MY BAD, correction, Jennifer Yuh Nelson the Head of Story (and director of Kung Fu Panda 2 & 3) is Korean American, not Chinese American. Also I know y'all love learning, so I encourage you to read up on Palestine to understand more about the things you're seeing in the news! decolonizepalestine.com/faq/

"what gender are you?" "oh, sorry I don't have a smooth ball or a lion cub actually."

Ever since I learned that the stone lions are male and female based on what they are holding, I notice gay lions everywhere and I love it

I love how in the sequel, Poe’s father changed his restaurant to “Dragon Warrior Noodles and Tofu” which not only shows how proud of he is of his son, but shows that Poe inspired him as well since he told Poe that he once had crazy notion about making tofu.

I feel like Kung Fu Panda actually shows that, if you actually do your homework and have some respect for the culture you're portraying, you can make something good no matter where you're from.

"Master Shifu is literally Master Master" Chai Tea: Finally a worthy opponent our battle will be legendary!

“There are no accidents.” Cat blocks cam. Video goes viral. Book sales skyrocket.

I love the scene where Po finishes his training and says that he's not hungry, because earlier in the movie he says he gets hungry whenever he's anxious. It means that he has learned to overcome his insecurities and has some self-stem in him now

In Jack Black's defense: his portrayal of him is what ultimately saved Po's character. Po was supposed to be much more arrogant of a character, not even caring about kung-fu. It wasn't until Jack Black came on that Po was changed to be much more vulnerable and kind as a protagonist. (But yes, overall we do still need to stop this trend of actors taking voice actors' jobs.)

When Kung Fu Panda is more culturally accurate than Mulan 2020 :/ edit: this kinda blew up lol it was just a throwaway comment lmaooo ty guys :)

"The Kung Fu Panda palace is guarded by non-binary lions" made my day.

For the Wuxi Finger Hold, in either a deleted scene or the post credit scene of the film, Shifu states that the hold wasn't real and was just a myth that Masters passed on to mess with their pupils so he's confused as to how Po figured out how to make it real. I feel like it's name is a reference to Wuxia movies (wuxi - wuxia just remove a single English letter) and how hilariously unrealistic they depict their martial arts (of which I am generally a fan because it's cool). And I've heard stories about martial art masters doing similar things to mess with students. But I am a dude who vaguely knows random things that may or may not be true, so I might be wrong.

My personal takeaway from the Confucianism vs Daoism in kung fu panda was recognizing when to apply each. Which weirdly relates to how my grandpa got a job in tv and radio. He couldn’t control the fact his parent wanted him to go into business and didn’t approve of tv and radio. So he majored in tv and minored in business and told his parents it was the other way around since they were okay with him minoring in tv and radio. He became one of the first Chinese American tv directors.

What I love about Shifu is that when he saw that his initial method wasn't working with his new student, he stopped trying to change the student, changing his method instead. That is what a good teacher does.

I thinks it’s interesting that Po is purely black and white, while Tai Lung is grey. Which mirrors how clear Po becomes and how conflicted Tai Lung is.

"The turtle is Daoist." I actually studied Daoism as a personal research project in high school. I went all out, too, as much as an American possibly could in the early 2000s. Even joined a daoist internet forum and talked directly to some practicing daoists to get it as close to from the original source as I possibly could. I've kept up my studies on the subject on and off over the years. And now when people find out I did this, the first question they ALWAYS ask is, "So, what is the Dao?" This might be the reason I'm prematurely balding.

25:55 This is even more profound to Po's character development when you remember that Oogway observed that Po eats when he's upset. But now, he's not hungry, because he's not upset.

"Master, I have good news!" "There is just news, there is no good or bad." "Xiran Jay Zhao made a 30 minute video on Kung Fu Panda!" "Ah, that is good news!"

The best part about this whole video is how Xiran made their hair look like panda ears. Perfection.

Love how you kept the shots of your cat blocking out the camera as you talked about the laid back philosophy of Doaism. A visual aid for the concept.

A really interesting note with KFP3 is that Oogway further confirms his beliefs in Daoism by revealing to Po that he'd met that village of pandas years ago, and that's where he'd learned the secrets of Chi and eventually invented Kung Fu. Po just *showing up* out of nowhere was entirely natural to Oogway because in that moment it was clear that Po was the key to bringing the past of Chi tutelage together with the future of Kung Fu. A panda of all things, appearing from the sky in a shower of fireworks to be there in *just* the right moment, at *just* the right time? No wonder Oogway was so intent that Po was the Dragon Warrior from the first time they met.

"Master Shifu is literally 'Master Master'." Professor Doctor: Ah, finally, a worthy opponent!

