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Thread: Kung Fu Panda 2: The Kaboom Of Doom

  1. #31
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    The buzz machine is moving...

    Beyond the tofu promotion, I hear there's a raisin one too. And there's surely more. Big promo on this. It's set to be the big summer rush opener.

    That being said, this article has a great angle on the film.

    Jolie, Black perfect for 'Kung Fu Panda 2'
    By Scott Bowles, USA TODAY

    LOS ANGELES — With an Oscar, Brad Pitt as a beau and a face as recognizable as any on the planet, Angelina Jolie doesn't fluster easily.

    The personalities of Jack Black (kinetic energy) and Angelina Jolie (reserved tenor) have worked their way into the Kung Fu Panda franchise.

    Stick her in a recording studio with her kids, though, and she's a jangle of nerves.

    "They know when Mommy's funny and when Mommy's not funny," she says over tea at Hollywood's Roosevelt Hotel.

    Jolie, who stars opposite Jack Black in Kung Fu Panda 2 (in theaters May 26), says her six children — Maddox, 9, Pax, 7, Zahara, 6, Shiloh, 4, and twins Knox and Vivienne, 2 — were fixtures on the set and became "part agents, part managers."

    "They'll sit in a room and say, 'That's just not funny,' " Jolie, 35, says of the brood, half of whom are adopted and half who are biologically hers and Pitt's. Young scrutiny, she says, "will keep you competitive, even if they think Jack Black is always cooler than Mom."

    The movie, a follow-up to the 2008 animated hit, reunites Jolie, Black and stars including Dustin Hoffman and Jackie Chan. Analysts expect it to eclipse $200 million and to help redeem Hollywood's substandard spring at the box office.

    But for Jolie and Black, the movie provided some unexpected parental moments.

    Jolie and Pitt worried whether the sequel, which addresses adoption and non-traditional families, would create tension in the household, particularly among the adopted children. They braced for a sit-down that never came.

    Black, 41, used the film to connect with his sons Thomas, 4, and Samuel, 2, who still don't know he's the title character, panda bear Po.

    DreamWorks Animation

    Angelina Jolie voices kung fu master Tigress. Daughter Zahara, 6, loves tigers.

    "The kids just think Kung Fu Panda is an actual bear," he says. "But we act out our own scenes, go on our own adventures. The story gets a little disjointed; we usually forget our mission by the time we get in the living room. But we don't care. I'm learning my kids are funnier than I am."
    Big shoes to fill

    Creating a funnier film than the predecessor will be a tall order for director Jennifer Yuh Nelson, who served as an artist on the original film. That movie raked in $632 million domestically and overseas, making it the third-biggest movie worldwide in 2008.

    If Jolie and Black are nervous about reaching those numbers again, it doesn't show.

    Both say the decision to do a sequel was a no-brainer. Like a lot of Hollywood parents, stars are flocking to animated movies to not only have something to see with their children but also to impress them.

    The original film "was one of the kids' favorite movies," Jolie says.

    On a movie like Panda 2, "it's about the children," she says. "If you look at your own children, you want to do something you know will be better than the first one. You want to make sure it's what they want — and that you're good enough."

    She may have an Oscar (for 1999's Girl, Interrupted), but Jolie asked herself regularly during filming whether she was good enough. Men might like her voice. Jolie hates it.

    DreamWorks Animation

    Po the panda (voiced by Jack Black) and Monkey (Jackie Chan) are poised to pounce on a villain who is out to conquer China.

    "You know, when you hear your own voice, you can find it quite boring and uninteresting," she says. "Suddenly, you get very shy that your voice is not enough, because I'm not musical and I don't know my voice."

    Black's ears perk up as Jolie talks about her early auditions for voice-over work. She says she was so nervous about getting jobs that she brought dozens of zany voices she plucked from thin air, including a crude Mae West imitation.

    "You mean like, 'Come up and see me sometime?' " Black asks in a husky breath.

    "That sounds more like Bogart doing Mae West," Jolie says. Black rolls his eyes. "Uh, that was Bogart in drag."
    Mutual admiration

    Though they didn't share the soundstage once in filming Panda 2, the movie marks the third animated movie they've done together. Before the original Panda, the two paired on 2004's Shark Tale.

