50 Fun Facts About Kung Fu Panda

In the Kung Fu Panda films, where do Po and the Furious Five train under Master Shifu?

The Jade Palace is smashed to rubble by the villain of the third film, and has been rebuilt by the time the story ends.

Who provides the voice of Po in the Kung Fu Panda films?

Jack Black also sings on the first film's end credits, sharing a reworked 'Kung Fu Fighting' with CeeLo Green.

In the Kung Fu Panda films, what is the name of the valley Po calls home?

Valley of Peace is where Po grows up. In the first film its people are evacuated as Tai Lung approaches, leaving Shifu to face him alone.

Po's adoptive father Mr. Ping is what kind of animal?

Goose: Mr. Ping found Po as a cub in a crate outside his restaurant and raised him as his own when nobody came to claim him.

Master Shifu, voiced by Dustin Hoffman, is what kind of animal?

Red panda Shifu takes Oogway's choice of Po for a mistake at first, and he and his students spend a day of training trying to drive the newcomer out.

Which comedy star voices Mantis, the smallest of the Furious Five?

Seth Rogen is the only one of the Five heard in the fourth film: the group appears without lines in the end credits, apart from Mantis's screams.

In the Kung Fu Panda films, Grand Master Oogway is what kind of creature?

A tortoise: Oogway is a Galápagos tortoise credited with creating kung fu, and it is he who points at Po as the Dragon Warrior.

Tai Lung, the villain of the first Kung Fu Panda film, is what kind of big cat?

Snow leopard Tai Lung was raised by Shifu from infancy, then turned on the valley when Oogway refused to name him Dragon Warrior.

Which British actor voices the villain Tai Lung in the first Kung Fu Panda?

Ian McShane came back to the role in Kung Fu Panda 4, where Tai Lung at last acknowledges Po as the Dragon Warrior.

Which martial-arts film star voices Master Monkey in the Kung Fu Panda films?

Jackie Chan also dubbed Monkey for the Chinese release, and his son voiced the young Monkey in a spin-off short.

Angelina Jolie voices which member of the Furious Five?

Tigress leads the Five, and it is she who tells Po how Tai Lung, Shifu's adopted son, turned against his master.

In the first Kung Fu Panda, what does Po find when he finally opens the Dragon Scroll?

A blank golden mirror is all it holds. Shifu writes the scroll off as useless, and Tai Lung is just as baffled when he finally gets his paws on it.

What is the secret ingredient in Mr. Ping's 'secret ingredient soup'?

There isn't one: Mr. Ping admits the soup is perfectly ordinary, and says a thing becomes special when people believe it is.

What is the name of the finishing move Po uses to defeat Tai Lung?

Wuxi Finger Hold is a move Po taught himself. In the third film he turns it on himself, to drag a villain along with him into the Spirit Realm.

Why does Tai Lung's paralysing nerve strike fail against Po?

Po's body fat keeps the nerve strike from landing. The same attack had paralysed four of the Furious Five a little earlier.

In the first Kung Fu Panda, Shifu finds that Po can pull off amazing physical feats when motivated by what?

Food works where lectures failed, so Shifu throws out the usual lessons and trains Po in a style of kung fu invented for him alone.

The opening dream sequence of the first Kung Fu Panda was made with which kind of animation?

Hand-drawn animation sets the dream apart from the computer-animated story that follows. One reviewer likened its look to Chinese shadow puppets, another to an animated woodblock print.

Where did the first Kung Fu Panda hold its world premiere in May 2008?

Cannes Film Festival audiences saw it three weeks before American cinemas did, and the sequel was screened there too in 2011.

Kung Fu Panda outgrossed every other animated film of 2008, including which Pixar release?

WALL-E finished roughly $100 million behind Kung Fu Panda's $632 million. Audiences outside North America made the difference, supplying two-thirds of the panda's total.

Which Mexican filmmaker served as an executive producer on Kung Fu Panda 3?

Guillermo del Toro joined on the second film, and has said its makers were already discussing the third: it ends with Po's long-lost father sensing his son is alive, which gave the next film its story.

Which composer, later joined by John Powell, scored the first Kung Fu Panda and visited China to prepare?

Hans Zimmer got to know China's national symphony orchestra while preparing, and he has gone on to score all four films.

Which action star of the 1980s and 90s voices Master Croc in Kung Fu Panda 2?

Jean-Claude Van Damme's Master Croc is jailed by Lord Shen early on and at first refuses to fight, then turns up to help Po stop the fleet.

The rhinoceros warden of the prison holding Tai Lung, Commander Vachir, was voiced by which actor?

Michael Clarke Duncan plays Vachir as a boaster, and the boasting ends when Tai Lung picks his locks with a fallen feather and walks out of the prison.

Kung Fu Panda 2's villain, Lord Shen, is what kind of bird?

Peacock Lord Shen was banished by his own parents after he led his wolf army against a village of pandas.

In Kung Fu Panda 2, Lord Shen's family, the rulers of Gongmen City, invented what?

Fireworks were meant to delight, but Shen saw that their gunpowder could be made into a weapon and built cannons to conquer China.

