Kung Fu Panda/Headscratchers


 * Ever notice that dozens, if not hundreds, of rhinoceri were probably killed by collapsing the ceiling of the prison? The movie kind of forgets about them, and it is quite horrible to think about the guards that were undoubtedly crushed under tons of rock.
 * Depending on what they may have done to their only prisoner for twenty years, they may have deserved this. Even if you believe Tai Lung was a Complete Monster, that doesn't justify descending to or below his level.
 * Also, well, did you forget that Tai Lung is the villain? Killing good guys is kinda what they do. Yes, it's bad that the rhinos got killed. It's supposed to be.
 * I'm not arguing that it shouldn't be included. I mean, they are identical Red Shirts and therefore their purpose in life is to establish the villain's villainy. I'm just pointing out that the movie makes no mention of what must logically have been a fantastically gruesome rhino massacre off-screen.
 * This is true, but What Measure Is a Mook? anyway? (I always wanted to invert that trope this way...)
 * More pressing matters I suppose the only one who knew of said massacre flew away in a hurry and seemed more preoccupied with saying the man shaped WMD was on his way.
 * Rhino's Revenge, shows that at least some rhinos survived.
 * Why didn't Tai Lung's muscles atrophy from spending twenty years in the exact same position, unable to exercise them?
 * He is just that awesome.
 * Perhaps he worked out by struggling against his confines?
 * I too wondered about this, but then I came up with an explanation that IMO seems more like Fridge Brilliance: the paralyzing tortoise shell was explicitly stated to draw all of Tai Lung's chi to the pressure points being stimulated. If you assume chi to be one's life force, as it is generally believed to be, then it wouldn't be too difficult to imagine that trapping it in one place would also arrest the body's metabolism. Thus, no atrophying, thus Tai Lung staying in peak physical condition and at the height of his kung fu skills. It might even explain how he actually got stronger, by concentrating his power. (And even suggests he didn't physically age!) This of course doesn't explain other questions which were raised by Tai Lung's imprisonment (how was he able to relieve himself? How did he eat? Why was his fur so clean and soft-looking after twenty years??). But it's otherwise a brilliant stroke, I think.
 * If it does arrest his body's metabolism, that would mean he doesn't eat or excrete. He also wouldn't shed fur, and the thing imprisoning him would keep him from getting any dirt or dust on it, so he should still be pretty clean. Of course, he was still able to move his tail, so his metabolism couldn't have been completely shut down. They might just partially free him to feed him and clean him every month or so.
 * That...is a very good point. This is what happens when you don't follow your own ideas to their logical conclusion. Makes me wonder though what happened the first time Tai Lung ate after he escaped... Squick. One point though: we don't know for sure it's possible to only partially free Tai Lung (though if they just released some of the pins but not all, that would do it), but even if so, I can't really see Vachir and his guards being humane enough to do such a thing. Not only do they come across as nasty abusive pricks who don't give a damn, but after what Tai Lung did, why would anyone (other than Shifu and Oogway) think he deserved any kind of good treatment? If partially freeing him was necessary to feed him, then it makes sense, but I doubt they cleaned him much if at all. (And of course if they freed him to feed him, they must have also had to do so to bring him a bedpan or whatever.) The more I think about this, the more Squick-inducing and Fate Worse Than Death-ish it seems. If Tai Lung actually killed lots of people (which Dream Works naturally doesn't tell us), he definitely deserves punishment, but...how humiliating, and terrifying. Not to mention practically guaranteeing his insanity and rage if he ever got out...
 * The answer would be that his chi sustains him, in-universe. Does it make sense from a scientific standpoint? No, but the movie isn't drawing from that. One of the hallmarks of mastery over one's chi in various tales was being able to sustain yourself in basically this way.
 * Seriously. Tai Lung. What happened to him?! Fate Worse Than Death? Defeat Means Friendship? Why was the most potentially interesting character done away with in such a random, enigmatic fashion?
 * Sequel Hook
 * If only. From what I've heard, the villain of the next movie will be a dragon named Sinlong (who fights with Dragon Style, of course). So unless Tai Lung works for him (as if) or shows up to help fight him...
 * Nope. The villain is a peacock named Lord Shen, who almost certainly will be wielding a Shouchong / Ishibaya -- the titular Kaboom of Doom.
 * The original information given about the sequel was about Sinlong. Obviously, the people at Dream Works changed their minds. It's possible he (or at least a dragon villain) will still show up in the series or other sequels. Anyway, end result is: still not Tai Lung, so there was no Sequel Hook.
 * Because some people think it's inappropriate to show the hero so thoroughly destroy his enemy that all that remains is the exploded remnants of a villain's flesh scattered across the landscape in a children's movie. Go figure.
 * Or perhaps they were just playing the whole thing for laughs. Or the whole point was that Po wasn't the kind of person to do something so destructive it would explode his enemy into fragments of flesh. Take your pick. (Note that Shifu said the worst part about the hold was cleaning up the mess afterwards. But we not only didn't see much of a mess to clean up, it almost looks like the wave of chi actually repairs a lot of the damage to the village. This really doesn't match what Shifu described at all. So...was he lying to scare Po? Did Po use the hold in a way different than how Shifu would have, because he's a nice guy and not a Jerkass Cynical Mentor?)
 * I assumed it to be more of an "instant return to the Universe" thing more than the gory reality of death, and that the gold-colored "dust cloud" that settles over everyone at the end is... well... what remains of Tai Lung's body, which does rather make one think about how they're all going to get that out of their fur.
 * He's dead. I don't understand what all the confusion is about.
 * Is he really? I'd say that'd count as Character Derailment for Po, who really doesn't strike me as the kind of guy to kill a defeated and broken opponent in cold blood like that, especially a sympathetic character like Tai Lung. I understand that part of the difference between Po and Tai Lung is that Po had a real life, he had something to relate to in order to help him understand the message of the scroll, whereas Tai Lung didn't (which just makes him all the more sympathetic, how Tai Lung turned out really was all Shifu's fault), but I was still hoping Tai Lung would come around in some way rather than be killed off. Hm.
 * I was under the impression that when Shi Fu apologized, and Tai Lung acknowledged it but refused nonetheless, that he showed that he was beyond redemption, regardless of whatever initial reasoning he may have for his vendetta.
 * Or maybe he was just too tunnel-visioned and stubborn to admit he was wrong, and still thought that he deserved what was promised to him almost from birth by his equally arrogant father.
 * If he died, it was his own damn fault. The Wuxi Finger Hold is based on the movie's Mind Makes It Real magic system- if Tai Lung believed he would die from it, then he did, and if he had just figured that much out he would have been fine.
 * Tai Lung has already demonstrated a willingness and ability to escape an inescapable prison to take revenge for not having been given the Dragon Scroll. If Po lets him go, or tries to imprison him again, that'll just lead to him being even more angry that a Panda of all things beat him, so you'll just have him coming back again and again to get his revenge, and eventually he's going to get more creative than "run into the valley and beat the crap out of everyone." If Po did kill him, then that's only pragmatic.
