Vengeance is po-faced in Kung Fu Panda II

10 April 2012

The film-makers did a recce to the mountains of Chengdu in China's Sichuan province before making this sequel. The opening sequence has enough Chinoiserie to prove that the journey wasn't just an excuse for a jolly.

In it, we see the dastardly Lord Shen, voiced by a gruff Gary Oldman, misusing the gift of fireworks to make a weapon with which to conquer China. Only a black and white warrior can defeat him, and it is soon evident that he is Po, the Kung Fu Panda (Jack Black, mercifully not seen but heard). He has some help from the Furious Five, who include the voices of Angelina Jolie as Tigress, Jackie Chan's Monkey, Seth Rogen's Mantis, Lucy Liu's Viper and David Cross's Crane.

There are some newcomers too, such as Danny McBride as the one-eyed general of Shen's wolf army and a trio of kung fu masters, one of whom is Jean-Claude Van Damme. What with Michelle Yeoh as a soothsaying sheep and Dustin Hoffman somewhere around too, it's a wonder that anyone was left in Hollywood to take up the slack.

The result, however, depends less on its well-paid voices than on computer animation which is bright and inventive throughout: 3D aerial views of the battle of Gongmen City vie with sets, costumes and misty landscapes so carefully constructed they look real.

Just as well since Po's voyage of self-discovery is a trifle hard to take at the end - his dad was apparently a goose who makes noodles - and sentimentality is never very far away. You can be sure that we are going to see more of Po in the future. Director Jennifer Yuh Nelson has done her best to ensure a child-friendly movie that parents can sit through too.

Kung Fu Panda 2
Cert: PG

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in