Xiran: "The Jade Palace is being guarded by nonbinary lions." Me: "I accept this as canon now."

That quote by Zhuangzi reminds me of an anecdote from the life of Diogenes. When asked how he wanted to be buried, Diogenes said, "throw my body over the wall." When they argued that dogs would then eat his body, he said, "Then give me a stick to fight them off." When they argued that he would be dead and wouldn't be able to use the stick, he said, "Well, if I can't be bothered to use a stick to fight them off, then I guess I can't be bothered to worry about being eaten by dogs." The moral of the story? Don't fuss so much.

The trigrams on the Korean flag (Taegeuki) are for each of the cardinal directions, as well as the four classical elements and each of the seasons. The meaning of the flag in context represent the three elements of a nation: the white is the land, the taegeuk in the middle represents the people, and the trigrams represent the governing body.

Korean here. The four trigrams are called geon, ri, gam, and gon. They are basically four different aspects of the universe like cardinal directions, family members, seasons, and celestial bodies.

"Grabs popcorn" I am ready to get educated about things.

23:18 “Seriously I didn’t know what BO was until I came to Canada.” As a Canadian I died inside after hearing this

16:26 - "The Daoist master lives carefree in the present." The calmness with which you reacted to the cat - you, too, are a Daoist master, aren't you? Anyway, because of that you'll live in my head rent-free and carefree in the present.

I appreciate how at the beginning you were like “the Chinese government IP black listed me, but that’s ok because I can use a VPN to deal with it” and I was like, this is peak advertisement right here. Excellent video as always.

I won’t lie, the prospect of them using a vpn to evade an authoritarian government makes surfshark so much more appealing than like, other ads

To realize that there were no secret ingredient, is realizing that Mr Ping lied to his costumers by selling ordinary soup with a higher price. What a legend.

In defence of the Japanese sword and ninja stars in the temple, there is a Norman effigy of a knight with a distinctively Chinese sword on his hip from mediaeval France. Even a thousand years ago, weapons and other artifacts could end up thousands of miles away from where they were made. It's wacky, but it happens.

I still find it hysterical how this channel started as a huge "f*ck you" to Mulan 2020, and became this awesome source of knowledge and culture.

Can we all just apreciate how fluidly Xiran can use chinese words while speaking english flawlessly? I'm sure all of us bilinguals know how hard it is to use proper pronunciation while alternating between languages mid sentence. It's just so cool to hear it this flawlessly.

I watched another really good video essay on Kung Fu Panda, and they had brought up that I thought was a good point about why China didn't produce a movie like KFP. They had mentioned that the story itself wasn't focused on telling the story of Chinese culture or authentic martial arts culture from a Chinese perspective, but rather telling a story of a more western protagonist who is fascinated by the culture and martial arts. Starting out from this point of having a more western type protagonist, they were able to make it relatable and more consumable for western viewers (who bring in millions in revenue and media coverage), while still lovingly and caringly showcasing Chinese culture and referencing old martial art film tropes to also appeal to Chinese audiences.

One last thing that I love about this movie that people often don't know about, is that Shifu calls Po "panda" in a very dismissive way the whole time... while being a red panda himself. I won't try to interpret this further though ^^

Monkey: You saved me...why? Meme lord Xiran: MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM

It's wild to think this entire KZfaq channel started out of pure, unadulterated spite for a certain atrocious film released last year. You've come a long way!