 * Perhaps not. Tai Lung wanted the Dragon Scroll because he wanted to be the Dragon Warrior. Except he was totally and utterly beaten by the real Dragon Warrior, who understood the Dragon Scroll because he had internal qualities that Tai Lung did not and could not have. By utterly denying Tai Lung his goal and proving it utterly futile, Po has completely unmotivated him. You could argue that Tai Lung is not honorable or sensible enough to realise he's been beaten, but it's something to think about.
 * As mentioned, Tai Lung is indeed the character with the most potential in the whole Kung Fu Panda franchise. There is all the potential in his entire relationship with Shifu and what would happen to it in the long run. There is the fact that he and Tigress are technially adopted siblings, so that leaves a whole unopened can of interesting interactions there. If he were to pull a Heel Face Turn, just imagine all the possibilities as he'd fight alongside the good guys against bad guys. Hell, just the thought of Po and Tai Lung going through Defeat Means Friendship and into Odd Friendship combined with Red Oni, Blue Oni would make for great potential both in and out of battle. Indeed, Tai Lung does seem to be the character with the most potential for great stuff in the franchise. A franchise titled "Kung Fu Panda", meaning that no matter what happens, everything will always go back to revolving entirely around the panda. Is it any wonder the Furious Five barely got any development or even screentime in the first movie? And now the second movie just adds a whole slew of new characters to compete for what little screentime they'll have that's not taken up by Po and the villain. Meaning, there is no room for the character with the most potential to have said potential developed, which is a huge shame.
 * There's a fanfic that does have Tai Lung perform a Heel Face Turn, which is extremely well written. Can't find the link, but it was on Fanfiction.net
 * Would that be this one or this one?
 * What's with all the love for a single-minded unchosen one who resorts to fighting dirty using every forbidden technique the moment it seems he might be losing a fight?
 * A large amount of hate for a fat annoying panda? Or his VA? Or perhaps a lot of people with bad relationships with their fathers who could see where Tai Lung was coming from, even if they didn't approve of his methods? Take your pick. Also, where is it written that the nerve strike, or anything else Tai Lung used, was 'forbidden'? Or are you assuming only Grand Masters like Oogway are allowed to use that?
 * Why this troper is sympathetic to him at least is that Tai Lung spent his ENTIRE LIFE trying to be the best martial artist ever, only being told basically to fuck off by Oogway with no better reason than "You're not the chosen one." It is proof that, in the world of KFP and at least for Tai Lung, merit is meaningless in place of dumb luck i.e. destiny
 * Except Po, like Tai Lung, did have talent, worked hard to reach the level he did and had Shifu train him non-stop. Sure he had luck in the last fight, but if it was all he had he'd been dead.
 * Oogway tells him he's not the chosen one because he sees a "darkness" in him, which is borne out by his turning out to be an arrogant, utterly self-centered sociopath whose reaction to losing something he thinks he deserves is to kill/maim/pillage/otherwise harm a whole lot of innocent people just to take out his aggressions. The whole point is that "merit" has to do with a lot more than simply physical prowess and technical skill at martial arts, but with character. That is, in fact, the lesson Oogway intended to teach with the Dragon Scroll itself -- or do you think Tai Lung's reaction would have been any different if he HAD been given the Dragon Scroll and left to wrestle with the fact that the "ultimate power" he'd been promised didn't actually exist in physical form, and was something you could only discover for yourself with a humble spirit of accepting your limitations?
 * Ah, but if Shifu hadn't raised him to believe he would be the Dragon Warrior because it was his destiny, would he ever have become that arrogant? Shifu even acknowledged it's his fault when he spoke of his pride blinding him to the truth. Also, why didn't Oogway stop Shifu from filling Tai Lung's head with dreams? For someone who's so wise and insightful, that turtle sure dropped the ball on that one. There are a lot better ways of removing darkness, or better yet preventing it from taking root, then simply making vague prophecies and denying someone something you know their father had convinced them was a done deal from childhood.
 * Shifu also raised and trained Tigress (though giving her much less love), and it was implied the whole gang assumed she would become the Dragon Warrior. But she did not go beating up everyone and destroying the village after Po was chosen instead.
 * The difference is that, from the information we are given, it appears that Tai Lung was raised alone, without playmates, fellow students, or anything, while Tigress did have that via the rest of the Five. The idea is that Tai Lung had nothing to look forward to in his life except being the Dragon Warrior, so when that was taken from him, of course he rampaged. He had nothing to fight for, no one to protect--not even Shifu, since he believed Shifu didn't love him/wasn't proud of him. Also, while Tigress may have believed she would be the Dragon Warrior, she was not encouraged to or outright told she would be by Shifu, as he did with Tai Lung.
 * What's saying Oogway didn't try and Shifu was too prideful to listen?
 * Which once more brings the fault for this back to Shifu, where it belongs.
 * Yeah, because we always put parents in jail for crimes their children commit, amirite? Even if Shifu was to blame -- he recognized his error, was genuinely sorry and apologized to Tai Lung for his wrong doings. But Tai Lung, on the other hand, committed heinous acts that (even if were brought about because of upbringing) were still HIS doing through free will and he never felt sorry, apologized, or tried to repent. This is why he is the bad guy, and Shifu is a good guy. Also, bad guys SHOULD die at the end of action/fighting movies, even sympathetic ones. If they don't repent and turn good, then naturally they will just continue to be evil. There is no room for gray.
 * Wow, Black and White Morality much? No one denied that what Tai Lung himself did was wrong, the original point being made here was that it wasn't right of Oogway to refuse Tai Lung based on the darkness inside him, when that very darkness wouldn't have had a chance to flourish if Shifu hadn't made the mistakes he did. Yes, Tai Lung made his own choices, but if Oogway had simply stepped in and stopped Shifu--not interfering with Shifu's training of Tai Lung but correcting his OWN student, which IS Oogway's job, and doing so to prevent Tai Lung's fall into darkness and the horrible rampage he surely must have foreseen if he's as powerful and spiritual as he seems, then none of this would have happened. And a final point: while Tai Lung refused his father's apology and still kept going after the scroll, at that point he still believed getting it would give him great power, as well as what he had been promised from birth. During the battle he finally gets the truth about the scroll revealed to him, and lashes out at Po--most likely because a) in his pride, he didn't want to believe Po could have done all those amazing things and beaten him without help and b) he didn't want to admit that if Po was right, he did all those horrible things and wasted his life for nothing. I.e., he was enraged. We have no idea what would happen if, after the fight was over and he had calmed down (assuming he survived), he had truly contemplated what Po told him, or thought about what he did to his father. It is possible at that point that he might realize what a monster he had become, and try to repent. A remote possibility, yes...but without knowing one way or the other how he would have acted should he have survived the final battle with Po, we really can't be sure he was completely beyond redemption.
 * Oogway deeply believed in destiny and rarely interfered, especially physically. Most likely he knew something like this will happen and let it happen for the benefit of the destiny bringing along the true Dragon Warrior. You see, Shifu HAD to live through this journey to become this Great Master with vision. Because even when he trained Po he still doubted Oogway was right all along.
