together, and it all came together beautifully. The animation was great, if not amazing enough for you, and the dialogues were hilarious.
Po kept on growing, and this time into a master of Chi, and finally, we got to see the real Dragon Warrior.
“Am I the son of a panda? Or am I the son of a goose? Am I a student? Am I a teacher?”
“I am everything.”
At first, I was really worried that the usual cartoon cliche would overpower the story line, but anything cliche was handled well in this movie. If anything, they were properly done, and at times, necessary.
The villain Kai so far was the baddest of them all, and he, just like any other cartoon villain, had no real purpose in winning. He was, however, funny, and he even approved of Po’s fascination towards legends.
I respected the fact that Kai used the other masters to fight against Po and his Panda army, but never sent Oogway to hurt any of them. The writers clearly respected Oogway as an honorable character, and that is something I truly appreciated.
On character development, we saw Po figuring out who he was, Tigress finding her soft spot, and Ping seeing more for Po than for himself. And it was good. I had no complaints in that department.
I give Kung Fu Panda 3 an 8/10. I think it’s a must watch. It’s truly entertaining and funny – and we all gotta learn to roll like pandas.
OpinionHuis 