Kung Fu Panda

Kung Fu Panda is the animated film that introduced kung fu to a whole generation of children. Produced by DreamWorks Animation and directed by Mark Osborne and John Stevenson, it premiered out of competition at Cannes on 15 May 2008 and opened in the US on 6 June. Made for $130 million, it grossed about $632 million worldwide.

Five styles, five animals

The Furious Five pay tribute to the animal styles of Chinese kung fu: Tigress for tiger, Crane for white crane, Mantis for praying mantis, Viper for snake and Monkey for monkey. Practitioners will recognise these families, which are real: tiger and crane are combined in hung gar, while monkey and mantis are schools in their own right. The animators took a six-hour kung fu class to study stances and footwork.

Learning before fighting

The film is mostly about the bond between master and student. Shifu realises Po will not learn like the others and turns training into a game built around food, a lesson any coach knows: start from what drives the student. The fast, readable fights borrow their staging from wuxia cinema, with production designer Raymond Zibach citing Hero, House of Flying Daggers and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.

Voices and reception

Jack Black voices Po, Dustin Hoffman plays Shifu, Angelina Jolie is Tigress, Ian McShane is Tai Lung and Jackie Chan is Monkey. The film won ten Annie Awards, including Best Animated Feature, and earned an Oscar nomination in the same category. In China it became the first animated film to pass 100 million yuan. Three sequels followed, the latest in 2024. In France it streams on Prime Video.