In Kung Fu Panda 2, the Soothsayer foretells that Shen will be defeated by 'a warrior of' what?

Black and white could only mean a panda, Shen decided, so he set out to wipe the pandas out; the massacre got him banished instead.

In Kung Fu Panda 2, Mr. Ping reveals that he found baby Po in a crate of what?

Radishes filled the crate where Po's mother hid him before drawing Shen's wolves away from her cub.

Which actress voices the Soothsayer in Kung Fu Panda 2?

Michelle Yeoh's Soothsayer also nurses Po back to health and helps him face the memory of how he lost his parents.

Which director, head of story on the first Kung Fu Panda, took sole charge of Kung Fu Panda 2?

Jennifer Yuh Nelson stepped up when the first film's two directors did not return, and she went on to co-direct the third film as well.

Which British actor voices Lord Shen, the villain of Kung Fu Panda 2?

Gary Oldman's Shen was designed as a schemer to follow the first film's brawler, so he builds cannons where Tai Lung relied on his fists.

How does Po defeat Lord Shen's fleet in the climax of Kung Fu Panda 2?

He hurls the cannonballs back with the flowing moves of inner peace, a calm he reaches only after facing the memory of how he lost his parents.

Who voices Po's biological father Li Shan in Kung Fu Panda 3 and 4?

Bryan Cranston's Li Shan makes Mr. Ping jealous at first, but by the fourth film the two fathers are opening a restaurant together.

What does General Kai, the villain of Kung Fu Panda 3, steal from other kung fu masters?

Their chi is what he takes, turning each defeated master into a jade warrior who fights for him until Po sets them all free.

Who voices General Kai in Kung Fu Panda 3?

J.K. Simmons took over the part after it was rewritten; Mads Mikkelsen had been announced for it two years earlier.

Kate Hudson replaced which actress as Mei Mei in Kung Fu Panda 3?

Rebel Wilson had to bow out when the production schedule ran long, and the scenes already animated to her voice were redone to suit Hudson.

Kung Fu Panda 3 was a co-production with Oriental DreamWorks, a studio based in which city?

Shanghai's Oriental DreamWorks handled a third of the production, which earned the film official co-production status in China and a way round the country's import quota.

In Kung Fu Panda 3, why does Po's signature finishing move fail when he tries it on Kai?

It only works on mortals, and Kai is a spirit warrior. Po gets round the problem by using the move on himself, dragging them both into the Spirit Realm.

At the end of Kung Fu Panda 3, Oogway names Po his successor and gives him what?

The Staff of Wisdom lets Po open the way back from the Spirit Realm, and in the fourth film a sorceress sets out to steal it.

In Kung Fu Panda 4, Po is told he must give up being the Dragon Warrior to become what?

Spiritual Leader of the valley is a promotion Po resists, because it means choosing and training someone else to be the Dragon Warrior.

Zhen, Po's sidekick in Kung Fu Panda 4, is what kind of animal?

Corsac fox Zhen is a thief Po catches robbing his own home, and by the end of the film he has chosen her as his successor.

Who voices the shape-shifting sorceress the Chameleon in Kung Fu Panda 4?

Viola Davis's Chameleon can copy a fighter's kung fu with a touch, and she summons the villains Po has beaten in order to take theirs.

Which actor voices Han, the pangolin leader of a den of thieves, in Kung Fu Panda 4?

Ke Huy Quan's Han is Zhen's old mentor, and his den of thieves hides her and Po when the city guards are about to arrest them.

Which YouTuber has a cameo in Kung Fu Panda 4 as 'Panda Pig', a pig painted to look like a panda?

MrBeast, real name Jimmy Donaldson, plays one of five candidates lined up to be the next Dragon Warrior; Po passes over all of them for a thief.

Tenacious D covers which Britney Spears hit over the end credits of Kung Fu Panda 4?

...Baby One More Time gets the rock treatment from the band fronted by Po's own voice actor, and the track came out the day the film opened.

Which studio distributed Kung Fu Panda 4, after Paramount handled the first two films and Fox the third?

Universal Pictures and DreamWorks Animation now share a parent, NBCUniversal, which is why the fourth film changed distributor once again.

Legends of Awesomeness, the first Kung Fu Panda TV series, aired on which network?

Nickelodeon's series recast the lead: Mick Wingert voiced Po, and the films' star did not take the part in a TV series until a later show.

In Netflix's The Dragon Knight, Po's partner Wandering Blade is what kind of animal?

Brown bear Luthera, who goes by Wandering Blade, is an English knight who joins Po's hunt for four elemental weapons; Rita Ora voices her.

In the 2010 TV special Kung Fu Panda Holiday, Shifu asks Po to host what event?

The Winter Feast is a formal dinner for the masters of China's kung fu schools, and Po walks out of it to spend the holiday with his father instead.

Who voices Zhen, Po's thieving sidekick in Kung Fu Panda 4?

Awkwafina's Zhen starts out secretly working for the film's villain, who once took her in, before she changes sides to help Po.

Kung Fu Panda's production designer named Hero, House of Flying Daggers and which other film as influences?

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and the other two were his models because they are martial-arts films in which colour carries the emotion of each scene.