    The years have created a rapport between the two, one they say began on their introduction at Cannes seven years ago for Shark Tale.

    "I was crazy about him," Jolie says. "I had seen him in everything he'd done, but what I really knew him for was music." Black is half of the mock-rock duo Tenacious D, whose tunes include Wonderboy, Rock Your Socks and Kyle Quit the Band.

    "I don't have musical talent, so I always thought it was really cool that he could be an actor to a lot of us but equally a rock star," she says.

    Black, who is usually quick with a retort, is clearly shaken by the fandom.

    How can you tell? When Black is nervous, he gets sincere.

    "When I first met Angie, I was clearly taken aback by her beauty," he says. "She has a powerful presence."

    And a photo-friendly one. During their introduction, Black and Shark Tale co-star Will Smith persuaded her to join them on a ride along the Mediterranean in a boat shaped like a shark to hawk the film.

    "You were stuck in a sandwich between me and Will," Black recalls. "We wanted to do it, but you were the only one who said, 'Uh, guys, I'm not sure about this.' But we convinced you."

    "I don't think I could have let you guys go alone," she says. "That would have just looked too weird."

    Black nods. "Yeah, that could have definitely changed the dynamic of the photo shoot."

    With that, their yin and yang personalities became an element of the franchise.
    'Close to the subject matter'

    Black is all kinetic energy, on the screen and behind the mike.

    "Jack works it all out," director Nelson says, recalling days when Black would attempt all the kung fu moves of his cartoon doppelgänger. "He'd leave the session covered in sweat."

    Jolie, meanwhile, provided a reserved tenor for the warrior Tigress while providing behind-the-scenes counsel to Nelson. The director says that she knew the story of Po's search for his biological father would strike a chord with Jolie.

    "She is so close to the subject matter, we had to treat it with a good deal of respect," Nelson says. "Actually, a lot of the crew who had experiences with adoption had a positive response to what we were doing."

    Inside, though, Jolie was nervous, especially when she and Pitt took the children to the DreamWorks studios to see an unfinished print of the movie.

    "I wondered how they'd respond to the themes of the film," she says, adding that she and Pitt were "sensitive to see if there was going to be a big discussion that night about adoption and orphanages."
    'Our own focus group'

    There wasn't. "But that's because we talk about those issues at my house all the time, very openly. We've had those discussions so often, they're such happy, wonderful discussions."

    It made Jolie grateful that she regularly brought the children to recording sessions.

    "We've got kids of all ages," Jolie says. "So we joked that we had our own focus group."

    An unflinching one, apparently. Jolie says she was prepared during early sessions for her kids to grow impatient watching her speak into a microphone.

    But it became live-action theater. "When they're there and they hear you making kung fu sounds and jumping around, you can see them giggling through the glass," she says. "It makes you go that much further."

    And occasionally compete more fiercely. While Jolie says the cast of Kung Fu Panda has formed its own ragtag family, sibling rivalry occasionally surfaces at home. "The little ones don't understand yet," she says. "They like Tigress, though they might not know why. The older kids get it. Zahara loves tigers."

    Pandas, too. Jolie concedes that she has tried to sway kids from Team Po to Team Tigress.

    "Oh, there's a little competition in our house," she says. "I tell them, 'I know you like Po. But come on. Mom's cool too, right?' "
    Gene Ching
    Publisher www.KungFuMagazine.com
    Author of Shaolin Trips
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  2. #32
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    KFP at Cannes

    I just got this press release and am posting this photo from it.

    Photo credit: Lucian Capellaro / Paramount
    Gene Ching
    Publisher www.KungFuMagazine.com
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  3. #33
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    Chewing up Cannes like bamboo canes...

    Over 1K articles on the newsfeeds this morning about KFP.
    Jolie, Black seek "inner peace" in Kung Fu Panda 2
    Thu May 12, 2011 10:41am EDT

    At a sometimes surreal press conference to promote the movie at the Cannes film festival on Thursday, the topics of discussion ranged from violence in film to China to adoption, although Black never allowed proceedings to get too serious.

