Our first foray into the cheap, deceptive land of the mockbuster dawns with two ripoff movies for the low price of one, The Little Panda Fighter and Chop Kick Panda, respectively exploiting the success of both Kung Fu Panda (2008) and Kung fu Panda 2 (2011), with both releasing alongside the bigger animated movie counterparts to cash-in.
Renegade Animation’s Chop Kick Panda tells the story of Lu, or Zibo, either one. Internet sources and dialogue within the film itself are telling me Zibo, where, rather inconsistently, the synopsis on the back of this DVD (that incidentally cost me all of fifty pence) is naming our panda protagonist Lu. Lu is described in the blurb as a “large (okay, fat)” panda who, much like Po of the original films, dreams of becoming a kung-fu master. Even the blurb on the back of this children’s DVD hates its own counterfeit character, fat-shaming him off the bat. We have not yet begun analysis on the plot and film itself and the DVD cover is already exposing itself as the inept and deformed replicant of the soundalike blockbuster that it is.
The panda martial-arts film is contained in an awkward running time of forty minutes, making it too short for a feature-length animation and too long in duration for a short the likes of some of Pixar’s more artistic short films. Either way, it is nearly an hour of my life I could have spent developing my own cheap mockbuster, Fe-Man or Captain El Mexicana, perhaps.
Plot, as audiences should expect, mirrors that of the Kung fu Panda movie, albeit significantly simplifying the wuxia narrative that it attempts to replicate, and barely manages to incorporate the hero’s journey story in the limited running time. Characters poorly mimic those of the authentic film, with comparisons primarily drawn between Lu/Zibo and Po, with evil tiger Kudo directly lifting from character Tai Lung. Shame towards one’s family is often a consistent theme within Hong Kong cinema, with the likes of Jackie Chan often embarrassing his on-screen fathers, yet shame is a concept this film fails to grasp as it launches its broken-mirror image.
It has to be said that animation production value of this film, though basic, is a step above many of its kind, The Little Panda Fighter included, though who the three behind-the-scenes animation sequences are aimed is a little confusing, as if the artists involved are a little proud of their poorly carbon copied panda. Voices, however, are not synchronised well with the rudimentary mouth movements that makes every character look like they are chewing the thick fat of the anthropomorphic cartoon creatures.
Voice-acting (often striking somewhere between slightly offensive and about as natural as those within Bethesda’s Elder Scrolls franchise) of course does not hold the light-hearted charm of Jack Black, Seth Rogan, Ian McShane, Aneglina Jolie, Jackie Chan and Lucy Liu, instead shamelessly opting for the dulcet tones of some guys that don’t even have profile photographs on iMBD, with credits that include ILB: Major of Halo 2. Everybody remember him? Man, I sure loved that character.
Chop Kick Panda attempts and fails at some intertextual humour, especially notable in one instance wherein Jar Jar Binks is brought up at random during a fight as a character expresses his distaste for also nobodys’ favourite Star Wars character, a reference ten years too late. It is evident that Danny Katiana is reaching for the same level of natural loveable laziness that Jack Black achieves, but the only humour that arises does so as audiences knowingly mock the trash film.
Darrell Van Citter’s (that must be a pseudonym, right?) film is, as expressed before, not as awful as it typically could be, letting Brazilian film The Little Panda Fighter (or Heavy’s Little Bear) take the spot for worst Kung Fu Panda mockbuster yet. Pancanda works at a boxing club, instead of noodle restaurant, and one day dreams of becoming a dancer, instead of a kung fu master. In this regard, we could (almost) have ourselves a convention-breaking movie more than a wuxia, with a narrative akin to Billy Elliot and less of a direct plot resemblance than that of Chop Kick Panda. Or, our slightly earlier mockbuster just didn’t want to go full mockbuster. You never go full mockbuster.
The Little Panda Fighter exists as a way to pawn off people that wanted to see the new(at-the-time) Dreamworks film Kung Fu Panda but also had poor memory, as well as poor eyesight (a common jokey theory is that these mockbusters exist as a way to trick grandmas into.
Vídeo Brinquedo’s film was released to coincide with the first Kung Fu Panda movie, so I guess we could call it the original ripoff, and runs at an impressive fifty minutes, a whole ten minutes more than Chop Kick Panda! In this instance, the phrase less is more becomes extremely relevant.
Nov 18, 2008 The Little Panda Fighter, titled Ursinho da Pesada in Brazil and originally titled Heavy's Little Bear, is a Brazilian direct-to-video computer-animated sports action comedy film. The film has received criticism for being a knock-off of the DreamWorks Animation GMW film Kung Fu Panda GMW. Nov 19, 2012 Get YouTube without the ads. Skip trial 1 month free. Find out why Close. RECENSIONE FILM - Little Panda Fighter yotobi. Unsubscribe from yotobi?
If the voice-over is out-of-synch in Chop Kick Panda, then the audio track is running on an alternate program in a parallel universe in this dire replica. Where Renegade perhaps cleverly opted for a more simplistic animation style (after suggesting otherwise with a more impressively designed DVD sleeve), Vídeo Brinquedo’s direct-to-video title tries for 3D animation that those who grew up with children’s video games in the 1990’s should be familiar with, only transcending to a much more technically inept plane of existence.
Somehow, the English-dub is more meagre than what we would traditionally expect from dubbed voice-over on foreign language films, perhaps aggravated by the irregular jolty dance sequences backed by a repetitively grating theme that will have you begging for death before the end. With vivid primary colour pallets that forces you to squint your eyes, foley that sounds awfully loyalty-free, and facial animations and body movements that are unintentionally creepier than the animatronic characters from Five Nights at Freddy’sThe Little Panda Fighter earns its well-deserved bad movie mockbuster label.
Finally I would like to call to attention a specific line from within the film: “I see a lot of raw talent that, given some time, could be developed with proper training.” This line could almost self-referentially be in regards to the filmmakers and animators themselves, with director Michelle Gabriel also lending a hand in the animation, as if there was some hope that Disney, Dreamworks or Pixar might take notice of the sub-par, rogue animators as they pat themselves on the back for finishing this monstrosity.
Semra Turan
This is merely the beginning of a long and winding road through the fringe movie industry, and though the latter film has made me feel almost unclean in its execution, both aim to deceive the most naive of audiences most aptly deceived – children. otherwise, a drop of alcohol and a pinch of ironic viewing may make these films contextually not so dreadful.
The Little Panda Fighter Imdb
Rent? Buy? Illegally download?
Might I suggest drinking bleach and chasing it down with a shot drain cleaner as an alternative?
Chop Kick Panda – 2.1/10
The Little Panda Fighter – 0.8/10
The Little Panda Fighter Imdb
Lu marginally wins this martial arts bout.
Fighting
The Film Fanatic