Word: panda
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...China's May 12 temblor centered in Sichuan devastated a vast area of wild habitat for endangered species, including the giant panda, Cao Qingyao, a spokesman for the State Forestry Administration, told reporters...
...even more acrobatic than anything the Furious Five have demonstrated, Po is declared the new kung fu hero. Shifu is aghast: this clown can't be taught anything. Yet Oggway believes that the accident that dropped Po out of the sky was no accident at all. The roly-poly panda is the one chosen to battle the evil master Tin Lung (Ian McShane), who'll be breaking out of prison any moment...
...things and devotes himself to the exhausting curriculum devised by his master. Shifu's exact species is a matter of some dispute among early reviewers of the film ( Entertainment Weekly describes him as a raccoon, The Seattle Times as a mouse and the McClatchy newspapers as a "tiny red panda"). But no one can debate the power of Hoffman's voice work, or the emotional nuance the creature communicates with the merest twitch of his three-strand beard...
...long-imprisoned supervillain. KFP shifts into high gear when its big baddie, Tai Lung, escapes from his prison dungeon, breaking chains, bones and the law of gravity with equal finesse. Many of the fights - Tai Lung vs. the Five Furies, or vs. Shifu or, finally, against a certain panda - are so smartly thought out and spectacularly executed that they might have been designed by an ace stunt coordinator like Yuen Wo-ping. One scene, which has Po and Shifu dueling with chopsticks, stilts and tree branches to grab the last available dumpling, is an instant classic...
...have liked Po to make greater use of his noodle-shop skills in the climactic fight. And although Black's loud, friendly, shambling screen personality makes a smooth transference to panda form, I wish Po were more persuasively drawn; visually, he's the least interesting character. But the menagerie that surrounds him is a gorgeous one. And the movie's message - that strength and discipline can't be taught, but must be discovered within - has a wise heart that matches the movie's art. That's the secret ingredient for an animated feature. That and some sublime kung-furious panda...