Film Theory: Kung Fu Panda, The REAL Reason Po is the Chosen One!

Panda man who doesn't love

panda

s, they are already legendary for their sneezing and reactions to sneezes, but they also love slides, playing in the leaves and eating for 10 to 14 hours every day. I mean, I'm not necessarily into spirit animals, but uh. That

panda

lifestyle seems very relatable to me, but you know who doesn't love pandas, a surprising number of naturalists and economists who write articles with not-so-cute titles like Why I Hate Pandas and You Should Too and the Humans should stop messing with pandas. and let them die and pandas are not cute, they are death loving oxygen thieves.

Wow, I mean, sure we spend a lot of conservation money on animals that seem uninterested in mating for the survival of their own species, but ask yourself this if you let the pandas die, who will become the dragon warrior to save all of China? Yes, now you see how important pandas are. Hello Internet, welcome to Film Theory, the show that studies martial arts footage in super slow motion to make sure everyone is

real

ly

kung

. fu fighting instead of, as you know, fighting with judo or fighting with kepura or fighting with krav maga, dear viewer, if you've been on the cinematic journey that I call

film

theory

for more than a few episodes, you already know that it would be Creepy if it weren't. my work-related obsession with kids movies, but now it's even less creepy because I have a toddler and I can spend quality time with my son watching something we can both enjoy, plus still do my job while multitasking for him. win our newest father and son movie,

kung

fu panda, my son loved the movie, but as any of you who have ever been around a toddler know, toddlers are prototheorists who ask a lot of questions, luckily Your questions so far have been pretty simple.

That a panda, what is it doing? kung fu boom, right, but as he gets older those questions will start to get more sophisticated, how is the panda such a good fighter? why did oogway choose poe as the dragon warrior to save the valley in the first place as opposed to literally anyone else, why do all the animals have creepy human teeth? Hmm,

reason

able questions about all future versions of my son and while I can't answer the third one today, I want to cover the first two, why is it poe? all the animals, the dragon warrior, what makes Poe so special.

Have you ever noticed that he never gets such a solid explanation in the movie in a fictional world where there are already many other highly skilled and trained warriors, making this random panda the

chosen

one? Oh, there's a

reason

and that reason is to get this into Chinese cinema so we can make a ton of cash and what has become the biggest theatrical market in the world, but leaving aside the cynical

real

ities of cinema, I think there's also an in-universe reason why Poe is the perfect candidate above and beyond everyone else and it's not what you'd expect, so shove as many dumplings in your mouth as you can and rest those fingers of fury. who comment, we are jumping into the world of kung fu.

Panda Skadoosh When Master Oogway determines that Poe is actually a dragon warrior, a mythical hero who predicted that he would one day save the valley and gain unlimited power, most of the other characters were skeptical that Poe could be a great warrior. for one main reason: your body. dude, they're not exactly subtle about it either, look at you, these fat flavions, I'm in this ridiculous belly right now, this kind of thing was probably my least favorite part of kung fu panda because it perpetuates some negative stereotypes about bodies that just roll out It's not True, the idea that you have to have six-pack abs to be a good athlete or a good wrestler is not only biased, it is actually scientifically inaccurate and no, I'm not just talking about sumo wrestlers, for example.

In 2019, the world heavyweight boxing champion was this guy, Anthony Joshua, and he faced this guy, Andy Ruiz Jr. Anthony Joshua looks like what we've been conditioned to think an elite athlete should look like and Andy Ruiz doesn't, but since I mention this, you probably know how this story will end. Ruiz knocked down Joshua four times during the fight and ultimately won via technical knockout. That's a TKO for those of you who have never played Punch Out before, sure you had a rematch which Anthony Joshua won by decision but Andy Ruiz has 33 wins in the ring and only two losses as a professional boxer so it's not like if he were a nobody who just took a lucky hit.

The sports nutritionist dr. Major Ranchurtis said after the fight that Ruiz's extra mass was actually working in his favor and that's simple physics, since force is mass times acceleration, more mass behind the punch means a harder hit. Ruiz isn't the only elite fighter with this body type either. This is Daniel Cormier, one of the few mixed fighters. martial artists who have never held the championship in multiple different weight classes, Serena Williams has faced all kinds of criticism about her body, mainly because she is too muscular to play tennis, which, let's face it, you're too muscular to be an athlete, it's probably one of the silliest. of silly shots, but no figures, there is almost no doubt that she is the best tennis player in history.

We could do this all day. The point is that looking at someone's body shape doesn't tell you anything about their physical ability, their flexibility, strength, speed, balance or any other attribute that really matters. In athletic performance, can you be the dragon warrior despite not having washboard abs and giant biceps? Of course he can and in terms of how much force he can put behind his punches, his weight may actually be acting as an advantage. There is also an argument to be made. That type of poe's body makes him a better warrior not only because he can deal more damage but also because he can absorb more damage apparently pandas fall out of trees all the time and according to zookeepers they don't usually get hurt as much as they get embarrassed Just when you thought pandas couldn't be identified anymore, science suggests their extra body fat could be helping them avoid injury.

