Kung-Fu Panda – the Mulan of 2008
March 3rd, 2009 by LaraIt seems that every ten years or so animators realize that there’s a market for Chinese-themed feature-length cartoons. Mulan took the U.S. by storm in 1997 (Mulan II less so later), and now we’ve got Kung-Fu Panda. Which I like – it’s visually and stylistically very interesting, has lots of jokes about Hong Kong kung-fu movies in it, and of course Jack Black is the voice of the Fat Panda. And anything Mr. Black does is worth a look.
I’m wondering what the next Disney/Pixar/Dreamworks Chinese theme will be – any guesses? The Monkey King (although Forbidden Kingdom treated that, it was not an animated feature)? Stories about hungry ghosts or kitchen gods? Water Margins/ Outlaws of the Marsh might work; Story of the Stone (Red Chamber) – I doubt it. A Zhuge Liang bio-pic!