Critique: Kung Fu Panda (Film) 1/2

A panda called Po lives in the Valley of Peace, working for the noodle shop of his goose father, Mr Ping. Po worships great kung fu masters known as the Furious Five. This film is the story of Po being selected by Grand Master Oogway to join their world, with Master Shifu reluctant to train him.

 

*****SPOILERS*****

 

This post contains positive points. These includes: spoken words with high impact; Po’s kung fu journey; Grand Master Oogway; Tai Lung; similarities between Tigress and Tai Lung; and animation.

 

 

GOOD

 

There were three times that the words spoken had a very high impact.

One of Oogway’s lines has stuck with me. “Yesterday’s history, tomorrow is a mystery. Today is a gift. That is why it is called the present.” Rhyme plus word play equals much appreciation.

The first time Master Shifu uses Po’s actual name, it’s when Po’s ready for the Dragon Scroll. This happens very late in the film so it’s a very noticeable change. That was touching.

Mr Ping tells Po his secret ingredient: nothing. “To make something special, you just have to believe it’s special.” Hence Po understand why the Dragon Scroll was empty, why all it did was act as a mirror.

 

Many great decisions were made by the creators regarding Po’s kung fu journey.

Shifu trains Po with, and via, food. Defend the food, balancing the food, sneaking to the food, rewarded with food… it was a funny montage and a smart idea. Them fighting for a dumpling with chopsticks was simply epic.

Shifu uses peach blossom to get the Dragon Scroll down from the ceiling. The last time Shifu was near peach blossom, it was when Oogway became peach blossom, so it’s almost like Oogway gave Po the scroll.

Tai Lung fights Po for the Dragon Scroll. Po’s flabbiness provide but bounce and resisting attacks. Po uses noodles (i.e. his father’s life) to lasso Tai Lung. Po uses bamboo stilts and frying pans to hide the scroll, mixing them for Tai Lung, mimicking the Po-Shifu dumpling scene with bowls and chopsticks.

 

Two specific details got me thinking, leading to great appreciation.

In Po’s dream, the enemies are wolves, snow leopards, crocodiles and water buffalo. Each of these are Po’s enemies in future films. This water buffalo enemy is reinforced when Po has one painted on his wall which he throws ninja stars at.

Tai Lung throws the messenger goose into the air, bringing a message of Tai Lung’s coming. The way Tai Lung throws the messenger goose looks exactly like how someone throws a dove into the air, a bird that brings a message of peace. But instead his brings a message of conflicts.

 

Grand Master Oogway was a fantastic character.

Showing great physical prowess, Grand Master Oogway balances on his staff via his head. But then Oogway looks to struggle as he walks over to then blows out the candles. At first, one wonders how he can do something so physically challenging but then struggle to do ordinary things. As a tortoise, he would do everything slowly so this imagery isn’t contradictory.

Oogway has a vision of Tai Lung escaping so Shifu sends a messenger goose to the prison, asking for more security. Oogway says our actions often lead to what we try to prevent. This turns out to be true (Tai Lung escapes using one of the feathers of the messenger goose). It reminds me of BBC’s ‘Merlin’: every time they tried to prevent a specific future, that specific future came about because of their actions

 

Tai Lung, being the antagonist, received a lot of thought into his design.

Tai Lung is on an isolated pillar, heavy chains hanging off his wrists and dangling over the sides. This was a smart detail. Tai Lung’s in a tortoise-like shell that immobilises him. (Oogway captured Tai Lung with a paralyzing technique, so a tortoiseshell immobilised him in the past and immobilises him in the present.)

Master Shifu’s moustache as a younger adult has a particular shape and size. Tai Lung’s moustache as an adult is a direct copy of Master Shifu’s moustache in younger days. A lovely detail and tribute to his Master/father.

 

Tigress and Tai Lung’s stories are similar.

Both are big cat species. Both were adopted by Shifu. Both were trained since they were cubs. Both are amazing at Kung Fu. Both wanted to be the Dragon Warrior. Both their names start with the ‘tie’ sound. The main differences are how they were treated by Shifu and how they turned out. Tai Lung received love and praise yet turned in be immoral. Tigress received orders and criticism, turning out to be moral.

The Furious Five couldn’t defeat Tai Lung. Maybe the praise and love Shifu gave Tai Lung growing up was vital for making him as talented as he is. It was filling Tai Lung with arrogance and ideas of grandeur that turned him immoral.

 

 

Animation

 

The animating decisions in this film were stunning. Giving every species their own kung fu style based on their animals showed lots of attention went into the smallest of details.

The moon fisher on the DreamWorks logo has an Asian feel, wearing the typically Vietnamese conical hat.

One scene fades between Shifu in bright sunshine to mountains in dark snow. The contrast between these scenes was amazing. The vector of this change is snow, making it seem like the snow made it dark (much like falling snow does in real life). This fading was done at a jaunty angle, a decision that often elevates visuals.

