Kung Fu Panda 2 opens with a massacre. Long ago in Ancient China, the peacock rulers of Gongmen City invented fireworks, and their son, Lord Shen, found that the gunpowder could be weaponised. A Soothsayer told his parents that “a warrior of black and white” would defeat him if he continued down that path. Shen read the prophecy as a panda, led his wolf army to wipe out a panda village, and was banished for it.
That is the past the film spends 91 minutes dragging into the present, and it is the best thing about it.
Trailer, via Universal Kids.
Gary Oldman Voices Lord Shen
Jennifer Yuh Nelson directs, from a script by Jonathan Aibel and Glenn Berger. Gary Oldman voices Shen, who raids villages for metal to build cannons meant to conquer China. He has already killed Master Thundering Rhino with one shot and imprisoned Masters Storming Ox and Croc. Po and the Furious Five are sent to Gongmen City to stop him.
The cast is deep. Jack Black, Angelina Jolie, Dustin Hoffman, Seth Rogen, Lucy Liu, David Cross, James Hong and Jackie Chan all return. Michelle Yeoh joins as the Soothsayer, Danny McBride as the Wolf Boss, Dennis Haysbert as Master Storming Ox.
The Emblem on the Armor
The plot turns on a small thing. An emblem on the head wolf’s armor gives Po a flash of the last time he saw his mother. He asks Mr. Ping, who admits he found Po as a cub in a crate of radishes outside his restaurant and adopted him when nobody claimed him.
a warrior of black and white
Shen carries the same emblem on his plumage, and it distracts Po at the worst moment. Master Shifu has already warned him he has not achieved inner peace. The film’s argument is that he cannot fight his way to it.
The Middle Sags in Gongmen City
The action is clean and the villain is the franchise’s best — Oldman plays Shen as vain and certain, a ruler who doomed himself by trying to dodge a prophecy. The adoption story gives Po a real wound instead of a joke.
What holds it back is the middle. Po and the Five feign surrender, get captured, free themselves and destroy the prototype cannon, and the sequence is busy without being tense. The Furious Five remain a supporting act in their own movie, given poses rather than parts.
A Sequel That Uses Its Past
Kung Fu Panda 2 grossed $666 million against a $150 million budget, became the highest-grossing film from a female director and the sixth-highest-grossing film of 2011, and was nominated for Best Animated Feature at the 84th Academy Awards. It was followed by Kung Fu Panda 3 in 2016 and Kung Fu Panda 4 in 2024.
The numbers say the audience showed up. The film earns most of that: it is a sequel that uses its past rather than repeating it, and it hands its hero a question a punch cannot answer. It is not a great animated film — the plotting sags and the ensemble is underused — but it is a serious one.
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