    "My inner peace is in pieces at the moment," he quipped to a large crowd of reporters in a plush hotel ballroom.

    Kung Fu Panda 2 is the sequel to the successful 2008 original which earned $632 million at the international box office, and Black said there would be further sequels should the movies continue to succeed commercially.

    In Kung Fu Panda 2, portly panda hero Po, voiced by Black, must find inner calm to defeat his nemesis Lord Shen, an evil pea**** played by Gary Oldman who sets out to conquer China with an "unstoppable" weapon and to destroy kung fu once and for all.

    He also discovers that he is adopted -- not a major surprise to movie goers considering his "father" is a goose.

    Oscar-winner Jolie provides the voice for Tigress, while Dustin Hoffman portrays Master Shifu, Po's mentor in a story set in ancient China against backdrops of lush forests, towering temples and crowded cities.

    Although Kung Fu Panda 2 is not in the main Cannes line-up, the festival welcomes such blockbusters because they attract A-list stars like Jolie and generate the kind of buzz among media and fans on which the annual event thrives.

    Jolie is in France with her family, and partner Brad Pitt is expected on the red carpet later in the festival for his part in Terrence Malick's in-competition "The Tree of Life".

    ADOPTION A "HAPPY WORD"

    The actress said the fact that Po discovers he is adopted in the movie meant her three adopted children felt closer to the character. She also has three biological children.

    "I brought my children to see the movie and they absolutely love the movie ... and I wondered whether they'd ask me questions about it.

    "But because 'adoption' and 'birth mothers' and 'orphanage' and all that in our home these are happy words, they're used to these discussions and they just felt that much more proud that they were a little more like Po."

    Asked about the violence in the film, Black replied: "It (the film) discourages weaponry. I don't like guns. I don't own one. I like laser blasters. That's where I draw the line."

    Hoffman said the first movie he ever saw was the cartoon "Bambi", which contained surprisingly disturbing scenes.

    "You can connect Bambi and Pinocchio to violence," said the 73-year-old Oscar winner. "In Bambi there was a big fire in the woods. I literally remember bursting out crying and leaving because all the animals were being killed by fire."

    Asked whether he thought pandas had "existential moments", Black replied:

    "Maybe they do for brief moments, gnawing on a bamboo shoot they think what is life all about? What is the point in this meaningless universe that goes on forever? May be all life forms have fleeting moments of existentiality. You can print that." (Reporting by Mike Collett-White, editing by Paul Casciato)
    Gene Ching
    Publisher www.KungFuMagazine.com
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  4. #34
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    There's a lot of buzz

    I liked this article because Black comments on his kung fu training.
    Jack Black knows kung fu!

    By ANNIE S. ALEJO
    May 18, 2011, 11:37am

    MANILA, Philippines - In the book “Kung Fu (I): An Elementary Chinese Text” (Jamieson, Lao, Zhao/Chinese University Press), it is said that kung fu is now also used in context unrelated to martial arts. In fact, colloquially, it is said to also refer to any individual accomplishment or skill cultivated through long and hard work. If this is truly the case, then Jack Black is practically an expert at kung fu.

    From a career start on television, appearing in shows like “Northern Exposure” and even “The X-Files,” he slowly made his way around Hollywood with another series of small roles in such movies as Sylvester Stallone’s “Demolition Man” and Tim Robbins’ “Dead Man Walking.”

    By 2000, he would play a wild record store employee alongside John Cusack in “High Fidelity” in what many consider to be his breakout role. Since then, the “Jack Black comedy” has become known to moviegoers around the world. For kids, though, Black is the voice behind Po, the once lumbering, lazy eating machine of a panda who later transforms into a Kung fu fighter.

    Black’s own amazing journey of late is also tied in with the journey of Po, the panda. Black recalls, “When I finally saw the whole thing put together (“Kung Fu Panda”) it was one of the proudest moments of my career. It takes many years to make one of these movies—a lot longer than a regular live-action film.”

    More than voice acting, though, Black reveals his work on the “Kung Fu Panda” franchise allowed him to gain a much deeper appreciation of martial arts. “Yes, I did some training in kung fu, for both films,” he says, just as “Kung Fu Panda 2” nears its theatrical release date.

