Secrets of the Furious Five

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Secrets of the Furious Five
Secrets of the Furious Five.jpg
Original poster
Directed by Raman Hui
Written byPaul McEvoy
Todd Berger
Produced byKaren Foster
Starring Jack Black
Dustin Hoffman
David Cross
Randall Duk Kim
Jessica DiCicco
Max Koch
Tara Strong
Jaycee Chan
Edited by John Venzon
Music by Henry Jackman
Hans Zimmer
John Powell
Production
companies
Distributed by Paramount Home Entertainment
Release dates
  • November 11, 2008 (2008-11-11)(companion DVD release)
  • February 26, 2009 (2009-02-26)(NBC broadcast)
  • March 24, 2009 (2009-03-24)(separate DVD release)
Running time
24 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Budget$10 million

Secrets of the Furious Five (also known as Kung Fu Panda: Secrets of the Furious Five) is a 2008 American animated short film produced by DreamWorks Animation that serves as a spin-off to the animated feature film, Kung Fu Panda (2008), and appears on a companion disc of the original film's deluxe DVD release. It was broadcast on NBC February 26, 2009, and became available as a separate DVD.

Contents

The film has a framing story of Po the Dragon Warrior (in computer animation) telling the stories of his comrades in arms, the Furious Five, who are depicted in 2D cel animation, similar to the opening and end credits of the original film.

The only actors from the film to reprise their roles in this short were Jack Black as Po, Dustin Hoffman as Master Shifu, David Cross as Crane, and Randall Duk Kim as Master Oogway. Angelina Jolie, Lucy Liu, Jackie Chan and Seth Rogen do not reprise their roles, mainly because their related characters are depicted as their younger selves.

In this short, Monkey is voiced by Jaycee Chan, son of Jackie Chan. Jaycee Chan also voiced Crane in the Cantonese version of the original film. Production of the film was outsourced to Reel FX Creative Studios, which worked on CG animation, and to Film Roman, which worked on traditionally animated sequences. [1]

Plot

Master Shifu instructs Po on how to teach an introductory kung fu lesson to a group of rambunctious bunny children. Po tries to teach the kids that combat is only part of what kung fu is about; its true meaning is "excellence of self". To illustrate his point, he explains the Furious Five's individual backstories, and the basic philosophical concepts that enabled them to be great kung fu masters.

Shifu returns, anticipating finding a lack of progress, and is surprised to see he has underestimated Po's talents again. When the Bunnies ask Po how his first day of kung fu was, Po has a flashback to all the unpleasant events of the first film. He smiles confidently and assures them that "it was awesome!".

Voice cast

Awards

Secrets of the Furious Five received eight nominations in the "Animated Television Production or Short Form" category at the 36th Annie Awards, of which it received four ("Character Animation", "Character Design", "Music" and "Production Design").

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References

  1. Simon, Ben (2008-11-30). "Kung Fu Panda / Secrets Of The Furious Five". Animated Views. Retrieved 2010-11-06.