 * So he did, but that does not give him Omniscient Morality License in my book. He can say all he likes that this had to happen, that it was the only way for Shifu to grow as a master, for the real Dragon Warrior to be found, and that this would have happened anyway no matter what. But doing nothing to prevent it because it was destiny, not helping someone who surely must have been like a grandson to him, and allowing him to suffer such punishment AND (if we are right) allowing the deaths of those killed in the rampage just to prove a point or Because Destiny Says So is...not kosher. Don't get me wrong, I love Oogway a lot, and I am not excusing Tai Lung the terrible wrongs that he did. I just don't think any character in this movie is flawless and perfect, and we shouldn't give Oogway a free pass just because of his age and wisdom. He can be flawed and make mistakes too.
 * Omniscient Morality License doesn't require that the person is right, just that they think they are.
 * Hence why, when they aren't right, we're justified in being angry/annoyed/disappointed in them.
 * To get back at Po... the village people might've hailed him, but he spent most of the movie being resented by Shifu and the Furious Five. And "forbidden techniques"? What forbidden techniques? Everything he used was taught to him by Shifu, and Tai Lung was trying to kill him. Aren't you going to complain about the Furious five tying him up and leaving him to either fall or starve to his death as well?
 * Exactly. I don't excuse the things Tai Lung did, especially during the rampage, but I understand why he did them. And calling the moves he used 'forbidden techniques' is just a head-scratcher. He didn't use attacks against the Five or Po that were any worse (or unfair) than the ones they used on him. He may have been the villain, and out of control, but you can't really call Tai Lung a dirty fighter. Paradoxically, he seems to be honorable--at least when fighting fellow kung fu warriors. (Using kung fu or anything combative against innocent villagers is indeed rather like cheating--as well as undermining what it stands for.)
 * Also, Tai Lung worked hard all his life, only to be kicked to the curb. Po is able to defeat him after a day of training, just because he "believes in himself." How is that for a warped Aesop?
 * For what it's worth, it probably wasn't just one day of training. We're not given much indication for how much time is passing, so it could be weeks, given that it's time enough for the Furious Five to travel a long way away, fight Tai Lung, and come back.
 * That still doesn't really compare to the 20 years Tai Lung busted his ass to Po being invincible in what could, very generously, be called a month.
 * Actually if you look at the background you notice that the seasons change, although I don't remember how much. I was under the impression it was at least from Spring until Winter though.
 * But Po WAS the chosen Dragon Warrior and Tai Lung wasn't. Think Neo by the end of the first Matrix film. Tai Lung was definitely the best fighter around, like Agent Smith - no one would cross him, but Po had deep understanding and realization of his powers.
 * Here's the thing, we have no proof that Oogway didn't try to convince Shifu not to raise Tai Lung like that, but Shifu adopted Tai Lung. He was his son, not just his student. Oogway was Shifu's master, but this was a family thing. Oogway probably did try to tell Shifu different, but he couldn't make him do it, and Shifu seemed pretty deadset on his son being Dragon Warrior, and probably let it blind him to Oogway's common sense. If we take that Tigress is much less disappointed than Tai Lung was that she wasn't choosen into account, Shifu might have learned his lesson and not drilled her like he did Tai Lung. Another thing is, Tai Lung, Shifu, and Tigress all were actively trying to become the Dragon Warrior, while Tigress expected she'd be, she didn't excess over it like her master and adoptive brother, but still had it as her goal she trained towards. Po didn't. He just wanted to see the Five, he had no intent of trying to become the Dragon Warrior that day. But he loved Kung Fu for the fun of it, he was able to see more in it than becoming the Dragon Warrior. Thus he was able to understand it's logic and accept the lesson. At the end, neither Shifu or Tai Lung actually understood the lesson of the scroll, both seemed emotionally crushed to find out the thing they'd worked so hard to obtain was just a piece of reflective foil. Po, on the other hand, saw it as a let down, but not a life crippling one, thus was able to think and finally understand it. So in the end, Oogway picked Po because he was the only one who hadn't spent their whole life trying to obtain something they'd be unable to grasp.
 * That sounds like the Mirror of Erised.
 * So Let Me Get This Straight.... Oogway refuses Tai Lung the Dragon Scroll. Tai Lung is angry, so he turns around, leaves the temple, climbs down all those stairs, "lays waste to the village", climbs all the way back up aforementioned stairs, back into the temple, tries to take the scroll by force, and is stopped by Oogway. Is it just me, or does the trip down to destroy the village seem like a colossal waste of time? If he was going to take it by force anyway, why not do it right off the bat? It's not like beating the crap out of helpless pigs and geese was going to change Oogway's mind. Would've saved everyone the time and other resources it took to keep him in his own prison, at the very least. I get that the rampage bit was put in to make Tai Lung less sympathetic, but in the story's context it's still weird.
 * I get the impression he went down to the village to sulk, and after a day or two decided that his masters had totally betrayed him. He then went on a rampage around the village (to make himself feel better) before climbing up to the temple to take the Dragon Scroll by force.
 * I actually addressed this in a Fanfic I'm writing. The short explanation is that, based on the fact it was daylight in the flashback when Tai Lung was denied the scroll, and it was night when he burst in to steal it, I concluded the intervening time was indeed spent sulking down in the village. But I also included a direct impetus to the rampage by saying one of the villagers was mocking and cruel to him for being turned down (I based this on how they treated Po after the scroll was blank and he seemed helpless to stop Tai Lung), and for thinking he could change his station in life as an orphan. (Knowing who your family and ancestors are, staying true to them, and remaining in your place in life were all very important in ancient China, and to some extent still are.) So...Tai Lung didn't just immediately explode in rage, something set him off. There may not be any direct proof of this, but it isn't contradicted either, and it makes sense I think.
 * Maybe Tai Lung went down and trashed the village because he was so angry, he had to hit somebody, and if he did so at the temple, he knew he'd wind up fighting Shifu as well as Oogway. At the time, Tai's feelings about his foster father might've still been too conflicted to do that.
 * I don't think he immediately went down to the village and started his city-wide reign of terror. Like others said, he went around for a few days, sulking and allowing that anger and sense of betrayal to fester and boil inside him until it finally exploded out of him in a violent fury and attempt to take the Dragon Scroll by force. I believe part of the reason for Shifu's guilt is if he'd just found Tai Lung and had a long talk with him and just told him he was proud of him either way, then it all could have been avoided. But he didn't for whatever reason he had, and left Tai Lung alone to sulk, thus resulting in Tai Lung's reign of terror/attack on the Palace. It's also why Shifu's guilt transformed him into such a Jerkass.
 * And another thing... Tai Lung did his Face Heel Turn after Oogway said he wasn't worthy of the Dragon scroll because there was "darkness" inside of him. Even assuming that he was telling the truth, why didn't anyone bother to rehabilitate Tai Lung? Sure, it makes Tai Lung a more unsympathetic villain, but there's the Unfortunate Implication that redemption isn't an option at all.
 * Shifu did try to redeem him, right at the end where he tells him how proud he always was. And for about a half second, it looks like Tai Lung is going to stop his rampage and repent. But he refuses. As for before that, well, he went right from "I'm not getting the Scroll?" to "RAWR KILL EVERYONE IN THE VALLEY AND TAKE IT ANYWAY!" in, what, less than a day? You think they were going to risk waking him up to talk to him and giving him the opportunity to do it again?
