Kung Fu Panda 3 is a 2016 3D American-Chinese computer animated film produced by DreamWorks Animation. The film is classified as a comedy martial arts film and was distributed by 20th Century Fox. It is sequel to the 2011 Film Kung Fu Panda 2 and the Kung Fu Panda Franchise. The film had a limited release in China on January 23, 2016 and a united States release, January 29, 2016.
The film was directed by Jonathan Aibel and Glenn Berger. They were also the writers of The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water. The executive producer is famous, Guillermo del Toro and produced by Melissa Cobb. Kung Fu Panda 3 returned some of the famous voice actors from the previous films and had a new cast as well. Some of these voices included, Jack Black, Bryan Cranston, Dustin Hoffman, Angelina Jolie, J.K Simmons, Lucy Liu, Seth Rogen, Kate Hudson and Jackie Chan.  The 95 minute film received positive reviews and has a 7.2 out of 10 rating on IMDb. It had a budget of  $145 million but accumulated $519.9 million at the box office.

Our story takes place  in the Spirit Realm with Turtle, Grandmaster Oogway. Grandmaster Oogway  fights against an adversary named Kai, who has defeated other kung fu masters in the realm and taken their qi, turning them into small jade charms. Oogway willingly gives in and also has his qi stolen, but not before warning Kai that the Dragon Warrior, Po will stop him. Kai takes this as a challenge to steal the qi from the Dragon Warrior and returns to the mortal realm. Po must find a way to find his inner peace and qi to defeat Kai. With the help from his friends, long lost father and family he battles not only his strongest enemy but his inner self and doubt as well. The real question is, will he find his inner qi in time and survive in the process?

Being a fan of the Kung Fu Panda Franchise I was excited to see this film. The characters were hilarious with their dialogue and the animation was absolutely stunning. The opening shots of the spirit realm are gorgeous with lighting, colors and 3d animation. I also really enjoy that the movies have stayed true with the Chinese elements and teachings of martial arts. I also enjoyed that they incorporated inner peace and qi as an entity and compared that to the strength behind your friends and family. What I also enjoyed was the soundtrack and film score of Hans Zimmer that has also worked on the previous films. I also liked that they incorporated renowned Asian musicians such as Chinese pianist lang lang, Chinese cellist Jian Wang, pop singer Jay Chou and Canadian Taiwanese young singer Patrick Brasca.

I was a little disappointed in the movie moving back to avoid competition with Star Wars Episode VII. The Force Awakens but strategically it was well thought out. The strategy especially in China planned out very well because it’s release was around the time of the Chinese New Year in February. The movie has likable characters, sense of humor, action packed moves and fun filled adventures but what I thought was missing was the element of the other characters throughout the Kung Fu Panda franchise. It had a few great lessons but as a fan of the franchise I would have liked to see more involvement of the characters around Po, such as his friends. We get a lot of development of the characters throughout the past two films and with six films being projected in the future overall I would like to see more insight of his friends opinions and actions. Overall, I give this movie 3 pandas out of 5 but I expect to see more Kung Fu Panda in the near future. I expect to see a completed journey of the series and have all loose ends tied up. I don’t expect this film to get a top five finalist for best animation at the Academy Awards but I do expect the movie to be nominated in the top 10.