To my furry brothers and sisters, 

I saw Kung Fu Panda today and I was amazed!   This is as fine an anthropomorphic fantasy movie as we are likely to see in many years. If you have not seen it, then go and see it. If you have already seen in then go and see it again! It is that good. I am serious. This one is for us. This is a gift for all furries, let's accept it with deep gratitude and joy. I believe that this movie has the opportunity to fuel the anthropomorphic imagination in many minds and it could help awaken the furry sleeping inside some people.

I must admit that I went into the movie with some doubts. The commercials did a lot to emphasize Jack Black and I find that with his performances a little goes a long way. All of those doubts evaporated in the first few seconds of the film. A beautiful and highly stylized opening draws the audience into the fantasy with startling speed and power. Things move as a more modest pace soon after the first sequence but it successfully foreshadows a bit of everything that follows. It is as the jewel in the lotus reflecting ten-thousand worlds. The movies makes excellent use of Jack Black's characterization integrating it into the story and succeeds at keeping it in proper service to the story.

Overall they had a good balance of presence and transparency for the voice acting. In some characters the voice leads the character yet in others the voice actor disappears and we see only the character. I like this as the voice acting could easily get in the way of the character without careful planning. They used very sophisticated planning for this one. For instance they made excellent use of Jack Black and David Cross as voices who formed the core of their characters. While Dustin Hoffman and Angelina Jolie became transparent in their roles which worked very well.

The movie displays phenomenal beauty. They make excellent use of the generally simple character frames. The textures impress me with each new CG movie that I see and this movie continues with that tradition. The fights are beyond amazing. This may feature some of the best depictions of Kung Fu combat ever. The ability to make character pause and hover in mid move is the fulfillment of a kung fu movie maker's dream. The deft use of meaningfully shifting camera angles puts me in awe of their visual imagination. The physics are superb and better than life because in the animated format they can make physics better match our internalized version of intuitive physics. Their amazing acrobatic moves just felt very pleasing overall.

Also the plot is full of fun, challenges and meanings. Many of the characters have wonderful and satisfying arcs. Many of them must struggle to overcome their doubts. They struggle well and with much right effort they all learn something important. The writing is tight and nothing gets wasted so that everything connects well and serves a purpose.

This movie is full of great things that all add value and all work well together. If you don' t see this one in the theater you will be kicking yourself later. Go and see it, you will thank yourself for it.