Kung Fu Panda Movies - Nostalgia Critic

this episode brought to you by doordash the app that brings you food you're craving right now right to your door [Music] so [Music] [Applause] [Applause] [Music] hello i'm the nostalgia critic i remember it so you don't have to when you think of classic film trilogies that go above and beyond you might think of star wars lord of the rings back to the future and slowly but surely people are adding kung fu panda to that mix if you think that sounds ridiculous give them a shot because you clearly haven't seen them yet make no mistake the reaction you're probably having is the same everybody had when they first saw the trailer it was a 2008 jack black animated dreamworks film that was not getting many laughs from the audience and as soon as the title kung fu panda was revealed the silent reactions turned to moans everyone thought this looked terrible i guess you could blame bad advertising but i don't know how do you win people over on jack black in kung fu panda [Music] upstairs jack black then was seen as well jack black now not bad but not able to save elaine production much like the film suggests though it's not always wise to judge in appearances because this movie surprised everybody the story takes place in a fictional realm that clearly has a lot of influence from martial arts movies like seven samurai or crashing tire and dragon but with a modern sense of humor legend says you will be able to hear a butterfly's wing beat well really that's cool it centers around a panda named poe voiced by black who's a big fan boy of the furious five a group of martial artists who are actually named after martial arts techniques monkey snake mantis crane and tiger well tigers you know the same thing when one of them is about to be chosen to be the dragon warrior by their master ugwe an accident occurs flinging poe in front of his finger choosing him instead of tigress how interesting oogway doesn't believe in accidents though and demands that po be prepared to be the dragon warrior despite the furious fives and even their instructor shifu voiced by dustin hoffman wanting to get rid of them we have failed you no if the panda has not quit by morning then i will have failed you things get worse though when shifu's apprentice turned evil tai lung voiced by ian mcshane breaks loose from his prison and seeks revenge on his teacher and the dragon warrior in hopes of gaining their martial arts secrets so yeah the story isn't really anything that new and it does go the direction you think it's gonna go but it excels at giving you an amazing journey along the way just look at this intro i remember when i saw this i thought well okay i just saw the one good part of this movie but it surprisingly keeps this momentum throughout the rest of the film this is just the opening fight and it's so fast and creatively laid out you'd swear it was done in modern day not in a film that came out almost 15 years ago a lot of the animation is like that one of my favorite shots is tai long breaking out with a feather that's already a hilarious setup but he takes out a guard by stuffing his mouth with another guard's weapon launching him into the air taking out all the guards under him while he's flying unconscious and then using him to take out the last guard this is only two seconds long yet they accomplished so much in that mere two seconds going off of that this film is visually stunning i don't give the impression cg films look bad before this but they did not look this good these landscapes are jaw dropping and i'll be honest i think raised the bar for how cg films are supposed to look nowadays it's kind of odd if an animated film doesn't have impressive backgrounds in it even if it is just a kid's comedy speaking of comedy this film is legitimately hilarious and it all comes from how distinct likeable and charismatic the characters are well not all of them have a ton of screen time like i think jackie chan is the monkey has like five lines or something they are relatable you quickly gravitate towards poe wanting to be accepted and wanting to help out but you also relate to shifu and the others feeling cheated after working so hard and giving shade to po the only souvenirs we collect here are bloody knuckles and broken bones yeah however we do see everybody learning something in their own way and their own amount of time some of them warm up quickly to poe while others don't in fact the higher up and more disciplined they are the more they see poe as a threat even though one of their skills is supposed to be able to see things from different angles if you have any respect for who we are and what we do you will be gone by morning well they do see how poe can be powerful using his wade determination and even naivete of the danger he's in they find a new way to teach him seeing the world by what he values and using that as a means to help him learn even the villain has a pretty good backstory i mentioned how the higher ups are more closed off to poe being the dragon warrior and it isn't just to serve the story or lesson we're shown shifu failing his apprentice who he practically raised feeling like he needs to be less lenient and passing that harshness down to his next prodigy this movie honestly could have gotten by fine with these characters just being closed off but not only did they add a backstory but it's a backstory that explains the villain which is in our character you didn't need to explain you could have just said he wanted power but boom they combine the two together and they feed into each other really well shifu loved tai lung like he had never loved anyone before or since by having these things tied together it reinforces a lot of eastern philosophy about balance and how everything has its part to play if i had to pick one downside i guess i would say maybe the villain's personality