When this happens, a 2003 study found that higher levels of subcutaneous fat were associated with a significant decrease. of injuries to people in the car. Accidents, a study from Leeds Beckett University also showed that overweight people had a higher tolerance to pressure pain than those whose body mass indexes were in the normal range and this is not just me randomly applying the science of the world real to a fictional

film

that we actively watch playing. In the Kung Fu Panda 2 films, Ho is shot by Lord Shen's cannon at almost point-blank range and manages to survive because it hits him in his more padded midsection and in the original Kung Fu Panda, the snow leopard, Tai Lung.

The special attack seems to affect his opponent's nerves as he uses it to paralyze the Furious 5. But Poe is immune to that attack in his final battle and instead of being paralyzed by it he is simply tickled given the difficulty of the attack. mantis to find pose pressure points earlier in the movie, due to his recovered physique, it seems that carrying a few extra pounds is Poe's secret offensive and defensive weapon, but Matpat aren't super low energy, lazy pandas, right? Would that make Poe a terrible fighter? Yes, the letter to the editor that you think I understand all the episodes.

It's true that normal pandas have low metabolic rates and are considered relatively slow and lazy, but Poe is no normal panda. The main reason pandas have such slow metabolisms is that their diets are terribly inefficient. short digestive tract, which is perfect for eating meat, but instead they spend more than 10 hours a day eating bamboo to meet their nutritional needs and then, because they can't digest it as well, they have to defecate about 40 times a day , did you hear right? 40 batches of panda balls per day. The shaman really should have used pandas in all those ad campaigns, but on a more chemical level it means that pandas have extremely low levels of the hormone tyrosine which regulates thyroid function and things like energy use, but don't notice that the diet Poe's is not bamboo, it is good, everything else, especially dumplings, bean buns and tofu, all the things that Mr.

Ping serves and, wouldn't you know it, meat, soybeans and other legumes, are all foods with higher tyrosine content, so it is likely. that po is eating a diet that will make him much more energetic than the normal panda and at the same time save him time chewing wood and clogging a septic tank, maybe that diet is just what we needed to turn an ordinary panda into a martial arts master, so that's fine and good old Poe's body type is actually helping him attack harder and cushion blows more easily. His special diet makes him more energetic than the average panda, but still, why didn't Oogway choose one of the Furious Five as his dragon? warrior, I mean, this one has always bothered me since you know they were all seasoned kung fu experts to begin with and poe no, so I did some research and realized that while they all knew kung fu, they didn't They knew the right type of kung fu. kung fu, see calling kung fu only one thing is like saying basketball and water polo are the same sport because in both you try to throw a ball into a net, there are a lot of different styles of kung fu including shaolin animal styles . are five of the most common animal styles, as long as you don't include the secret in and out menu.

I bet you can guess the snake, the crane, the tiger monkey and the mantis, just like we see in the movie, but you were wondering why there was a random mantis as part of the team huh, well now you know it's a dedicated style of kung fu. Each of these styles is used by its corresponding member of the Furious Five, but none of them in particular use another common animal style, the dragon style. Now there is no panda style. in the real world, but poe actually has some instincts that would help him use that dragon style more effectively.

One of the defining elements of dragon style kung fu is the dragon step that moves in this type of unconventional zigzag dance and before Po receives training, his instinct is to use, as he calls it, his crazy feet and Since dragon style is in many ways a combination of techniques from all the other animal styles, Poe is in a great position to learn it because we know that he has been a Furious Five super fan since the beginning and has been studying Slash by practicing his techniques in your room from day one. It's one of the first things we know about him.

Each member of the Furious Five may have his own specialization, but by learning from all of them, Poe is putting himself. the basis for becoming the master dragon warrior without even realizing it, in fact, oogway tells us this at the end of kung fu panda 3 that his vision for the dragon warrior was someone who could serve as a kind of connection point the first day. we met I saw the future of kung fu and the past I saw the panda who could unite them both that's why I chose you on both sides of yin and yang oogway ari I knew from my own experience that pandas had the ability to master chi spiritual elements of kung fu but his mention of yin and yang here is relevant even though oogway's first impression of poe is that he is a jester who just landed in front of him and sees the opposite side which is the potential pose , so when Oogway laid eyes on what appeared to be a clumsy and unassuming panda, he knew that inside was also an elegant and powerful dragon unless when Oogway says he saw both sides of yin and yang, he means that po It was black and white and its fur literally made it look like that. a yin yang sign, not the whole body shape and mastering different styles thing and no that's definitely not that, it was clearly the body shape and diet and his Furious Five super ghost that made him the perfect dragon warrior, oh and also the whole making money in China thing, that's probably the biggest one, but hey, that's just a

theory

, a movie theory, and a fun fact.

You know, I was able to watch kung fu panda to make this theory with the help of our sponsor. Today's episode nordvpn that's not a joke, this is a true story, so for years I've been telling you how Nord protects your online privacy with its military-grade encryption. In fact, his information is double encrypted to increase anonymity and it works. on all your different devices, which is very important for something like your phone when you're using unsecured networks, but here's a real-world example of how I used Nord for this very episode. Kung Fu Panda is not streaming here in the US or me.

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