The prison guards are rhinos. The leader’s horn was unique, having a golden cap and a forward-leaning horn. This allowed the leader to be easily distinguishable whilst retaining the large majority of details identical with the other copy-and-paste rhino guards.

The eyes of both Tigress and Tai Lung glow in low light. This is a good reflection of real life. Plus it highlights that there are many similarities between the two.

When Grand Master Oogway dies, he is surrounded by peach blossoms and transforms into them, keeping his tortoise shape amongst the swirling before it all drifted up into the sky to look like stars.

The place where Grand Master Oogway unravelled the mysteries of kung fu has land and water, curved in the shape of yin yang. I liked this detail.

As Po becomes better at kung fu, we get a training montage. The animation style used during this sequence matches with that of Po’s dream at the start of the film, the one with a legendary theme. How heroes become a hero is always an important part of their legend.

Tigress and Tai Lung fight hanging upside down from a bridge. This was so clever.

 

Why I Disagree with Hunting

I’m not anti-meat. It’s an unfortunate part of life that humans can’t survive without consuming other living beings (meat, plant and fungi). Some people require meat for medical reasons. Others don’t have access (physically, dietarily or monetarily) to meat alternatives. This means that meat is necessary for humans to stay alive.

 

Farm animals are bred specifically to be eaten. Wild animals are not. Plus, there are more than enough farm animals to feed everyone. This makes killing wild animals unnecessary, excess deaths. Why should they die when we already have an alternative?

 

The amount of farmed meat that is wasted each year is horrendous. If all those excess farm animals go to waste, killing wild animals only exacerbates the problem. Also, it’s a bit of a kick in the teeth to farm animals being killed for us to eat them, and then for them to go to waste because someone’s eating a wild animal.

 

 

*In regards to tribal people and the extremely poor, hunting is necessary. Tribal societies often use all of an animal so that it’s not wasted. I think this is really important. If an animal’s going to give its life for us, we should respect it.

 

Also, consider the UK.

It has no large predators which means herbivores (like deer) aren’t naturally kept in check. This leads to overgrazing which damages the plants and imbalances the whole ecosystem, making every living organism’s life harder.

So deer need to be culled to keep the ecosystem healthy. (That, or reintroduce large predators to the islands. The British public would never allow that.)

They aren’t unnecessary deaths, unlike the majority of hunting. Using their bones, meat and hide is respectful because then they aren’t going to waste. Their deaths are legitimate.

Why does the Hebrew day start at sunset?

At first glance, this seems counterintuitive: the day happens during sunlight, so why start the day when sunlight ends?

However, it’s not that the Hebrew day starts at sunset but that it ends at sunset: the day ends when the sun goes. If a day ends at sunset, then the next one has to start at sunset.

If we were to define the start of the day at sunrise, for example, this would mean the end of the previous day was also be sunrise. Saying the day ends at sunrise is likewise weird. Yet this is just a consequence of cycles.

 

Different systems start the day at different times.

            For example, the international day starts at midnight. If noon is the middle of a continuous time of sunlight, then either side of it has to be the same day. This means that the opposite of noon (midnight) is the only remaining option for one day transitioning into the next.

            Within astronomy, the day begins at noon. This is so that their observations of a single night are recorded as happening on the same date. Otherwise astronomers would have to split each date into two halves (for the night at the start of the date and the night at the end of the date) which would be too cumbersome.

Judaism isn’t the only religion to start the day at sunset. This trait is also found in Paganism: they begin their celebrations for a specific date on the sunset before. Considering that Pagan events are determined by the lunar cycle, it makes sense for a single night to be part of the same day. So Pagans share the same date-start as Hebrews yet for the same reason as astronomers.

 

With many systems choosing different points to start the day, why did Hebrews choose sunset?

The justification is in Genesis 1:5 which says: ‘There was evening and there was morning, the first day.’ That is, the first day consisted of the evening and then the morning. Before Genesis 1:5, it says God separated night from day.

If God separated light from darkness, and then it was evening, and evening is the start of the day, then that evening was the start of the first day. Does that mean God separating light from darkness didn’t happen during a day? Or maybe evening is the separation of light hours from dark hours so a day would start at that cusp?

But the way Genesis is written, with what God does and then saying ‘there was evening and then morning, the first/second day’, it reads like the event happens on that named day. Indeed, when it says the sixth day, no event follows it other than God resting on the seventh day. So unless nothing happened on the sixth day, the established interpretation isn’t accurate.

 

 

I didn’t expect so much detail to come from the question.

Considering its cyclical nature, there’s no wonder that days start at different points for different reasons. Even the term ‘day’ is ambiguous, being used to mean daytime and also for both daytime and nighttime together. Hence choosing when a day starts will always be a subjective perspective rather than an objective fact. Such a simple question for a revealing answer!

So why does the Hebrew day (sunlight) start at sunset? The basic answer is that it starts at sunset because the previous day ended at sunset. The Biblical answer is that the first day started at sunset. Considering that reading the Bible doesn’t give this impression, I’d go with the basic answer.