he's by no means bad he's just not great i think they either had to make him really funny really evil or really sympathetic and they tried to do all three not that this can't work the pieces are there it's just the performance and dialogue doesn't make any of it super memorable he's a panda you're a panda finally when he's evil he's just kind of evil when he's funny he's just kind of funny and when he's tragic he's just kind of tragic honestly when i think of the emotional power this villain has i think of shifu fighting him thinking back to when he was a child that's the only real powerful scene i get out of him and it's really more shafu's point of view than what tai lung is doing but again he's not bad he's just passable in a film where everything else is spectacular and i guess a lot of our people thought that too because this film was a big hit with both audiences and critics resulting in a sequel in 2011 where they would battle their greatest enemy yet this piece of [ __ ] yeah this sequel came out the same weekend and blew this sequel out of the water and yeah i have words right after this why if it isn't skippy the skipper hello skippy it is a shame you are stupid for skipping in place will not get you food you should have tried doordash what's that skippy oh you didn't say anything it is because you are dumb because skipping in place will not feed your hunger but you could skip in place if you use your phone to order dordash this past year has taught us to savor every moment together spend less time prepping and cooking and more time with the people you love with the help of doordash that thing i just said but you wouldn't understand that would you skippy because you are skipping simpleton two words that begin with the same letter much like doordash that thing i just said skippy's a [ __ ] get what you want to eat right now and write to your doorway doordash along with the restaurants you love you can now get groceries and other essential items delivered with doordash get drinks snacks and other household items in under an hour creepy late night ice cream you 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new content six days a week hope to see you there [Music] [Applause] so on the same weekend kung fu panda was released the hangover 2 was released the reason i bring this up is because one did the exact same thing as the last film and the other went empire strikes back giving us something different deeper and even better can you guess which one more people went to see wanna have the same [ __ ] again 2011 audiences sucked the funny thing is everyone hated the second hangover i didn't find anybody that had a good time at it and i always told him you should have seen the children's film because it's ironically a lot more adult than the adult film kung fu panda 2 had the same writers but a different director this time which once in a while can be a problem not matching styles but seeing how this director went on to direct several love death and robots episodes i think it's safe to say you're in good hands in this follow up our heroes have to battle a warlord named shem played by gary oldman and where the previous villain was good but not great this villain was freaking great i didn't think i could be intimidated by a peacock but this thing is pretty damn evil the only reason you are still alive is that i find your stupidity mildly amusing well thank you not only does he look great and move great but he commands authority and presence he uses strategy and mind games to rack up a pretty massive body count and to make things even better he's still pretty funny a little to the left with the weapon by mice a little bit more the big journey in this one is poe figuring out who he really is by discovering his true past yeah spoiler he's adopted might have been kind of adopted i knew it i know this is a really old joke but by god it makes me laugh whenever it's done i even loved it when country bears did it you knew why didn't you ever say anything why didn't you say anything without going to too much detail poe's backstory again isn't anything that new but man it lays on the emotions with how dark they tell this story i seriously heard people tearing up when his past is revealed kung fu panda 2 makes people cry let's be honest that's a major accomplishment of a film with this title unlike hangover 2 though the characters also evolve it isn't a simple case of doing the same thing over again and characters are learning the same lesson the fearsome 5 really respect poe now they work well as a team it's really touching to see them try to help him on his journey poem tigers particularly have a friendship that really feels strong when you remember she wanted to get rid of him and now embraces him like a younger brother my favorite scene is just them talking deep on a boat while sparring you know faster way you know until you you know don't feel anything no it feels real a moment with jack black and angelina jolie playing a martial arts panda and tigress somehow feels real that shows a lot of care was taken in this production on top of that poe's journey once again reflects a lot of eastern philosophies on finding inner balance micho yao plays almost a second mentor that this time is trying to show him how to master the battle within after shifu has shown him how to master the physical battle and again because this is an animated fantasy comedy you can visually show what's being taught and it doesn't come across as corny or lame it matches perfectly your story may not have such a happy beginning but that doesn't make you who you are it is the rest of your story it was pretty unexpected for the first film to be as good as it was and like the hangover too it would have been easy just to do the same thing again but the fact that the filmmakers knew they were being underestimated from the start