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Editor's Note
With 2008's KUNG FU PANDA, the talking-animal CGI film enters a new era, one that makes room for both painterly artwork and fierce martial-arts action. Po (voiced by Jack Black), a clumsy and ever-hungry panda, is a huge kung fu fan, but seems destined to sell noodles like his father, Mr. Ping (James Hong), who inexplicably happens to be a goose. When Po literally crashes a ceremony involving martial-arts masters Shifu (Dustin Hoffman) and Oogway (Randall Duk Kim) and their pupils, the Furious Five--which includes Tigress (Angelina Jolie, in a surprisingly small part) and Crane (David Cross)--he ends up being selected by the latter elder as the revered Dragon Warrior. As the skeptical Shifu reluctantly trains the hapless Po, his former star pupil, Tai Lung (Ian McShane), escapes from a high-security prison, setting up a collision course between the bumbling bear and the powerful villain. One of the finest animated films released under the Dreamworks banner, KUNG FU PANDA deftly avoids many of the pitfalls of the genre (i.e. cheesy musical sequences), juggling action, heart, and humor in a highly entertaining way. While Black (in endearingly restrained mode), Hoffman, Kim, and McShane voice their characters with verve, the real stars of PANDA are directors Mark Osborne and John Stevenson and their animators, who lovingly depict ornate Chinese chambers and vast mountainous vistas, as well as blazing kung fu battles. A movie with remarkably wide appeal, KUNG FU PANDA delivers on its quirky, high-concept title with gleeful aplomb.
| Features | Region 1 | | Widescreen - 1.85 | | Audio:
| Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo - English, French, Spanish | | Dolby Digital 5.1 - English, French, Spanish | | Subtitles - English, French, Spanish |
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| Technical Info
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Release Information
|  | Studio: Paramount Home Video |
| Release Date: 9/29/2009 |
| Running Time: 88 minutes |
| Original Release Date: 2008 | | UPC: 00032429071910 | | Number of Discs: 1 |
Audio & Video
| | Video: Color |
| Cast & Crew | Jonathan Aibel - Screenwriter | | Cyrus Voris - Story | | Glenn Berger - Screenwriter | | Randall Duk Kim - Voice | | Dan Fogler - Voice | | Angelina Jolie - Voice | | Hans Zimmer - Composer | | Bill Damaschke - Executive Producer | | James Hong - Voice | | Jonathan Aibel - Co-Producer | | Lucy Liu - Voice | | Michael Clarke Duncan - Voice | | Jackie Chan - Voice | | Seth Rogen - Voice | | David Cross - Voice | | Ethan Reiff - Story | | Melissa Cobb - Producer | | Dustin Hoffman - Voice | | Jack Black - Voice | | Glenn Berger - Co-Producer | | Ian McShane - Voice | | John Stevenson - Director | | Mark Osborne - Director |
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| | Professional Reviews | Entertainment Weekly
"[T]he fight scenes, which are the heart of the film, are lickety-split mad fun..." -- Grade: A- 06/13/2008 p.49Los Angeles Times
"[I]t looks fantastic....[The filmmakers] have inserted vast, moody, misty landscapes, fanciful interiors and traditional Chinese colors to give the movie an epic, expansive, ancient quality that's a real pleasure to inhabit." 06/06/2008 New York Times
"At once fuzzy-wuzzy and industrial strength...KUNG FU PANDA is high concept with a heart....Visually arresting." 06/06/2008 Sight and Sound
"[H]ighly entertaining....Full of verve, visual panache and sock-it-to-you action scenes." 08/01/2008 p.68 Empire
4 stars out of 5 -- "There's a level of visual beauty here that's a notch above anything DreamWorks has attempted before..." 08/01/2008 p.62 Premiere
"The animation is beautiful, from the ethereal Sacred Peach Tree of Heavenly Wisdom to the elegant Jade Palace and its Moon Pool." 06/05/2008 Total Film
3 stars out of 5 -- "Armed with a sublimely silly concept and an A-list voice cast....This is energetic, exciting and consistently funny..." 12/01/2008 p.135 |
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