DISQUS

ElliotCowan · 1 year ago

I don't know about calling them cultural gaffs.
There are films from nations all over the world that observe different etiquette to standard western thinking.
Themes in US based films play differently in Australia.
Themes in Indian films play differently in Sri Lanka.

(Also, the notion that a student is supposed to be respectful towards their teacher is hardly unique to China).

floydbishop · 1 year ago

It just seems that if these are really such big cultural issues, they would have come up during the production when they were researching the story and culture for the film. Maybe it wasn't really looked into that deeply, or maybe people just like to complain.

ElliotCowan · 1 year ago

I have read, and I cannot claim that it is true or not, that the Chinese film going community does not care for the concept of talking animals.
I believe films like Babe were not released there.

I would also wager that research of Chinese culture was not a big part of the production, nor would it be terribly relevant for the film, which is a knockabout comedy and not a Mulan style examination of life in another country.

ElliotCowan · 1 year ago

Also - I'm surprised you enjoyed the Princess and the Frog teaser more than the Up teaser.
I felt the Up trailer had more charm in it's 10 odd seconds than P&F did in a handful of frames.

floydbishop · 1 year ago

I'm going to do a post on that later this evening :)

lennyb · 1 year ago

I'm more offended by the headline "China Mortified by Kung Fu Panda." Do we believe it? Really, the entire country is mortified by Kung Fu Panda? Or is it certain groups or certain people in China are mortified? I'm not dismissing the complaint, just wondering exactly whose complaint it is and how many people are complaining.

Headlines draw attention to articles. The more sensational the headline, the more views the article gets.

Fred Seibert · 1 year ago

For whatever it's worth, I bought your review (and other cartoon bloggers) of KFP and really looked forward to seeing it with my son. We were both bored silly, like I've felt at most DreamWorks Animation pictures.

floydbishop · 1 year ago

That's too bad. The Master Oogway scenes, and any time Tai Lung were some of the best animated stuff in quite a while. The two stand out moments for me were the prison escape sequence and the rope bridge battle. Surly you weren't bored during those?

Furio Detti · 11 months ago

"In such a global community, is it not possible to do an animated film that is based on a culture, yet observes that culture’s beliefs AND entertains a broad audience?"

I think that the answer is "probably not". Expecially while we consider humour in its gears: funny things are often based on musunderstandings and stereotypes. Naturally we KNOW that - i.e. Italians (I am italian) - are not at all devoted to family, boisterous, jealous lovers, "mafia-like" guys, gourmets, easy to get-on-the-loose with their emotions, and so on.... but that's the fun about virtually ever joke about Italians.

as well as Woody Allen, Philip Roth, about Jews.

or the great humour of Eddie Murphy (I think about "Raw") on the black people.

every comedy author knows that.

may be that Kung Fu Panda portrayed in a somewath grotesque mode the Chinese culture. OK, let's try to mock Western culture by a gifted chinese comedian.

Anyway is just fun. Not a PhD in Anthropology? Right?