 * Of course we don't know for sure that Tai Lung's view of Shifu might not have changed once he found out the scroll wasn't what he thought it was. Realizing you almost killed your own father for a blank scroll you couldn't understand and were never meant to have would have to be a sobering experience for anyone, unless they were simply insane. Which while Tai Lung certainly seemed deranged at various times does not really hold water for every scene he's in. (The bridge fight comes to mind.)
 * Shifu did try to redeem him by apologizing and saying he was proud, but let's not forget that that apology and statement of being proud came a full 20 years later, all of which Tai Lung spent locked up in a jail under some sort of contraption that held him in an always kneeling position, as though bowing to the jailer who openly mocked him. Even after Tai Lung returns to the Valley, he doesn't go on a second rampage, he goes directly to the Palace, where he greets Shifu not violently, but telling him he's come home and calling him "Master", to which Shifu responds by telling Tai Lung that that's not his home anymore, nor is he his master anymore. It's only after Shifu challenges him that Tai Lung attacks (making that two times he doesn't throw the first punch in a battle), and he finally apologizes to Tai Lung and tells him he was always proud only after Tai Lung's beaten him (which also sounds a little too awfully convenient that all the nice words come only after Tai Lung bests Shifu in battle). Personally, at that point, the apology and statement of being proud just seemed way beyond "too little too late" territory.
 * Besides, there's the whole "trashed a village full of innocent people". Hitting one person who might've mocked him in anger? Sure. But to go nuts like that implies he wasn't entirely right in the head.
 * We don't know there was only one who mocked him. But yeah I agree, something must not have been right in Tai Lung's head. Whether that was caused by Shifu's parenting and training, or something else, who knows, but it is something of a plot hole. You can always say he just had a chemical imbalance in the brain like crazy people often do, but that seems a little bit too realistic...and depressing.
 * Ah, yes. But no matter what you do, that seed will grow to be a peach tree. You may wish for an apple or an orange, but you will get a peach.
 * Which, while sweet, does bring this right back to the original point. Suggesting Oogway never tried to redeem Tai Lung because 'a leopard can't change his spots' is unfair, nonsensical (because for all the criminals out there who never change, there are plenty who do truly rehabilitate themselves), and most importantly, out-of-character for Oogway.
 * In Monkey's part of the Secrets of the Furious Five extra, Oogway helps him overcome his Jerkass habits (albeit, they were less severe than Tai Lung's turned out to be) so it seems odd that he would never try to help Tai Lung. More likely, I think, Oogway was trying to help Tai Lung. He may have figured that the only way for Tai Lung to ascend to the next level on the road to inner peace was to find out that his destiny was not something which Shifu could give him, but rather, something which he needed to forge for himself. Maybe he just underestimated the 'darkness' he saw in him. Everyone screws up from time to time, after all.
 * First looks who talking about "darkness" in Tai Lung. Ah yes, Master Tigress. Such a reliable, not-overflowing-with-envy-at-all witness she is. Second, giving Tai Lung the scroll at that point almost certainly would have resulted in an even worse freakout (even if the Dragon Scroll indeed was a power-granting McGuffin). Tai Lung's whole motivation is seeking self-validation through external means. Outside of his kung-fu techniques, his victories and his training to be the Dragon Warrior he has no life, no goals and no sense of self-worth (just watch what he says upon seeing his own reflection on the Dragon Scroll). He had no chance of understanding the scroll's wisdom or accepting it into his heart, if explained. His reaction would have been a feeling of immense betrayal, quite probably still leading to a rampage. Now let's assume that the Dragon Scroll indeed is an artifact of ultimate power and Tai Lung is allowed to obtain it. Still a soul-crushing (if less immediately) outcome for him, because from that point his life is essentially over - the sole ambition in his life is, well, already achieved, and he cannot even enjoy fighting for the sake of fighting, because he's too powerful to have any rivals. So, however you look at, Oogway, being a great judge of character, did the best he could in the circumstances by refusing Tai Lung the scroll. This at least could have caused Tai Lung to ask himself what exactly he lacks, leading him to reevaluating his life. Unfortunately for everyone, when Tai Lung felt what was his entire life crumbling around him, his ego and sense of entitlement, born out of belief that a person's worth is measured by his/her kung fu skills kicked in, and Shifu wasn't there to support him, and the rest is history. If Oogway is really guilty of anything, it is giving Shifu a free rein in training pupils when Shifu obviously wasn't qualified.
 * Good points all, especially that we only have Tigress's word on what Oogway said and why he rejected Tai Lung; considering the things she and Tai Lung have in common, she'd have a pretty good motive for trying to make him look far worse than herself, possessed of an intrinsic 'evil' she didn't have. Still, even though you are quite right that there were two chances in three things with Tai Lung and the scroll would turn out badly, I still think Oogway should have tried harder to prevent his prophecy from coming to pass--particularly if as you say Shifu had proven himself unqualified. Unless of course Oogway couldn't bring himself to think too badly of his own student, or he had too much faith that Tai Lung's ability to be introspective and re-examine himself would be stronger than his ego, pride, and temper... It's also pretty clear, of course, that Tai Lung's belief that his worth would be measured by his kung fu skills and that he needed external things to prove his own value are things he received from Shifu's parenting and training. Nice job breaking it, panda.
 * Why couldn't Po be both a kung-fu master and a noodle cook? He's established to be a very good cook by the Furious Five, but the movie kept downplaying his cooking as something not worth aspiring to. The movie could've ended with Po embracing both of his skills (perhaps right after "You wanna get something to eat?"), and it would have also given the movie an opportunity to play an extra aesop about harmony and balance. They even tossed in the taijitu...
 * Possibly because the Five seem to spend all their time training. Doesn't leave much time for working in a noodle restaurant. Though I could see them, with Po's influence, lightening up a little bit, which you can already see with Shifu. Heck, he probably becomes the Palace's cook.
 * He does at the end. During the credit, you can see Po running his father's restaurant.
 * Waaiiitttt...the purpose of the dragon warrior is to defeat Tai Lung, but he wanted to be the dragon warrior, so, huh? I think I missed something.
 * The purpose of the Dragon Warrior is to bring peace to the valley. If Tai Lung is around, that disrupts the peace.
 * Am I the only one who likes both Tai Lung and Po? It seems like you can't like the latter if you're a fan of the former.
 * You're not the only one at all, I love them both equally. It's also why I think, if Tai Lung survived and has even a chance at redemption, it will come from Po. It's perfectly in character for Po to want to help him, he even implied he thought Tai Lung was cool and a hero prior to his rampage (note how excited he got about Tai Lung before Tigress glared at him and he admitted he "went bad and now he's in prison"). And the prophecy was that the Dragon Warrior would bring peace to everyone in the Valley. Well, Tai Lung may not be from there, but he was certainly raised there. Ergo...BFF!
 * Only there is a small matter of Tai Lung beating up everyone in the village 20 years ago and killing all the prison guards during his escape. So I don't know about that BFF...
 * This is where Tai Lung doing his best to atone for what he did would come in. Asking for forgiveness, learning to be humble, making amends with those he's hurt, being a protector and defender. And we still don't know if those guards were innocent of any wrongdoing...plus it would have been pretty hard for him to escape without killing at least some of them.