maybe encouraged them to prove themselves even more bottom line rather than turning in a hangover to i'm glad they instead turned in a rocky two with that said i guess kung fu panda three is kinda like the rocky three of the series in 2016 kung fu panda was given one more go at the big screen and thankfully it was really good but not the best this one definitely relied on its slapstick and cuteness a lot more and to its credit it was pretty good slapstick and it was pretty adorably cute i mean good god there's baby pandas in every shot it's like a million puss and boots faces filling the screen that's not to say it doesn't bring the weight so to speak poe is reunited with his father played by brian cranston and a whole slew of pandas after thinking he was the last of his kind just as he starts to settle in an evil warrior known as kai played by jk simmons leaves the spirit realm after stealing every kung fu master's chi and plans to take on the quote ultimate warrior po once more there's a slew of both little and large lessons being learned like poe has to take over shifu's teachings as he is retiring and as you'd expect he's figuring out how to teach and yet still learn at the same time the biggest thing he's trying to learn is how to be with his father who he discovers has been keeping secrets from him that could essentially cost lies were the first film centered around learning about others and the second film centered around learning about yourself this one seems to combine the two as through harsh honesty you can experience great pain but through forgiveness you can conquer it this is shown through many of the characters including poe's adopted and biological fathers who at first see poe as dividing them but later learn he can bring them together having you and poe's life doesn't mean less for me it means more for paul it's fitting that this one is all about teaching because this is probably the one where i remember the spoken lessons the most the more you take the less you have if you only do what you can do we'll never be more than you are now sometimes we do the wrong things for the right reasons the villain kind of resorts back to the first movie where he's not really bad but he's not that spectacular either again it's a good backstory and he's acted well it's just hard to outdo one that had such a major impact on the main character and enjoyed every moment of evil i'm going to take your uh chit chat in this shitty chitty chat chat chat chat chat in the chat regardless it looked nice was written nice was acted nice and was still much deeper than probably anyone was anticipating it was a decent send-off in an age where every franchise makes too many movies or milks a series dry until they end on a lackluster note this one ends in a pretty satisfactory way it's not the most epic or original but it's a good feeling you're left with and again if you were to tell me this series was going to be more balanced and deep than some other series would eventually turn out i think we'd all have a hard time believing that but maybe that's one of the things that does make it so special it is a franchise about not being underestimated that everybody underestimated it's more than just three family films it's three introductions to powerful philosophies and ways of thinking that have brought a lot of people peace and tranquility with some butt jokes thrown in that's good even the butt jokes are pretty funny because these movies understand good humor realizing that if you want the drama to hit hard the jokes also have to hit hard you can't be that invested in a hero's journey if you don't like the heroes and good humor is a wonderful way to get people to like your heroes i think it's pretty great that these movies have turned out as good as they are surprising both audiences and critics and even tricking kids into learning something that's not often taught in mainstream media it's kind of like avatar the last airbender light but it's not even that light it will dive into the heavier stuff but balance out with the awareness that it is still a comedy first and a damn funny comedy but it's also visually stunning emotionally complex philosophically knowledgeable and energetically fun if you haven't seen it check it out and see why at one point everybody was kung fu fighting [Music] oh and i just found out they're making a par for which makes this happy ending pretty obsolete [ __ ] you i'm a nostalgia critic i remember it so you don't have to that's cool we're continuing cameos for charity and all this month we're donating to living beyond breast cancer living beyond breast cancer is fulfilling its mission to provide trusted information and a community of support to those impacted by the disease they offer in-person experience as an on-demand emotional practical and evidence-based content that is meaningful to those newly diagnosed in treatment post-treatment and living with metastatic disease having done this for over 30 years and having a four-star rating on charity navigator this is definitely a great one to support so if you want a cameo from me saying happy birthday or congrats or whatever click on the link below and be giving to a good cause or if you're like 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Channel: Channel Awesome

Views: 367,795

Keywords: channel awesome, nostalgia critic, kung fu panda, kung fu panda movies, kung fu panda review, doug walker, kung fu panda 2, kung fu panda 3, kung fu panda 4, movie, films, kung fu panda franchise, kung fu panda is a masterpiece, animation, best animated movies, new kung fu panda movie, kung fu panda reaction, lord shen, dreamworks, dreamworks kung fu panda, kung fu panda villains, kung fu panda video essay, jack black, gary oldman, video essay, kung fu, kung fu panda movie

Id: ZRXPpWdaSGw

Length: 19min 1sec (1141 seconds)

Published: Wed Aug 24 2022