By all accounts, Kung Fu Panda should never have worked. Upon seeing the trailers for the first Kung Fu Panda movie in 2011 with its modern humor, its ‘’chosen one’’ story, and its outwardly stupid premise, it looked like this would be where animation company DreamWorks fell flat. Thankfully, Kung Fu Panda proved to be a really amazing animated film with a well-told story, likeable characters, beautiful visuals, and entertaining writing, blowing away all expectations and providing one of DreamWorks best films. So, when the sequel was announced with an equally bad-looking trailer, it was believed that the ball was going to drop, and this would be where the movies turned sour. Through the wonders of talented people and writers, Kung Fu Panda not only showed that it could stand alongside its previous, but that it was even greater and more impressive that the first. Now that Po (voiced again by Jack Black) has adjusted to life as the Dragon Warrior and part of a kung fu defence force, his skills are set to be tested when a deranged banished peacock prince named Shen (voiced by Gary Oldman) storms and conquers a central city using a devastating weapon with the power to destroy anything or anyone. Po along with the Furious Five are tasked with defeating Shen and destroying the weapon but Po discovers that Shen may know the truth about his original parentage and what happened to the rest of the Panda species. This movie does everything a good sequel does; it adds upon every element that made the original movie so engaging and turns into a much darker, more complex, and interesting tale that also ups the characters, visuals, and writing. It is easily one of DreamWorks’ best movies and may be one of the greatest animated comedies overall.

The strength of the first film narrative came from its great pacing, not relying too heavily on dull clichés and always mixing it with amazing scenes that helped progress characters and its message. It was not the films entire saving grace however, with that more going to its visuals, comedy, voice-cast, and tone, turning what could be a pretty standard tale into something really engaging. This film does hold back any punches and creates an incredibly interesting story packed with a darker edge and with heavier moments. Themes like adaptation, self-image, predestined fate, and inner peace are all elements that mould beautiful into a tale that is equally paced out with heavy moments and very light-hearted moments. It is a story that has progressed from the first film; it isn’t just the exact same thing and actually continues to build upon its main character and the lessons that he has to learn. It never feels like its going too far in one tonal direction that ruins the experience and both sides could easily ruin the film; being too silly could make it feel too childish and being too serious could dull the entire film. There’s even been accounts of people crying during parts of this movie; the movie with the Jack Black kung fu fighting panda was able to make people cry, it truly shows how dedicated this team is to taking a silly idea incredibly silly and turning into something that can be laughed at or even feel intense emotions towards.

All the old characters that return are still really likeable and all the new characters added are also really good too. Po’s journey into his past and learning about his parent’s as well as unlocking his inner peace is very touching and nice to witness, and the scenes featuring him, and his adoptive duck father voiced by James Hong are very touching. The Furious Five are character that through each consecutive movie have less and less importance and a majority of the five are only there because it’s a boxed set, but they are still have great voice-acting, some cool fights and there’s even a very nice connection between Po and Tigress, whose voiced by Angelina Jolie, it never feels overly played and never comes across as romantic either, they just work off each other as really good friends. Shen is a fantastic villain for this movie and he seems to capture all the intricacies of a Shakespearean villain; he has a great backstory that does a great job tying into the main character’s plight, his design is effectively harsh with his steel white coloration mixed with deep red splashes that come off as eerily sterile, Gary Oldman is wonderfully sinister as the voice, he has a few funny moments sprinkled throughout and even moments of sympathy, and they do the impossible task of making a peacock as the villain be not only effective but frightening. Even with all this films many successes, he is the one of the key reasons this film is as amazing as it is.

Kung Fu Panda had already shown that it was an incredible looking film series with wonderful Chinese-styled visuals with extra detail put into its colors, its designs, and its characters. This movie takes it in a different direction from the first film where it still features some wonderful looking moments with popping colors, stylish camera angles and even some nods back to classic 2D animation, but the color palette mainly during the second to third act have a much heavier usage of red and grey for its color scheme. While this could get pretty dull really quickly, every scene it used in is the perfect tone for that color and there is still some great looking moments throughout the movie that take advantage of the duller palette. The fight scenes are still expertly choreographed with fast-motion that only something like animation could get away with; its speed and timing works wonderfully with its comedy and creates an almost Looney Tunes like energy, yet it still creates a physicality and grace to its movements that make it work equally as effectively in the serious moments. The writing for these movies only gets tighter and tighter with each film and this one shows how its improved upon its previous. The first film had a lot of great jokes, but not only are some of these even funnier, but the speed of each one goes by so quickly that it makes room for constant more jokes. This means if any do not work it will be quickly followed up by one that will work and it never gets to the point of overstuffing, it is still balanced out with quiet moments and even dark moments. Even the music is amped up to new levels in this film, with composers John Powell and Han Zimmer doing wonderful jobs at taking cultural sounding instrumentals and melodies and using them for both epic fight scenes and emotionally slow scenes, and each element hits every correct note.

It was incredibly unlikely that lighting would catch twice in a bottle, but Kung Fu Panda is a fantastic animated movie that is even better than the previous fantastic movie it already had. What could have been a simple cash-grab that stuck with what it knew and might have given us something akin to what is advertised, was instead an incredibly charming, adult, beautiful, funny, awesome movie that continue to prove that a premise isn’t always what ruins a movie, its how its handled. The biggest offense this movie has against it is that it came out the same time The Hangover II did; a lazy sequel that wasn’t even that funny the first time around made it that people missed out on this movie and that is a real shame. The movie was nominated for best animated feature of its year for a reason, this one, as well as its previous, is an absolute watch, they will surprise you in the best way. Kung Fu Fighting will never leave your head after these movies.