 * Why does everyone keep saying the dragon scroll is blank? If you ask me, you're missing the point. It ain't blank... it's reflective. The point is to show that you are the "secret ingredient". Yes, this still carries the Be Yourself moral, I just think it's more clearly displayed than "oh look, blank paper".
 * It is blank. As in, it has no writing or kung fu magic in it. They were all expecting that sort of stuff, so to not see it, they think it's blank. Also, reflective is still blank, the same way a mirror is, or a piece of glass.
 * Is it blank? Or is it filled with that which it reflects?
 * Yes.
 * That depends on what you see in it.
 * Don't Explain The Philosophical Basis That Caused The Moral Upset Of The Antagonist By Way Of Misunderstanding And Enabled The Movie To Take Place. ...Or the joke, either.
 * Can someone explain how a crane carrying a tiger, monkey, viper, and a mantis was somehow able to beat a snow leopard across a valley?
 * Same way a mantis can hold up a bridge holding a tiger, monkey, viper, and snow leopard singlehandedly. It seems Kung Fu gives you Charles Atlas Superpowers in the setting. Also, Tai Lung would've wanted them to get back faster, so he might've slowed down a bit.
 * Tai Lung purposely sent them as a warning to the Dragon Warrior, remember? It would be bad form to show up before the warning that you were coming reached the village.
 * Also, Crane could go as the crow flies (i.e. straight over the ravines and mountains) while Tai Lung had to take the scenic route.
 * Am I the only one who thought Shi Fu kind of got off light here, especially where Tigress was concerned? Here you go buddy-- you destroyed two kids' childhoods, one because you were an arrogant jerk dad and the other because you were too depressed to care for a little girl that you adopted, generally treat your new student like crap because he's fat and wasn't originally your student, and can be found at the root of basically everyone's problems. But you're still going to be rewarded with inner peace, a respected station as the new head of the palace, and you're still the Dragon Warrior's Master just like you wanted to be in the beginning.
 * Likewise, Tigress. "Well Done, Son" Guy ... er, Girl, who gets to watch Po take her place as adopted-child-figure to Shifu, and whose problems in general are never even acknowledged, much less addressed, by the father-figure in question.
 * As to Tai Lung, I'd say Tai Lung coming back and beating the piss out of Shifu is probably meant to be his retribution for his failure there. With Tigress, it's less that he's "too depressed to care" and more that he doesn't want the same thing that happened with Tai Lung to happen with her, and in that, he succeeded. Instead of growing up "knowing" she's the best, and she's going to be the Dragon Warrior, she learns humility, and learns to accept it when she's not the Dragon Warrior, unlike a certain other someone who flipped his shit. What Shifu did with Tai Lung was a mistake, one he regrets and tries to fix with Tigress; he may have gone a little too far in the other direction, but it still worked out for the best.
 * I'd argue that Shifu did with Tigress mostly the same thing he did with Tai Lung, with adjustment for her lesser potential and - maybe - superficial lessons he took from Tai Lung's turn to evil. Central thought behind both Tigress' flashback monologue and Tai Lung's words during his confrontation with Shifu can be summarized as "My Master never loved me!" Similarly, just as Tigress feels (and even says) that the purpose of her lifetime of training was to surpass Tai Lung (that's why she goes to fight him against an express order), Tai Lung feels (and says) that the purpose of his life was to become the Dragon Warrior (that's why he reacts badly, when stopped short). Of course, Tigress does not actually go off the deep end, but the general flaws in their upbringing seem to be the same. While it is mentioned on the main page that Shifu is strict to Tigress as to not fill her with ambition, on screen he is an equal opportunity asshole. Save in Tigress' flashback, which - obviously - depicts the life of young Tai Lung as it was in her imagination.
 * Very well put, I agree 100%. And yes, I also think Shifu got off rather lightly...which means I have to admit that I actually enjoyed seeing him get the piss beat out of him by Tai Lung a little more than I probably should have.
 * As to the original point, since it was made very clear that Shifu did still love Tai Lung, then if we assume the snow leopard was in fact killed by Po, the red panda now gets to spend the rest of his life knowing that he was the cause of his son's fall, that he tried to help but was refused, and that now his boy is dead and he can never, ever get the chance to undo what he did. Seems like pretty good punishment to me. As for Tigress, I suspect (or at least hope) that the sequels will address that and deal with her lingering resentment and Shifu's relationship with her.
 * Shifu is supposed to be this Shaolin-type kung-fu master. Have you seen other movies with similar characters? They are all kinda mean/cold towards their apprentices until they finally get to that final SPECIAL ONE.
 * True. Doesn't stop it from being lame though. Or mean that the character gets to whine when their coldness and nastiness bites them in the ass later via Rage Against the Mentor or Calling the Old Man Out. Reap what you sow.


 * Why do people constantly underestimate Po due to his looks? He is a FUCKING BEAR, panda or no.
 * Because he's fat and out of shape, and pandas don't have the same reputation as other bears do, and for that matter are NOT bears. Pandas are more closely related to raccoons.
 * Wrong pandas. Panda bears are bears but not really pandas as they can hardly digest bamboo. You're thinking of red pandas, what Shifu is.
 * Giant Pandas are bears. Red Pandas are raccoons.
 * You still don't mess with Pandas, though. Wild ones are well known to bite through leopard's necks in protection of their young, and there's also accounting of those maulings by the people at zoos who tried to hug one...
 * And have you seen one sneeze?


 * Grasshopper/cricket? Okay. A snake? Okay. A Red Panda? Teacher and the master of the kung fu school. A really old turtle? Grand-master of the said school. A freaking huge panda? Nuh-huh! Not fit to study here from the first sight!
 * It was more than just his appearance. Much of the animosity towards Po included his fanboyish tendencies, near inability to take his training seriously (or focus on it), but also that he dropped in on the ceremony by happenstance. The title of Dragon Warrior was long shrouded in mystery, and naturally Shifu and his pupils assumed that their diligence and hard work meant one of the Furious Five would be granted the title. But then along comes this noodle-vendor on a ball of fire(works) landing right in front of Oogway's pointer. Tigress in particular felt like something had been stolen from her; she'd worked hard on her fighting style over the years, and when it seems she's in the running for such an honor, Po unintentionally up and takes it (which is probably why she's about the last one of the group to truly accept Po for who he is).
 * Could've sworn Mantis was a praying mantis, not a grasshopper or a cricket.

And "villain" or "good guy" isn't decided solely by backstory, you know. I imagine Tai Lung going berserk on being passed over for the Dragon Scroll and slaughtering the village has something to do with it, for instance.
 * The characters all seem to be animals native to China (or East Asia in general), or livestock commonly found there. So why is there a gorilla in Secrets of the Furious Five? Gorillas are from Africa! If it has to be a great ape, why not an orang utan? They don't live in China either, but are at least Asian animals. What do you say? Not imposing enough to serve as the template for a mean badass warrior character? Well, grown up male orangs certainly are! (And they make excellent librarians, but that's beside the point...) Or was the character I am talking about originally supposed to be a Gigantopithecus (a gigantic ape living in prehistoric China), but the authors feared that too few people would know what that is?