    “It wasn’t just for research purposes,” Black insists, if a little seriously. “It was also to kind of get in shape. What really drew me is that there’s a combination of exercise and self-defense, along with a third, sort of unseen, component: a spiritual one. When you’re really practicing kung fu, living it and feeling it, there’s a meditative quality that seeps in. It feels almost religious. It’s an art form, really. Oh, well, duh, it’s called martial arts.”

    Black welcomes the opportunity to revisit his character to give viewers a chance to delve deeper into Po’s background. “Now, Po is having flashbacks of his childhood, before he lived with his father, who’s a goose. So he comes to realize that he’s actually adopted, and he doesn’t know where his birth parents are or what happened to the other pandas. Why did they give him up?

    “So in addition to this being a hero’s journey to save the day, it’s also a journey of self-discovery,” Black relates. And as he begins to look into his real identity, “it just so happens that these questions arise at the same time that a new villain, Lord Shen, the pea****, arrives on the scene. Mysterious, no?”

    Appearing in the first “Kung Fu Panda” has also given Black a lot of interesting experiences. “I got to go to the Atlanta Zoo, and see the latest panda born in captivity… and they named him Po,” Black shares recently. “Wow. I’d say that’s a pretty big deal. He’s not ready for a throw-down yet, but give him time. He’s gonna be one heck of a panda, I just know it.”

    And another offshoot of working on the “Kung Fu Panda” movies is a forged friendship with his co-star Angelina Jolie, who plays Tigress.

    Jolie—who loved making the “Panda” movies because, “You get to come to work in your pajamas,” she jokes—described the films as “fun and cool and hip” bit with “a sense history and culture” and “how to behave, how to treat your friends.” But she adds, “But mostly, it has Jack Black, which I feel is the main reason people went to see it—it would be my reason! He’s so funny, and the dynamic between him and the Five, it’s almost a classic dysfunctional family.”

    A mutual fondness between Black and Jolie was also evident when, in 2008, back at Cannes where “Kung Fu Panda” first screened, it was the former that inadvertently spilled the beans on the latter’s pregnancy with twins. Prior to that time, Jolie and partner Brad Pitt had been mum on the subject but the expectant mom, while caught off-guard, did not seem to mind.

    Speaking to OK! Magazine in the US, Black told the story what he considers as a gesture from Jolie. As published online on May 11, Black shared, “You [Jolie] were preggers, and I spilled the beans. And my wife, Tanya, was like, `That is the most amazing maternity dress I’ve ever seen…'" Black’s wife was also pregnant at that time.

    “And then, what do we get in the mail like the next week? That gown. You sent it over. It was one of the sweetest gifts of all time,” Black gushed to Jolie.

    Black and Jolie also came back out to Cannes this year to promote the “Kung Fu Panda 2,” this time with Dustin Hoffman (who voices Master Shifu). Jolie was accompanied by Pitt.

    This would be Black and Jolie’s third trip together to the festival. Aside from 2008’s “Kung Fu Panda” premiere, they had shared the Cannes red carpet back in 2004 when they did voice for the animated movie “Shark Tale,” with Will Smith.

    “That float on the ‘Shark’ was the beginning of a blossoming friendship,” Jolie told OK! “That was our bonding moment.”

    “Kung Fu Panda 2” opens locally on May 24.
    Gene Ching
    Publisher www.KungFuMagazine.com
    Author of Shaolin Trips
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  5. #35
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    Opens this weekend

    The big Memorial Day weekend! I'm slated to see a screener tomorrow.
    'Kung Fu Panda 2' director puts emotions in action
    Michael Ordońa, Special to the Chronicle
    Sunday, May 22, 2011

    Jennifer Yuh Nelson speaks softly and carries a big Sharpie.

    "The nice thing about being able to draw is it's less open to interpretation, so people can look at it and say, 'Yeah, that's what we all agreed on.' They can have ideas in their heads that end up all being different from each other, so it's a good consensus tool," the director of "Kung Fu Panda 2" says with a laugh.

