Kung Fu Panda 3

Jennifer Yuh Nelson and Alessandro Carloni’s 2016 animation opens with Po meeting his birth father while Kai harvests the chi of kung fu masters. It was co-produced with Oriental DreamWorks in Shanghai, about a third of the work done in China. The Mandarin version is not an ordinary dub, and the two studios call it the first of its kind. Their technical paper describes reanimating only the mouths and the surrounding cheek, jaw and neck, from a single editorial cut, with a tool showing animators the Mandarin and English difference as a heat map. Data crossed between the sites through a purpose built system called courier. Jackie Chan is the only performer in both versions. Kate Hudson replaced Rebel Wilson during recording, forcing finished shots to be reanimated; Bryan Cranston voices Li Shan. The spirit realm got its own effects rulebook: no fine impact dust, only rock shattering into graphic shapes. It was described as closing a trilogy, but the series continued in 2024 with Kung Fu Panda 4. A good fit if you want Po given two fathers with no obligation to choose, and the panda village jokes doubling as the training sequence. Not for you if you came for the Furious Five: Kai takes the chi of all but Tigress and leaves them as jade statues.