 * That's not a gorilla, gorillas don't have tails.
 * I am not talking about Monkey, one of the members of the kung fu team called the "Furious Five". I am talking about a character (explicitly refered to as a gorilla) in the (partly) 2D animated short film called Secrets of the Furious Five, where Po narrates the origin stories of the Furious Five. The gorilla is the villain in the segment about Viper's origin. As far as I can recall, he didn't have a visible tail.
 * Well, if Po's narrating, maybe he just got his facts wrong?
 * Well, it can be said that there's the possibility that people from other countries travel to China, that could explain a gorilla being there.
 * What about the rhinos who guard the prison? Are they common in mountainous China?
 * They're found in the foothills of the Himalayas in eastern India and Nepal, both of which have rhino sanctuaries not too far from their borders with China. It's not a stretch to imagine that their habitat could have extended into ancient southern China, pre-endangered status.
 * There are also gorillas in the sequel, serving as Shen's soldiers. I either think they are actually Gigantopithecus (referred to as gorillas because Viewers are Morons), or they have travelled from Africa to China (sort of like a Scary Black Man serving in the Chinese army).
 * What's with the names? Tigress, Mantis, Viper... Oogway, Tai Lung, Po? Shouldn't they be Turtle, Leopard, Panda?
 * My guess is that the Furious Five had their names changed for some reason. They're the only ones that don't have their own names.
 * I always figured Tigris, Mantis, Viper, etc. were their titles, rather than their names.
 * This troper counts Fridge Brilliance here. All of the Furious Five are the representative animals of five infamous styles of Chinese martial arts, and pretty well follow the basics of those styles (Tigress focuses on footwork, Monkey integrates acrobatic maneuvers into his kung fu, Mantis has the focus on aggressiveness of Northern Praying Mantis, Viper strikes from unpredictable angles in Snake-style kung fu, and Crane has a combination of more graceful, targeted attacks). In this list, Tai Lung is actually a weird aversion of the naming trend, since he fights like he's using leopard kung fu.
 * The reason Tai Lung breaks the tradition is to give him a Meaningful Name, courtesy of his father Shifu: Tai Lung means "great/ultimate dragon", so he is named for what it was believed he would be (the Dragon Warrior) rather than his kung fu style. It is also implied in Tai Lung's write-up in Art of Kung Fu Panda that being imprisoned in Chorh-Gom caused his kung fu to become "tainted", his moves becoming more brutal and less formal, like Ultimate Fighting Championship. Any appearance of Leopard Style moves should be considered only in the light of his brutality (one of the style's philosophies is "Why block when you can hit?"), with his coolness and his species thrown in. It could also be that unlike the Five, Tai Lung actually invented his style, which is why he isn't named for it the way the Five are.
 * If you recall Po's initial gushing over them, they are a kind of superhero team. Their names are superhero code names.
 * In Art of Kung Fu Panda the makers say they tried to experiment with using personalized character names but in the end kept returning to the 'simplicity' of the generic name. Whether this is an example of viewing the Five as archetypes who embody their kung fu styles, a cop-out motivated by being unable to come up with fitting given names, an attempt to avoid them all having a Meaningful Name in Mandarin (like being named for their styles is any less meaningful?), or because they believed the audience wouldn't remember Chinese names is up for debate. For what it's worth, most fanfic writers seem to assume the names we are given are titles and the characters actually have undisclosed given names. Which is realistic, as many kung fu masters do/did take a special title upon achieving mastery, albeit one a little more creative than merely the animal of their signature style.
 * Minor point: Oogway is a phonetic transliteration of the Mandarin word for "turtle", so his name actually is just the name of his species.
 * Someone who can survive a makeshift rocket slamming them into the pavement? Seems like a viable canidate for the Dragon Warrior (or whatever) to me. Anywho, Po's superhuman resistance to damage bothered me on several levels. It takes away some of the suspense of battling the Big Bad when plowing into a wall at fifty mph doesn't do much to you.
 * The second time I watched it, I figured that Po's incredible flabbiness absorbed the all the impacts he ever faced and allowed him to keep going. Just like at the end.
 * Tigress strikes me as just a female version of Tai Lung, spending the whole movie throwing a tantrum because she wasn't picked to be Dragon Warrior. But she wasn't given a somewhat sympathetic backstory so obviously she's a good guy and Tai Lung, about whom we're given information and actually feel something for, is a villain. What?
 * Tigress was, in a lot of ways, meant as his Distaff Counterpart. What backstory we do see of her is a direct parallel to what we see of Tai Lung (Shifu correcting her stance harshly instead of how he patted Tai Lung on the head, for example). They're opposite sides of the same coin, with Tai Lung having been spoiled, and her having been denied any of the affection that Shifu had shown Tai Lung.
 * Point. But it does seem rather backwards that the story writers gave us so little on Tigress and so much on Tai Lung in comparison, just because he was the Big Bad. Obviously Your Mileage May Vary on whether Tigress's backstory was sympathetic enough--I did feel sorry for her during that flashback, and even more so during her vignette from Secrets of the Furious Five--but the point is that because she was a good guy we didn't need to feel sorry for her. Our sympathy for her was practically pre-programmed by her being a hero. It's the contrast between this and the amount of care, detail, and sympathy in Tai Lung's backstory that creates the dissonance. Yes, the writers clearly did care about Tai Lung and wanted to make him complex and sympathetic (they do say a movie is only as good as its villain), and yes when people liked him too much they clearly backpedaled. But even taking this into account, it seems a bit twisted to make us sympathize with someone, then pull the rug out from under us by revealing they did something horrible which they can't be forgiven for and never showing the possibility of redemption, while meanwhile giving a similar sympathetic backstory to Tigress but keeping her a hero. Not So Different and Foil are all well and good, as is complexity to character, but it gets to a point where it's like "I go to the movies for escapism, not to have my heart trodden on by being made to care about someone who I shouldn't, and who's going to get punished for it".

And on a related note, Storming Ox seems like an Expy of Tai Lung, pre-Face Heel Turn. He's got the build and powerful kung fu for sure, natural weapons (horns vs. claws), similar facial features, and he's described as the most loyal, brave, and honorable fighter to Thundering Rhino...just as Tai Lung was to Shifu. Does This Remind You of Anything? It does suggest to the more cynical viewer that all the talk of his loyalty and honor is merely a smokescreen to hide his eventual siding with Lord Shen. I can already see the fanboys and fangirls preparing his leather pants...I really hope this is not the route they're going, and I'm just a cynical bastard. Even if he is all he seems, though, it does rather look as if Dream Works took all the good things people liked about Tai Lung and put them in a new, heroic character. Again, it's easier to make a new one then fix an old one? Does Dream Works not trust their own storytelling ability?
 * Okay, the movie isn't out yet, we don't know all the details yet, but...am I the only one who finds something feeling very familiar about all this? We have Lord Shen, who has a sympathetic backstory, who was ambitious, and pushed onto his path thanks to a prophecy made twenty years ago. Who does this sound like? It seems like we're damned no matter what Dream Works does. If they go ahead and redeem Shen, it makes you wonder why they couldn't do the same for Tai Lung. Yes he killed people (at least we assume he did), but he certainly wasn't beyond redemption. Too difficult for them, was it? Easier to just make a new character and redeem him? Alternately, if they don't redeem Shen, then that's the second time now they tease us with making a villain we feel sorry for and then not saving him. That really sucks.