    Glen Berger, who with Jonathan Aibel wrote both animated "Panda" movies, says, "We're talking and talking about what the movie's about; she pulls out a piece of paper and a Sharpie and draws one of the central images: the point of view of baby Po seeing his mother's face. In just a few lines of black and white, Jen conveyed all the emotion and sincerity of what we were trying to express."

    The sequel finds Po settled in nicely to his role as Dragon Warrior side by side with the Furious Five - until a new threat that could mean curtains for kung fu itself dredges up buried memories. To meet the challenge, the panda must uncover the truth of who he really is ... and why, for instance, his father is a goose.

    "At the end of the first movie, all of Po's dreams have come true," Aibel says. "So there's the pressure of, what do you do next? The answer was not an ever-increasing series of bigger, badder villains; it's what's harder for Po emotionally - the inner enemy, not these outer villains."

    With all the key voice cast returning (including Jack Black as Po, Dustin Hoffman as Shifu and Angelina Jolie as Tigress), continuity was further assured with the choice of Nelson to ascend to the director's chair. Among her duties on the first film: head of story, action sequences director and dream sequence director. Although she's often described as "quiet" and "unassuming" by those who know her, Nelson's enthusiasm for action movies served her well in this, her directorial debut.

    "I'm not a martial artist; I've just been drooling over action scenes my whole life," she says, laughing. "I could never actually do it myself because I'm simply not that fit. But it's something I think a lot about, and I could draw what I was thinking."

    The new film features sly references to classics of the martial-arts genre, such as the Bruce Lee freeze-and-shake after a strike, a cart chase reminiscent of a famous Jackie Chan bicycle sequence, and a signature move by new character Master Croc, voiced by Jean-Claude Van Damme.

    "If you have Jean-Claude, you gotta have the splits," Nelson says with delight. "We tried not to do exactly what was done (in those iconic movies); we tried to make it our own. It was just a conglomeration of things people have seen in their entire lives."

    The sequel also enjoys technical upgrades. The textures, such as Tigress' fur and the intense detail in the feathers of the villainous pea**** Shen, are remarkable. Nelson says the design team from the first movie "got to go even more detailed with this film because the computer can take it. The first film, we couldn't actually do more than a city block before the computer would start spewing chunks of its guts out. Here, we could do an entire city and render it all. We got away with a lot in the first film; the second one, we actually get to touch everything."

    Saying Shen might not have been possible to accomplish visually in the original ("He is insanely complicated. His rig is, it's like looking at an utterly crazy, scaffolded, insane thing"), Nelson was likewise impressed with the complexity the pea****'s voice actor - Gary Oldman - brought to the character.

    "Interestingly, his process was not about, 'We'll make it sound like this villain'; it was more about what made Shen tick," the director says. "When I spoke with him about how Shen's really hurt by that moment when his parents looked at him not with support but actually real fear of him, that created who he was - Gary Oldman said, 'Ah, damaged!' I think he sort of latched onto that and that's where his rage came from. And (Oldman) is such a sweet guy in real life."

    Among the other examples of yeoman's work in the voice cast is James Hong's endearing reprise of panda Po's goose father, Mr. Ping - whom the actor has described as "sort of a Jewish mother and a Chinese father combined."

    "He is, a bit," Nelson says of the noodle-obsessed waterfowl whose ever-present hat, on closer inspection, is actually a knitting basket. "He has a kind of fussy, feed-your-child parent's kind of feeling. He's not squishy or anything. He really just loves his son passionately, but he's extremely practical. (Hong) brings a sweetness to that dad. It's wonderful. You know everything he does comes out of love."

    Those more subtle character touches seem to support the writers' contention that Nelson's fighting-fu is matched only by her feeling-fu.

    "Jen, as great as she is at the action stuff, it's the quiet, emotional scenes, her storyboarding of them - focusing on the emotion of the characters' faces. ... You understand what they're thinking or feeling," says Berger, adding that the director excels at showing the panda saying "humorous things while he's covering for a lot. ... She's just really able to capture both sides of Po."

    Nelson confesses that those scenes are closest to her heart.

    "I think my favorite is when Po has his personal awakening. It's the emotional core of the movie. That particular sequence makes me cry every single time I watch it. Considering I've watched this movie a couple of hundred times," she says, laughing, "it gets a little emotionally exhausting after a while."