You know, I think this is a more common occurrence than most people think. For a foreign author or creator to do more justice to a culture and history than studios/artists native to them. One of my favorite stories of all time is the manga series, "Vinland Saga." A series that follows actual historical figures and events like the Icelandic explorer Thorfinn Karlsefni, as well as the Danish King Cnut the Great around the times of the Anglo-Saxon/Dane war in England and Thorfinn's expedition of North America. The story is heavily fictionalized, but incredibly authentic to the history of the setting and the culture of the Scandinavians and the Anglo-Saxons in the early Medieval period. The author, Makoto Yukimura, did a better job capturing the culture and history of Medieval Scandinavia than anything else I have seen or read (save for the Northman). Not to mention, the story and characters are just fantastic. Yet, this came from a Japanese mangaka from Yokohama, Japan. And that is because he as an individual is super passionate about Norse culture and their history. He has traveled to Iceland multiple times to learn more for writing Vinland Saga, and was even invited there for a festival celebrating Icelandic culture because of his work. I think it's actually quite common for a foreign artist to care more about authenticity than native producers and writers because they grew up with the culture and didn't develop the same curiosity and passion that someone outside might have. Obviously this isn't a rule, Hollywood pretty much bastadizes all cultures, not just American (see Vikings and Braveheart). However, I don't really subscribe to the thought that foreign artists need to step aside and hand off their inspiration to someone we might assume is more suited because of locational or cultural reasons. I mean shit, I've met normal Brits who know way more about US history than damn near any Americans I've known (and I say that as an American). American films about American history are usually awful. Yukimura had a story he wanted to tell about violence and trying to create a land free from it without resorting to it, and the difficulties that would come with that. Medieval Scandinavia was the perfect setting, considering that dying in battle was the highest honor and supposedly sent you to Valhalla, not to mention the constant wars in that region at that time. I'm rather glad that Yukimura didn't just hand off that idea to someone from Iceland or Denmark assuming they might be better for the job because he was Japanese. I can understand the desire to see more writers from outside America getting chances, but I don't really think pleading with Hollywood is really a good solution. Hollywood is a corporate, studio-run dystopia. Even films about their own culture are shit. I think the real solution would be more artists and teams getting more accessibility and promotion for audiences outside their countries. I certainly am happy that Vinland Saga was localized for English speakers and that I heard about it from the internet when trying to find something like Berserk. Else, I would have missed out on my favorite series. If more foreign artists can get exposure in the West, that would be amazing. But I wouldn't want to tell talented writers in the West to shut up and give their opportunities to someone else for superficial reasons. I think the work will speak for itself if given the chance.

I'm not Chinese but this movie was really helpful to me when I was teaching. (After awhile I just got too burnt out.) A lot of my students were adults that couldn't really read and struggled with confidence and self-belief. I tried to take inspiration from Shifu's teaching style and from Ugwe's gentle confidence, and I watched it with some of them. A lot of them were really touched and inspired by Po's dad too.

I had NEVER made that connection of Po being immune to the acupuncture foreshadowing being immune to Tai Lung's stun attack

I think the main reason I liked Kung fu panda so much was because po never had some montage where he gets super fucking ripped like absolutely shredded they kept him as him while he improved his skills and he even used it to his advantage in a fight. Best body positivity film imo

23:13 It's not that the gene causes them not to produce bacteria, it causes many East Asians to produce lower amounts of the proteins those bacteria feed off of. The rates of this genotype are quite varied across East Asia as well, being more prevalent in north east China, Korea and West Japan.

9:00 Bonus fact: The reason why the snow leopard was specifically chosen as Tai-Lung's species is because snow leopards specifically hunt panda-cubs, making Tai-Lung a low-key Boogeyman

Agree that more Chinese people should be cast as Chinese voices but also, Jack black is perfectly cast in this role, both as a voice, and as a person who reflects Po s journey

Not even one minute in an I'm still amazed a Jack Black movie put people into an cultural/artistic existential crisis.

The look on Zhao’s face when their cat just takes over the frame at 15:59 cracked me up so hard. I love learning about Chinese culture, and how it’s influenced some of my favourite media, but Zhao themself is also just insanely funny, I’ve been watching through their catalogue and I haven’t laughed this good in weeks. Single handedly has helped relieve some of the tension that’s been building up in my body over the past two months since the year began.

I heard someone who was part of the movie sitting in the audience while the movie was played in China and that the Chinese people laughed at certain places and not the same place as the Americans laughed at. And the Americans laughed at other places but did not laugh at the places that the Chinese people laughed at. I’d really love to know your thoughts on which Part of the movie each culture would find hilarious and what the trigger was for that. I love your videos, love from California

Xiran choosing to move with the flow of the universe and not shoo their cat, explaining Daoism in practice as they're explaining it verbally is the level of storytelling I aspire to.

Street vendor in Europe: *stares at Xiran and slaps some putty on the table really hard hoping to entice them into buying it* Xiran:👁👄👁

My wife is a Filipina, it is fun to see the cultural similarities. Thanks for sharing Chinese beliefs with us.

I have binged watched your entire channel so many times over the past 2 years and yet only now realized you pronounced anecdote as "ah-nek-doh-tee" 😂 It's /ˈan•ək•ˌdōt/ "AN-ek-doht" Also Zhuangzi's view on burial is very beautiful to me. After my dad passed he was cremated, but we chose to mix him into the soil of a sapling on our front yard. We named it "dad tree." His body wasn't eaten by animals or insects but is now inseparable from the soil that now feeds the sapling.

Honestly the best advertisement for a VPN I've seen. "I use it because...I've been IP banned by the government of China." XD

You should put "I got IP banned by the Chinese Government" on a resume or plaque or something to show your skills and expertise.