 * They've got this new thing now, it's called "waiting for the movie to come out before you start bashing it". Maybe you've heard of it?
 * There's also just simple theorizing and speculating on the few facts we've been given so far, so there's no need to be rude.
 * Yes, snark rather than actually address the possible validity of any of the points I've raised. If you wish to prove my assumptions wrong, or help me to see other possible ways the movie could turn out, other facts which help differentiate Shen and Ox from Tai Lung, I'm all ears. And I did say I was being a cynical bastard in making these observations, so I was acknowledging I could be wrong. In fact I actually said I hope I'm wrong. I want to believe the movie will be good, and I want to have hope that whatever route Dream Works goes with any of this, it will turn out better than I expect and I'll have my faith in them vindicated. I am just afraid it won't turn out like that.
 * Well, the movie's out now. They didn't redeem Shen. Storming Ox doesn't switch sides. Tai Lung isn't part of the story. And yeah, maybe they could've redeemed him and he could've taken Storming Ox's place or something, I don't know. All I know is that I liked the movie. None of your points really bugged me.
 * OP here: What bugged me was the possibility that Dream Works might either yank the fans' chains by once more making them care for a villain, then kill him, or that their morality allowed them to pick and choose which villains were worthy of redemption and which weren't. If that had redeemed Shen that would have been particularly heinous, since we don't know for sure that Tai Lung killed a lot of people (or even any) during his rampage, but Shen quite explicitly massacred the pandas (and killed Thundering Rhino). And the Storming Ox thing was, as I said, me being cynical about how they touted him as loyal, honorable, best student ever: it sounded too good to be true. All that said, I was wrong, and I am glad to be. Ox was as awesome as he was described, and they took away Shen's sympathetic backstory so that we could quite happily consider him evil and gleefully applaud his death instead of being of two minds about it as so many were about Tai Lung. Faith in Dream Works restored!
 * Objectively, the fundamental problem in supposing Storming Ox to be a noble version of Tai Lung is that you are attributing too many dimensions to basic character types. Hollywood makes characters like tabletop gamers make characters, choose a class and the add merits and flaws. You can even look at your own words describing them to see that you view both characters as the gifted protege type.
 * True. In which case it would seem my problem is with such archetypes being so common and re-used in the first place, something which is hardly unique to Dream Works or animated movies in general. And the fact you're basically arguing I was adding too much depth to something shows something really sad about the thing I was critiquing. (Simpler and shallower is better?) Not to mention that the very fact you agree Ox and Tai Lung have the same character type underneath suggests I was right to be skeptical of it being reused and more importantly why (to cash in on the people who loved Tai Lung without the ambiguous morality problems in being the fan of a villain). Of course this is all moot anyway--not only did Ox not follow Tai Lung's path, but we barely got to see him be cool or do anything, really. Not that that is stopping people from loving him anyway. Whether any of that is due to him being the gifted protege type can't be known, but since that comes from the website backstories which not everyone has read, it's likely people are fans...just because he's a cool kung fu warrior. Which is as it should be. Like I said, I am glad my cynicism and doubts were wrong.
 * Is there anyone else here who likes Tigress, or just about any other character, more than Tai Lung? All I hear from everyone else on this wiki is about themselves liking him. (Please don't bash at me for saying this, I'm only wondering if someone here isn't too much of a fan of Tai Lung.)
 * I concur. Personally, I find the new villain Lord Shen to be more appealing than Tai Lung.
 * I am a huge Tai Lung fan. But I also love Po, and Tigress, and in fact every one of the masters. So yes it is possible to like them all just as much. The preponderance of people going on about Tai Lung is likely because all of the other characters are heroes, so no one feels a need to explain why they like them, or even that they do because it should be assumed. Saying you like the villain (and not for being evil) requires some justification to keep from sounding rather disturbed or a mere DILP. As for Shen being more appealing it depends what you mean by that. More interesting? I wouldn't say so, he was pretty much a flat, raving lunatic wanting to Take Over the World who you could happily hate and be glad to see die. More truly villainous? Most definitely. Speaking for myself, the reason I found Tai Lung interesting was because of the ways in which he wasn't a villain, or had a chance to not be one, while Shen doesn't have that--what Tai Lung came to out of pride and rage, Shen chose out of spite, and rather than falling to darkness because he'd been raised to think he would be something great, he decided he was great all on his own and deserved to rule everyone so as to gain glory and respect. This makes Shen a better villain, but not necessarily a better character. Tai Lung had a lot of potential, if he could have stopped being single-minded and vengeful, but I don't see any in Shen. Unlike Tai Lung, who just couldn't accept the truth about the scroll because of his pride, Shen clearly understood what Po was explaining to him--and consciously chose to reject it anyway. He makes for a better antagonist, and helps keep the morality a lot more black and white (no pun intended), but I wouldn't say he was a better character. Definitely a better villain though.
 * In the sequel, how Shifu can think that day Po was chosen as the Dragon Warrior was worse than the day he was forced to fight his own adopted son, Tai Lung, after he went berserk seeking to take the Dragon Scroll by force?
 * Take your pick from the following options: (1)Shifu did not tell the truth because he wanted to use an example more familiar to Po/did not want to bring up the really painful memories (2)People tend to remember their relatively recent woes and misfortunes better than far-removed ones (3)Shifu was enough of a dick that losing the honors of "the master who trained the Dragon Warrior" forever hurt him more than losing his adopted son.
 * (4) Rule of Funny
 * (5) Because it really was a terrible day for him, since it seemed like everything he had lost, everything he had denied Tai Lung, all of the mistakes he'd made, were all for naught. The Dragon Warrior - something he had striven for, pushed his son to destruction for - was reduced to (in his mind) a joke. By his own master. Imagine if you'd spent your whole life protecting something. You protect it even from the people you love, even from your own children. And then one day the person whom you respect most in the world turns around and gives it to some random stranger who just dropped out of the sky. I think it was the worst day of his life because it was the first day where he thought that he might have lost his son for nothing.
 * I was bothered by that too, until I came to the same conclusion as point 5. Glad to see someone else could find the same sense in it that I did--I am not alone!
 * Also note that immediately after saying that it was the worst day of his life, Shifu adds that he then realized that the problem was within himself, which allowed him to resolve that iner conflict and achieve inner peace. Just because you solve a problem doesn't mean the problem never existed, and the same goes for pain: Just because you get over it doesn't mean that you were never hurt at all. If you get shot and recover, getting shot will still be pretty high on your list of shittiest things that happned to you, and the same thing applies here.
 * I'm sure I never took my eyes off the screen until the very end of the credits. But I don't remember hearing/seeing that Shen's family thought he was worthless (Unless we're talking about when HE said it.)
 * All There in the Manual
 * Okay, that actually tells me NOTHING. I think we need a rule somewhere that if you put down "All There In the Manual," you need to put down WHICH manual you're referring to.
 * Not to mention that the movie explicitly states that the reason Shen's family banished him was because they were horrified that he killed an entire village.
