Kung Fu Panda 3 (2016)

Kung Fu Panda 3 (2016)

6/10

Starring the voices of

Jack Black
Bryan Cranston
Dustin Hoffman
Angelina Jolie

Directed by Jennifer Yuh Nelson

Kung Fu Panda 3 didn’t wind me up as much as I thought it would, this third part is filled with easy to swallow gags, action packed fun and a nice family friendly theme, but the story was dull.

One thing I love about this franchise which makes me give it a 6/10 is the way the writers and director never leave any one of the movie open ended, every movie can stand alone and you don’t have to wait years to see the end of a tale begun in part 2.

Jennifer Yuh Nelson returns as director (although she didn’t direct the first installment) and Melissa Cobb returns a producer of the franchise.

For me the first movie in the series did the job for me and the follow-ups to this Dreamworks 3D animation film, has never quite lived up to the first.

It is like in every film Po’s dragon warrior status is being tested and he has to upgrade to a new level of dragon warrior Kung Fu master to defeat the new foe. In this one he had to step up by going between worlds (spiritual and mortal) to become a chi master.

The protagonist (Kai) this time is a blast from the past way back in the past of Grand Master Oogway. Kai has decided to take the chi of everyone into himself, to make himself stronger. Kai’s quest brought us face to face with Po’s father and the other Pandas who have been tagged, “no longer in existence”. This is something we can relate to from the second movie when Lord Shen led an army of wolves to exterminate the panda population to avert the prophecy that "a warrior of black and white" will defeat him.

We learned that some Pandas survived and are living together in a secret colony. When Po’s biological father Li learned of his son’s existence, he went out looking for him and soon found him, taking him to their colony by promising to teach him to master chi.

Kai and Oogway met with a Panda colony way back when where Oogway learned the way of the chi, which Kai wanted for himself and Oogway had to banish him to the spirit world. Kai found his way back to the mortal world after being locked away for more than 500 years and he is continuing his quest to absorb all the chi and be stronger than anyone else.