Jack Black returns as Po, the world's most awesome martial arts practising panda.
I'm Jan and this is 27 Awesome Things You Probably Didn't Know About Kung Fu Panda 3!
To play the awesome Kung Fu Panda Po, Jack Black says he channels his younger self when
he was just starting out as an actor.
Black taps into his own boundless passion for rock and roll and acting and uses that
to guide his performance as the kung-fu-loving Po.
Much of the look of Kung Fu Panda 3 is based on a trip the filmmakers took to China.
For example, a lot of the architecture in the Panda Village references what they saw
during their visit to Mount Qing Cheng, an important spiritual centre as well as a natural
home for pandas.
The filmmakers also spent a couple of days observing pandas at the Chengdu Panda Base,
a research and breeding centre for giant pandas in China.
Director Jennifer Yuh Nelson even got to hold a very sleepy baby panda on her lap!
The movie's creative crew then drew on their observations of how pandas move and roll to
bring their own animated pandas to life.
To get the right look for the movie's scroll which tells the backstory of Oogway and Kai,
the filmmakers took cues from a real-life scroll called "Along the River During the
Qingming Festival", which is such an important and famous work of art that it's said to be
China's Mona Lisa.
DreamWorks and their Shanghai-based sister company Oriental DreamWorks worked together
to create two versions of Kung Fu Panda 3 with the same story and characters but with
the characters animated so that they speak in sync with either English or Mandarin.
More than 200 people worked on both versions of the film at Oriental DreamWorks, and helped
add to the movie's cultural authenticity, for example, by advising on new female panda
Mei Mei's costume, and suggesting the inclusion of traditional Chinese food in certain scenes.
Jackie Chan, who voices Monkey in the English-language Kung Fu Panda movies, also provides the voice
of Po's biological father, Li, in the Mandarin version of Kung Fu Panda 3.
Speaking of Jackie Chan, because voice actors for animated movies typically record their
parts separately, Kung Fu Panda star Jack Black still hasn't met Jackie Chan despite
this being their third Kung Fu Panda movie together!
Jack Black actually did some kung fu training himself for the Kung Fu Panda movies, and
when he's recording his lines for Po's action scenes, he likes to do a little kung fu in
the sound booth to make it sound more realistic.
Before the Kung Fu Panda animators made their first movie together, not only did they binge
on a ton of kung fu movies, but they also took a kung fu class with top wushu coach
and stunt co-ordinator Eric Chen in order to give them an insight into how the untrained
Po would feel facing someone accomplished in martial arts.
Animator and story artist Rodolphe Guenoden, who's worked on all three Kung Fu Panda movies,
happens to have over 20 years' experience with martial arts, so he's supervised the
kung fu choreography on all the films.
He also continued the animation crew's martial arts training with his own kung fu classes,
which helped the animators break down how each character would move, for example how
they should position their feet or their hips.
To create the sound of Po flying and jumping, the movie's sound editors lined up a load
of microphones along one of 20th Century Fox's soundstages and then released a taut bungee
cord, which gave them "an incredible five-second-long sound with an elastic and spongy quality."
When it came to the Spirit Realm, the movie's sound editors used a variety of Chinese musical
instruments to generate the range of sounds they wanted for Po's chi or energy force and
the villainous Kai's chi.
But because many of the Spirit Realm scenes are about inner stillness, they actually reduced
the number of sounds they used and concentrated on just those sounds that they needed to show
the characters' emotional state.
To produce the sound of pandas bouncing and rolling along, the sound editors made their
own musical instrument called a "gut-bucket", which is essentially a large tin wash basin
that they turned upside down and cut a hole in and then attached a stick and thread.
For the movie's fight scenes, the sound editors took the characteristic "whoosh" sounds you
hear in classic kung fu movies and expanded on them, creating more than a thousand "whooshes"
for Kung Fu Panda 3.
The original idea for the movie's jade warriors came from Pan's Labyrinth and Hellboy director
Guillermo del Toro who is executive producer for Kung Fu Panda 3.
And the design of the Master Porcupine jade zombie goes all the way back to the first
Kung Fu Panda movie when the franchise's character designer Nico Marlet did a sketch of a porcupine
doctor doing acupuncture using his own quills as needles!
Angelina Jolie is back as the voice of Tigress, and this time she's joined by four of her
children, Pax, Zahara, Shiloh, and Knox, who cameo as characters including the panda triplets.
While Knox's co-star siblings have already appeared alongside their parents in other
movies, Kung Fu Panda 3 is actually Knox's first big-screen performance.
But the Jolie-Pitt kids weren't the only ones getting in on the Kung Fu Panda 3 act.
Jack Black's son Sammy provided the voice of one of the movie's bunnies.
And Dustin Hoffman's grandson Gus was super-excited to voice one of the panda villager kids when
he visited his granddad during one of his recording sessions for the film.
Kate Hudson had such fun playing the super-confident, ribbon-dancing panda Mei Mei that she broke
down laughing at the end of a couple of takes that actually made it into the final movie.
To cover the sound of her laughter, the filmmakers had to layer the end of her lines with the
cheering voices of the crowd!
In fact, Kate Hudson felt a special connection to the movie because her own family had a
feng shui artist who spent a lot of time at their home and also they often did tai chi
exercises as a family.
Oh, and speaking of Mei Mei, she was originally going to be played by Pitch Perfect star Rebel
Wilson, but Wilson had to drop out of the movie when the production schedule was extended.
Hannibal star Mads Mikkelsen was also initially set to play the movie's villain but bowed
out, after which the Oscar-winning star of Whiplash JK Simmons joined the cast to play
the villainous Kai.
Like many of the Kung Fu Panda team, editor Clare Knight has worked on all three movies
in the franchise.
But for Clare, it's been a real family affair.
While making the first movie, she met and married her husband, actor Wayne Knight, who
voiced a role in the film.
Knight is probably best known as Newman in the TV comedy Seinfeld and as Dennis Nedry
in Jurassic Park.
While making Kung Fu Panda 2, Clare gave birth to her son, Liam, who provides the voice of
Baby Po in the movie.
And Clare's husband and son are both back voicing Big Fun, Hom-Lee, and Lei Lei for
Kung Fu Panda 3.
Remember the first Kung Fu Panda movie, which opened with Po imagining himself as a hero
so deadly that his enemies would go blind from pure awesomeness?
Well, there's a cool call-back to that opening sequence in Kung Fu Panda 3's climactic confrontation.
While making the movie, Alessandro Carloni, who co-directed Kung Fu Panda 3 with Jennifer
Yuh Nelson, decided to take a leaf of out of Po's book.
So, when the movie's animators showed him something he really liked, instead of just
okaying it and moving on, he jumped around enthusiastically, embracing the kind of passion
Po shows in the films.
And one of director Alessandro Carloni's favourite scenes in the movie takes place between Po
and his father Li in the Hall of Heroes.
Li tries on a suit of armour and playfully headbutts Po in the side, which reminded Carloni
of a moment he shared with his own father.
Carloni is really into motorbikes and one day he and his dad put on motorbike helmets
and his dad started playing around bumping into him.
Now, who's your favourite villain in the Kung Fu Panda movies and why?
And what would you like to see happen in the next Kung Fu Panda movie?
Let me know in the comments below!
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