    Kung Fu Panda 2 (PG) opens Friday at Bay Area theaters.

    To see a trailer, go to www.kungfupanda.com.
    Jennifer Yuh Nelson

    Personal: Grew up in Lakewood, "a sleepy suburb of L.A. near Long Beach." Received a bachelor's degree in illustration from California State University Long Beach.

    Resume builders: Was a director, story artist and character designer for "Spawn" on HBO. Has worked in Korea, Japan and Australia. Was a story artist for "Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron," head of story for "Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas," story artist for "Madagascar" and head of story for "Kung Fu Panda."

    What does an animator and illustrator do for fun? "I play video games. Last game I finished was 'Assassin's Creed Brotherhood.' Right now I'm trying to figure out what to play. I like hack-and-slash games; I don't tend to go for first-person shooters. I like seeing the characters do crazy cool stuff. It's like watching a movie for me. The more filmic it is, the more I enjoy it."

    Quotable: "I love the weapon sound effects (in 'Kung Fu Panda 2'). We wanted to keep it away from sounding like conventional, modern weaponry, so they made it based off fireworks. It has a hissing, popping quality that isn't like a howitzer or a Civil War cannon. I think it came out sounding really exotic. The look, too, it had blue sparkles to it."
    Gene Ching
    Publisher www.KungFuMagazine.com
    Author of Shaolin Trips
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  6. #36
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    I love that the board censors pea****.

  7. #37
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    pea****s should be censored...dirty pea****s!!

    I saw the screener last night. It's a solid sequel. Stunning 3D. I'll have a full 'official' review tomorrow for the opening day.

    Tat Wong's school gave a little demo before the show. It was amusing, especially for anyone seated in the front row, as there wasn't really enough space for a spear form.
    Gene Ching
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  8. #38
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    I've been looking forward to this movie for like a year. I loved the first one and I still watch it all the time.

    Can't wait to read your review.
    It is better to have less thunder in the mouth and more lightning in the hand. - Apache Proverb

  9. #39
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    Opens today!

    Putting the finishing touches on my review now. It'll be up by this afternoon.
    May 26, 2011, 12:00 PM ET
    Jennifer Yuh Nelson On Directing ‘Kung Fu Panda 2′
    By Julie Steinberg


    The first “Kung Fu Panda” movie, which was released in 2008, made north of $631 million dollars worldwide and became an instant gem in the DreamWorks canon that begged for a sequel. That sequel, “Kung Fu Panda 2,” will be released tomorrow and was helmed by Jennifer Yuh Nelson, who migrated to a director role after serving as head of story on the first. Speakeasy chatted with Nelson about how 3-D will enhance the viewer experience this time around, how to make it in a male-dominated industry and why feathers are so challenging to draw.

    The Wall Street Journal: What was it like going from head of story on the first film to director on the second?

    Jennifer Yuh Nelson: It was surprisingly easy because I’ve had the same crew for close to five years. We all work well together so the support system was strong. When you’re head of story, you’re more involved in the front half of the film, as far as the production pipeline. When you’re directing, you’re involved with every piece of the movie that comes through. It was cool because the kind of steps they’re taking so late in the process were really inspiring.

    You come from a Korean-American background and have mentioned your love of martial arts films. How did that influence you in the making of this film?

    I grew up watching martial arts movies — I gravitated toward them when I was younger. I enjoyed them because of the action, but they also tend to have characters who are larger-than-life and have layers. When I had the opportunity to do something like “Kung Fu Panda” I just wanted to be on it. That’s why I’ve spent seven and a half years on this.

    Was there added pressure because the first movie did so well?

    I did feel pressure but not because of a box office. I loved the first film. The crew I worked with loved the characters so much, they came back. That’s where the pressure comes from — you have all your friends working on something and you don’t want to waste anyone’s time. We made a movie that we and our kids wanted to watch.

    You are one of the few females to solo direct an animated feature. Have you encountered any gender issues as you’ve risen through the industry?

