Kung Fu Panda: Secrets of the Furious Five

First secrets special of the Kung Fu Panda franchise and it gives much needed stories of the Furious Five before they were the Furious Five. The movies are more meant for Po's journey and good to have specials to help show the beginnings of the team. Thus one is more of them by themselves and Secrets of the Scroll is them teaming up for the first time. Good if they had a feature length spin-off film to help explain their absence in Kung Fu Panda 4 and help give them the screen time they deserve. Also, I like the 2D animation of these Secrets specials. It helps it stick out from the 3D animation of today. It seems like 2D animation is dying and it could always be a time for it to make a comeback. Now we have 2.5D animation that blends the two together rather than just fully just 2D. Kung Fu Panda has more scenes that are fully 3D and others are fully 2D but doesn't blend them into one.

This is an animation short that ties in with the first Kung Fu Panda films with Po the panda ropes in by Shifu to teach the philosophy of Kung Fu to a group of young bunnies at a martial arts school.

However it is not the crash bang wallop of Kung Fu that Po teaches but the positive traits that each of the Furious Five developed.

So you have flashbacks of the Furious Five and how they developed their skills and the virtues they developed. It avoids preachiness and younger viewers would be highly entertained.

The animation is very good and up to feature film standard and they have attracted an all star cast for the voices.

This short animation is about Master Po teaching Kung Fu to a group of young bunnies.

I am positively surprised by this short. It tells the story of each of the Furious Five, and a virtue that each has learned through Kung Fu. Each story is fun and inspiring in a unique way. It teaches great virtues of human beings in an entertaining way, without being preachy.

The animation is great, especially the bunnies who are so cute and cuddly! I am also impressed that all the Chinese characters in the film are all correct. Usually Chinese characters in animations are simply jumbled up strokes.

There is a lot of positivity in "Kung Fu Panda: Secrets of the Furious Five". I really enjoyed watching it.

After being pleasantly surprised with Kung Fu Panda, I decided to check out this direct-to-video feature packaged with the DVD release. Now, if you look at this as direct-to-video, it's not bad. They certainly come much, MUCH worse. But if you're expecting something as satisfying as the source film, you will be let down. You'll also be let down if you expect all the originals actors to be present. This is something that would be right at home on Saturday morning television. There are a few CG scenes here, but the feature mainly uses the stylized 2d technique seen at the beginning of Kung Fu Panda. Nothing's wrong with that. What really sinks this for me is the poor story. Everything about this feature "dumbs down" the plot of its source material reducing the origins of these important characters to simple morality tales. It takes the easy road on these potentially deep characters and ends up being a bit of a letdown.

Well, lets just say that the producers did not try on making this side feature. It doesn't look like its too much beyond story board. The only tie-in is the whole Kung Fu Panda part.

Anyway, you get to see little bits a pieces of the 5 main characters aside from Jack Black's panda. Yes, to the serious fan of the movie I guess they are OK. But to anybody else, they are a waste of time. And there is nothing more than that.

Overall, not much can be said. It isn't good and its not even in CGI. Lets hope next time they can make a side feature that actually has the same animation skill as the main feature. "F"