I study kung fu, and I have a fun bit of information regarding the scene where Po gets into the barracks for the first time. Crane as a partial arts style is an evasive style of martial arts. It's ideology is to side step and evade conflict as a means to make yourself so inconvenient to fight that the opponent simply gives up. it has attacks too, but your first focus is always to evade and block attacks as a way of discouraging an opponent. Tiger, however, is a direct and forward focused martial arts. The idea behind it is that you dominate the fight at all times and do what you need to in order to have full control over it. This is shown by both Master Crane and Master Tigress where they approach Po in ways that reflect this. Crane hides in his room and simply avoids Po in hopes that he'll eventually go away while Tigress bursts out of her room to confront Po directly.

Impressed that unlike a lot of american made movies based on china, not only does a lot of the background text actually translate well, it's also talking about the thing it's intended to be talking about ( like the noodle sign selling noodles.. rather than like the emergency letter in mulan talking about crunchy food lol )

Honestly Kung Fu Panda was such a comforting and awesome series to watch. Plus it proved to me that 3D animation could be just as rich, detailed, and BEAUTIFUL as 2D animation.

There is a saying: Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, but today is a gift. That is why it is called the present. Grand Master Oogway

Without this channel I would not have learned to appreciate all the representation work being put in by stone lions

In the USA there’s an out of use tradition of painting your door red once you’ve paid off your mortgage. I suppose it’s because no one has the money to pay it off. Interesting to think it might have been a form of cross cultural exchange that people forgot about.

Quietly just loving their hair looking like panda ears and their entire outfit being black and white like fuck yes, panda vibes!

The inspirational things I learnt from this franchise is: " Monke "

9:10 mad respect for any artist who explains a decision with “i think it’s funny” i love it

“The lions are nonbinary” As an nb person, that is perfection

Xiran: I am only one person, so I don’t have the same opinions as all Chinese people Also Xiran: the lions are canonically genderless because I said so Based

I never noticed, but Shifu keeps complaining about his own students but he really was a terrible student himself. He disagrees with his master on pretty much everything and need to be taught the very basics of his philosophy, even tho they've been together for decades Shifu literally learned nothing from Oogway, before the events of the movie

13:20 I’m not sure if it has been said in the comments, but it’s also good to note that there is a really good reason why Oogway chose Po. You see, in Kung Fu Panda 3 and Kung Fu Panda 2 respectively, Master Oogway on the verge of death was saved by the pandas who later taught him how to heal via “chi”. Many years later, Lord Shen had lead the massacre of the pandas believing one of them would lead to his defeat. So Oogway, knowing the panda genocide, probably thought they no longer existed until one day a panda fell right in front of him. So not only was Oogway just “going with the flow of the universe” or choosing Po because of coincidence, but I really think Oogway believed it is destiny that Po becomes the Dragon Warrior.

I really love the super smooth-sounding transitions between chinese and english, its *chef's kiss* beautiful. swapping between phonemes from different languages and dialects that they don't share is REALLY hard from experience and I usually end up fumbling and butchering my words in the process.

15:50 "People would make bows and arrows out of peach wood to fight demons" *A demon appears*

Can we appreciate the effort they makes EVERY video to wear topics related outfits, they're dressed like a panda, the avatar videos they dressed with fire and water themes.

A colleague of mine from Chengdu was recently telling us about how, when the production staff visited (several times) to take notes for Kung Fu Panda, the people in town were so excited to share about their local culture. It's great to see your breakdown of what details the production team got right (and wrong). Also, is it possible that the "Wuxi Finger Hold" is just a diminutive of 'wuxia'? In the way that white people tend to use / abbreviate / mix up words without realizing what they mean? also also, based nonbinary lions 😎

15:56 "to fight demons" cat : thats my cue

Xiran: *talks about Daoism* Xiran's cat: "That's my cue"

Xiran's first video: Disney screwed up and here's what all they totally messed up Xiran's videos now: Probably an excuse to watch epic shit like ATLA again

Xiran's parents may have wished for a doctor or a lawyer, but they got an author. And I love how Oogway's point was so strongly proven by this exact turnout.

something that I really loved about this movie was how Po was never treated bad by the rest of the villagers who are smaller animals. sometimes in this type of stories were the main character is different from the rest they get made fun of or worse by everyone else.