    In my career, I have never run into a gender problem. I’ve been very fortunate to have so much support. A lot of the time people forget that I’m a woman. That’s where we should be going. We should get to the point where it’s not about a woman or a man; it’s just a director. The industry has to become gender-invisible. I haven’t experienced it so I wish I could understand the causes. A way to fix it would be to have more role models at the top so we can get to where it’s less of a surprise that a woman is the director. We have a lot of female animators on the crew — it’s not a 50-50 situation, but there are many.

    This movie, unlike the first, was crafted in 3-D. What was your approach to ensure it didn’t feel too gimmicky or conspicuous?

    I’m a very visual person and tried to replicate what human eye sees. It’s not a technical thing for us, it’s more like we perceive 3-D in real life. That’s why a lot of the point of focus is on the screen, it’s not in front popping out so you have to cross your eyes. It’s a comfortable spot. Everything else that goes out behind or in front is slightly in the periphery or has a sense of depth, while everything that you’re watching is utterly clear. That allowed us to have dynamic filmmaking and fast cutting without it being gimmicky. We wanted the scale to be vast, which is what the the 3-D adds.

    Tell me more about the vast scale.

    Because Po is leaving his comfort zone and leaving the Valley of Peace, we had to create large-scale scenery and huge designs. We wanted vast landscapes to match his challenge. In the first film, it was hard to make a square block practical. In a sequel like this, we can build an entire city and the characters can run through it.

    The villain Lord Shen has a set of very intricate-looking feathers. Were they hard to do?

    Feathers can be more complicated because they have a structure that disappears into itself. There are different types of feathers that have their own arrangements. Shen had different layers of rigidity that made for a very complicated texture. Most people don’t do it because it’s hard but we wanted to do something different. It took us well over a year to get him in shape to animate.

    3-D has come a long way, but is there some technology that isn’t developed yet that you wish existed?

    Anything that makes the experience more like our experience in real life. We interact with film because we’re used to having it a certain way, but we need to have much more immersion. 3-d is a step. We need to make less of a curtain between us and the reality of a movie.

    How about those moving seats?

    I just tried that for the first time the other day. I think you have to do it well, but you certainly can’t get that at home.
    Gene Ching
    Publisher www.KungFuMagazine.com
    Author of Shaolin Trips
    Support our forum by getting your gear at MartialArtSmart

  10. #40
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    Ska-dooosh!

    Gene Ching
    Publisher www.KungFuMagazine.com
    Author of Shaolin Trips
    Support our forum by getting your gear at MartialArtSmart

  11. #41
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    freakin pea****s....i never saw kungfu panda...is this something a grown man would enjoy to watch alone? or is it more like to watch with kids or something?
    For whoso comes amongst many shall one day find that no one man is by so far the mightiest of all.

  12. #42
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    I love it, personally. My wife and I enjoy animated movies a lot, though.

    It was hilarious and had a good message, imo. Plus, it's about kung fu.
    It is better to have less thunder in the mouth and more lightning in the hand. - Apache Proverb

  13. #43
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    i'll probably check it out then. ive always liked animations and of course kungfu is fun
    For whoso comes amongst many shall one day find that no one man is by so far the mightiest of all.

  14. #44
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    Jan 1970
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    See it Lucas

    I'd be really curious to hear what you think about KFP2 if you haven't seen KFP.
    Gene Ching
    Publisher www.KungFuMagazine.com
    Author of Shaolin Trips
    Support our forum by getting your gear at MartialArtSmart

  15. #45
    Join Date
    Jan 1970
    Location
    new york,ny,U.S.A
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    3,230

    got destroyed by the hangover.

    was gonna use some witty martial humor for the title but screw it. hangover has become the highest opening comedy and the highest opening R rated film. smashing the competition this weekend with a 118million overhaul. beating our friend po by more then half. i think its interesting to note. that this film was R rated and not in 3d. panda while getting great reviews and while its opening was nothing to sneeze at it under performed. and thats disneys fault, in terms of promotion none of the big names came to the east coast to promote the film. only lucy liu, black did la, as well as seth. seperating the furious five, was a no bueno. the first one they all promoted together, while that may have been expensive it paid off. disney took into account 3d and the fact that the character is established. but forgot the main thing in making movies...star power.

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