The third instalment of the Kung Fu Panda franchise earned a record 380 million yuan ($57.79 million) on the Chinese mainland in just three days since its premiere on 29 January.

• Where Was The Tv Show Kung Fu Filmed
• Where Was Kung Fu The Legend Continues Filmed
• Old School Kung Fu Movies In English

Feb 5, 2017 - Jackie Chan's Kung-Fu Yoga may be kicking up some serious box-office numbers in China but in India the film has opened to underwhelming. Kung Fu Panda 4 is an upcoming American 3D animated film that will be a sequel to the 2016 film Kung Fu Panda 3. Kung fu panda 4 will be released on June 4th 2018 instead of 2021 please. Edit Synopsis Edit. Tai Lung return as a good guy. Tai lung, po, furious five, master croc, master ox, oogway, all pandas, soothsayer, mr.

Abroad, it beat Alejandro González Iñárritu’s The Revenant, starring Leonardo DiCaprio and one of the hottest films vying for the Oscars this year, earning $41 million in ticket sales compared with $12.4 million by The Revenant in US and Canada. Final destination movie ending.

To director Teng Huatao, the Chinese counterpart to South Korean-born American Jennifer Yuh Nelson, the mastermind behind the Kung Fu Panda franchise, even though the Chinese production team wove numerous Chinese elements into the film, and even with the Chinese-language version tailored for the Chinese audience, Kung Fu Panda 3 is still not a Chinese film “because it is a film for the world to see”.

“I was talking with DreamWorks about a possibility of filming something. I was very interested in animation, and they said ‘you should be part of a mega-anime production’,” Teng reflects, on how he joined the team of the third instalment to the beloved panda franchise.

By the second half of 2014, Teng and Oriental DreamWorks were in Los Angeles working with their US partners.

“They’ve been working on it for two-and-a-half years. We had weekly script meetings, and the Chinese team would share their thoughts on scripts. Jennifer would show me their dubbing sessions. I was there for three months, and returned home to cast actors for the Chinese version,” revealed Teng.

In Teng's eyes, Nelson, who storyboarded the first film and directed the second, was very peaceful and serene in private.

“She said her role was to calm everybody down when they were loud, otherwise her words would go unheard. A good work is not made in a hurry. It’s an advantage for someone of her character to make animation, for it is a very long process. Sometimes you are dealing with the same thing for four years,” added Teng.

A scene from Kung Fu Panda 3

Resolving differences between US and China teams

To Teng, Kung Fu Panda 3 is a Sino-US co-production in which the Chinese team was extremely involved. “More than 3,000 people worked on this film. They [the US team] didn't want the Chinese audiences to think it was something made by foreigners,” he said.

And this involved resolving disputes and differences, amid making compromises, on a regular basis.

“There was a festival at the panda village [in the film]. They did their research, we did ours, and we let ideas collide. For instance, they weren’t aware of what shuttlecocks were, so we looked for clips on the internet and showed them. We designed a ribbon dance for Meimei [a female panda character in the film], but our US partners thought this wasn’t Chinese and belonged to the genre of gymnastics.”

One of the biggest selling points for Kung Fu Panda 3 on the Chinese mainland is the existence of a truly Chinese version of the film. On top of modifying mouth movements of characters, the Chinese script is not just a word-for-word translation of the English one. Instead, many puns were tailored specifically for Chinese audiences.

“When Po asks Tigress what kind of noodles she wants, in the Chinese version, Tigress says ‘Biantai La’ [abnormally hot, referring to the top degree of spiciness offered at Chinese noodle restaurants], whereas in the original, it is ‘noodle with sauce on the side’,” said Teng.

Both parties made an effort to make the film more authentically Chinese.

“We were trying to come up with fun things the characters do – what they eat, how they play. As Western story artists, one of the things we put in was cookies. And the Chinese story　artists basically said, ‘Ummmm. You can't put in cookies, you have to put in traditional food,’” said Nelson. This eventually led to a change in the script.

Meimei dances in Kung Fu Panda 3

On the Chinese cast

Martial arts superstar Jackie Chan, singer-songwriter Jay Chou, and household-name actors including Huang Lei, Yang Mi, Zhang Guoli and Wang Zhiwen were part of the “all-star cast” for the Chinese version of Kung Fu Panda 3.

For the director, each cast member was chosen based on the characters. Some had unique voices, such as Meimei, played by Yang Mi (who is often criticised for her high-pitched and squeaky voice), and others were selected for their ability to express, such as Mr Ping played by veteran Chinese actor Zhang Guoli.

As for the biological father of Po, played by Chan, Teng deliberately kept Chan’s accented Mandarin instead of training him to speak a more standardised tone.

“Chan actually had a dialogue coach next to him, and when he was dubbing, he would ask his coach whether he was pronouncing the right way. But to me, I wanted to keep his accent, so that when he starts talking, the audiences immediately know that it's Jackie Chan. Otherwise, what is the point of hiring him?”

Teng also praised Chou, who voiced the Monkey, for his witty addition of puns to the script.

“He got into the state very soon, and knew where it would be perfect to add his catchphrase [‘Oh, that’s cool’, recognisable by practically all Chinese audiences who know Chou] into the script. It was really cool,” praised Teng.

As for whether the romance between Po and Meimei would unfold in the fourth instalment, Teng is keeping mum.

“Judging from Po’s pace, he hasn’t gotten into the romantic phase yet in the third film, and it's hard to tell what would happen in the fourth. If the audiences think the third one is better than the previous two, then my mission is complete.”

The Monkey and Po in Kung Fu Panda 3

Dialogue with Teng Huatao

Q: Some say that Kung Fu Panda 3 may be filled with Chinese elements, but it is still Americanised. Do you agree?

A: Of course. The principle that followed throughout discussion between us is that we cannot make Kung Fu Panda 3 into a Chinese film, because it is a film for the world to see. We had to meet the demands of our US partners. As long as there weren’t any principal errors, we contributed our Chinese elements, but we can’t turn it into a Chinese film.

Q: Did you discover a major gap between how animation features are made in US and China when you were at DreamWorks?

Where Was The Tv Show Kung Fu Filmed

A: The gap is big, and not something that can be filled in a short period. But as long as we are working together on big productions, I believe things will get better in the future. I also saw Monkey King: Hero is Back (a domestic dark-horse animated feature released in 2015), so we can catch up to speed, but no matter how high the ticket sales are in China, if we want to tell our stories for the world, the world must understand and like our story. There’s a difference between the two.

Q: There are more and more Sino-US co-productions, and we are getting a bigger share of the pie when it comes to box-office accounts. As the Chinese counterpart, how can we benefit?

A: The Chinese team participated more, and at a deeper level, for Kung Fu Panda 3. This is a great learning opportunity to work with the best animation team in the world, to learn how they do things, and how they fine-tune the details.

Where Was Kung Fu The Legend Continues Filmed

Q: Will you direct your own animated feature in the future?

A: Yes, but I may not have the time. But if I do, it has to be a story that I like.

Old School Kung Fu Movies In English

This article was originally produced and published by China Daily. View the original article here.

• Read more about Chinese current affairs at China Watch