„In which prison are you sitting?“ „I‘m sitting in the sitting in prison prison.“

I think, genuine passion and love for a particular subject transcends races and borders. If anything, it amplifies it. In example, I got into Cuban dancing, and loved how it worked. Over the decade that followed, I feverishly tried to understand everything about it, from moves, to the struggles of the Cubans, and all various art forms from the country. Just because I’m white, doesn’t mean I am not a Cuban dancer on the inside. And because I represent Cuban dancing through a very passionate lens, arguably rivaling Cubans themselves, it sparks more passionate people to care about the good things in life regardless of race or country. If anything, I’d argue we need more love letters to each others precious and beautiful cultures, and not just by white people. In doing so, people will see what it all was for and fall in love again with what they know to be true, but perhaps forgotten. Hiring people can be tricky, I believe the best people for the right job, regardless of race to be the best way. In George r r Martin’s reply on the ethnic homogeneous scenes depicting maroccans and if that was done as intended; as he put it, as it turns out the location scouted happened to be in marocco, so if you post a flyer there, maroccans tend to turn up ;-). If your production is in America, same applies. I do hope however, that in the future passion will unite all of us stronger than war and power greed will divide us. Can I run for miss universe 2022 now? Jk I’m a guy lol.

20:18 "When I'm dead, just throw me in the trash"

I love how while she is talking and explaining Doa beliefs and her cat is literally in the shot, she is going with the flow of her cat's universe.

I just really love the scene where you talk about "Dao" while letting the cat be in front of the camera. It's like you're presenting the meaning of daoism while talking about it. xD

When i was in middle school our history teacher did a brief unit on chinese history/philosophy, and had 3 class periods where we operated our class under the ideas of daoism, confucianism, and legalism. On the day where she used legalism to control the class, we had a workbook to complete, and anyone that spoke got detention. I nearly cried because i was so anxious.

I just realized something while watching CinemaTherapy’s Kung Fu Panda video. To add to Oogway’s perspective being the “correct” one, it’s due to Po’s dad and his secret ingredient soup that Po even understands the message of the dragon scroll. I don’t believe that Tigress would have gotten it, had the story proceeded without Po falling in front of her during the selection. I think that she honestly would have responded really similarly to Tai Lung, as much of her personal struggles have to do with her not getting approval from Shifu and therefore not being good enough

The thing I love about Tai Lung's and Po's reactions is how at first they seem the same, but they are different. Tai Lung saw it as nothing, showing his insecurities in how with nothing there he will never be anything. But Po said it was blank. Blank may appear to be nothing, but the difference is that when something is blank you can fill it in with something over time, like Po did as he continued to learn when talking with his father and coming to a realization.

I'm Korean! It's true, those black lines are 4/8 trigrams. I wasn't sure why, so after a quick search, it seems like the 4 trigrams on the flag represent heaven, sun, moon, and earth. I suspect that these were purposefully chosen to accent the harmony represented by the Taeguk (blue and red swirl in the middle), meaning that heaven and earth, sun and moon are harmonious :)

My way of thinking of the Japanese weapons is that when master Oogway was going around with Kai bringing destruction, he probably came across with some Japanese soldiers and probably took it from them.

Having now read your books, I'm glad you followed your dream and wrote them. They were extremely enjoyable! Also, having aphasia, thank you so much for getting audiobook readers who make dedicated voices for each character. It's so much easier to keep up with who is talking that way.

That gene mutation thing was very interesting to learn, but now I’m seething with jealousy.

When A movie about Anthro talking animals does the whole "chi is magic" thing better than....another *ahem* "movie".

On the trigrams on the Korean flag, it is my understanding that they represent things that come in fours: family (father, son, mother, daughter), seasons, cardinal directions, etc. BTW: I enjoyed your insight and look forward to more.

I liked that when she talks about sweat glands being removed from your armpits, sirens can be heard in the background

Xiran Jay Zhao’s next book: Invasion of alien vendors with those glowing spinning things.

Chinese director Lu Chuan said "From a production standpoint, the movie is nearly perfect. Its American creators showed a very sincere attitude about Chinese culture."

Your point about needing more Chinese voice actors in this movie rings so true! It's also a huge gripe I have with the movie Kubo and the Two Strings which had, like, a single Japanese voice actor, and only as a background character.

Someone suggested we watch Kung Fu Panda in my Chinese class after taking our final. My teacher agreed and put it on. The whole time, I was a little on edge because I thought that it may have been a little offensive or a rip off of true Chinese Culture. This video came at the perfect time, haha. This really opened my eyes and taught me a lot more about the culture! Thank you!

If there's anything I've learned as a new anthropologist, it's that there are certain commonalities among humans, such as: sword go swish swoosh, fried dough good, body doubles as art medium, and spinny glowy toy.

The story of the rocket chair: A guide on how to make fanfic canon.

Whoever claimed that "nothing good can come from negativity" needs to see this channel. Born from sheer spite of one movie.

6:25 Where Master Master- I mean Master Roshi- I mean MASTER SHIFU!!! YOU JUST MADE MY DAY!!!!!!