 * I've no idea which manual it is. Most I've heard is that it was part of his backstory. The reason he was banished has nothing to do with anything. It's totally unrelated to why his parents didn't see any value in him.
 * Maybe they changed something between their concept of his backstory and their enactment of it. I also only watched the film, and it seemed to me like Shen's parents were perfectly fine parents, and he messed things up all on his own.
 * I agree that the movie didn't support it, though an easy way to link the two is that was Lord Shen's perspective on the situation. He was sickly as a child, they didn't know how to care for him so sent him to be raised by the Soothsayer who clearly knows medicine (as seen later) who could care for him. Shen viewed this as them being ashamed of him for his color and sickly nature and saw it as abandonment. It's completely in character for him, as he viewed them banishing him for genocide as him being wronged.
 * The "manual" in question was the KFP website which was updated with info about all the characters' backstories before the sequel came out. Shen's whole story about his Parental Abandonment and being hated for being a sickly albino was detailed there. As to why it was removed, I am guessing because Dream Works learned their lesson from Tai Lung and knew they had to make things less ambiguous to keep the viewers from finding yet another villain Unintentionally Sympathetic.
 * I still would say that Tai Lung was intentionally sympathetic (supplementary materials do not form a united opinion here). But more importanlty, Shen's backstory from what probably was the initial draft made him practically almost a clone of Tai Lung. The actual movie version still has heavy parallels with Tai Lung, but makes Shen a commentary on what Tai Lung would have turned into, had everything happened as he envisioned by the time of KFP 1 story (including the Dragon Scroll giving him more power). As we can see, successfuly gaining the immense power he felt entitled to possess at the expense of his family did not make Shen a slightest bit happy. Neither he had any idea what to do with this power or what he wanted from life now, so he slided into just showing them, showing them all, how powerful he is. Same would have happened to Tai Lung in case of him successfully destroying/beating into submission/outliving the rest of the cast and becoming the most powerful kung fu warrior ever with the help of the Dragon Scroll. Except Shen at least had someone with remaining attachments to him (the Soothsayer, and the Wolf Boss). Tai Lung would have been completely alone on the top and with the quest that was his entire life essentially over.
 * Him being sympathetic was intentional, but they apparently didn't intend it to be as deep and overpowering as it was for so many. Which is why it sucks that they gave Tai Lung the fate they did; since he didn't, in fact, get to claim his power the way Shen did, and he has legitimate reasons for us to sympathize with him unlike Shen, it hardly seems fair that they both get killed. The fact the filmmakers say Tai Lung refusing to accept Po's explanation of the scroll's meaning was his Last Second Chance and him refusing it means he can never have a Heel Face Turn...doesn't bode well at all, suggesting they will either leave his fate unexplained or, if he does appear in the series or a later sequel, he will still be a villain. Thus making him flat, one-note, and losing all the dramatic potential such a storyline would hold. After the way he was defeated by Po, he does in fact have a chance to prove he isn't Shen, to reconnect with his father, find a meaning and purpose in life beyond fighting (or at least to give the fighting a purpose--protecting others, as kung fu is meant for). But they won't give him that, because of course villains are always bad and should never be allowed to change. For a company set on making movies that are Darker and Edgier, more adult and complex, it seems odd and disappointing they wouldn't address this issue. Do they think kids can't handle the idea of a bad guy becoming good?
 * Okay, since the sequel establishes that  wouldn't that mean that seeing a Panda out and about would be a big deal? Yet the citizens of the Valley of Peace don't even give Po a second glance. Granted, Po is in his twenties/thirties when the films begin, but still.
 * The Valley is some way away from Gongmen city. Maybe by the time the news had arrived people were already like, hey there's Ping's son Po and didn't put two and two together...or something...Anyway, even if he were to find out about Po, I doubt Shen would ever have tried anything with Oogway around. He didn't attack Thundering Rhino until he had the cannon(s) ready to go and Oogway was a master among masters.
 * Maybe the Pandas never really had all that great of numbers to begin with. Maybe they didn't leave their villages all that often. Maybe Panda trade routes never really intersected with the Valley of Peace. All these reasons could explain how people of the village could simply write him off as an anomaly, and not equate him as the last survivor of his race. For all we know, the Valley of Peace's first experience with pandas could be through Po.
 * So...exactly how old is Shen supposed to be? When we first see him in his factory...thing, he says "I've waited thirty years for this..." What in the name of Flying Rhino does that even mean? Thirty years since when? If he's referring to his lifespan, that would mean he was thirty; but the context is that he's been waiting thirty years to take over China, so unless baby Shen was plotting world domination that guess is out. If he's talking about when he was exiled, he was probably between his teen years and his twenties - twenties are more likely since he could command an entire army and go into battle as well to kill all the pandas, but that would place him in his fifties. While it is possible, it just doesn't...seem...right. That, and if he is counting from his exile, that would put Po at his thirties...
 * I didn't pick up on the "thirty year" time span until my second viewing. During his first meeting with Po, at one point Shen remarks that Po's had "thirty years to plot his revenge". The only revenge Shen would think Po could be after is the killing of his species. Since Shen's parents banished him for doing this almost immediately afterward, we can assume that's how long he's been living in exile. He was already an adult when this happened, so he's definitely over thirty, though by how much is unclear. And since Po was just a baby back then, that would make him thirty years old now at the very least.
 * It seems they're avoiding the improbable age thing, all the characters seem to be over twenty five (Tigeress is about twenty seven to thirty).
 * EDITED: Tigress is probably a bit younger. At the time of the first film she cannot be much older than twenty, because she was adopted after Tai Lung lost it twenty years ago, and she looked very young in both "Secrets of Furious Five" and her flashback, only about the same size as baby Tai Lung, so probably no more than five years old (and it's not very likely that Shifu picked her from the orphanage immediately after Tai Lung's rampage). By the second film, several years have passed (because Tigress mentions that the length of her training is twenty years - again, she obviously couldn't have started training before Tai Lung was sent to prison, Tai Lung was in prison for twenty years, and she was several years old when she was adopted, so several of those twenty years of training should have been the years between films). Another indicator of the large time gap between films is the fact, that Po doesn't seem to personally remember Tai Lung's rampage, so it must have happened before or soon after he was adopted by Ping. As Po was adopted thirty years before the events of KFP 2, and Tai Lung was in prison for twenty years, as many as nine to ten years ought to have passed between the two films. Therefore Tigress might have been adopted halfway through Tai Lung's imprisonment and is less than twenty years old during KFP 1. However, this is not set in stone, as Tigress might have referred to the particular type of training, instead of the entire length of her apprenticeship under Shifu (indeed, we know from Secrets of the Furious Five that her inital training was the exact opposite to building up strength and endurance), so you might add another year or two. Not also, that as all time spans seem to be unusually round - and they all are mentioned with emphasis on the length of time the character suffered/trained/waited - it is most likely that characters round them up. As about Crane, Viper and Mantis are almost certainly older than Tigress, they all found ways into Shifu's elite crew due to becoming accomplished kung fu warriors on their own, with Mantis already being a renowned master before joining the Five (and actually looking middle-aged in the films), and Crane/Viper starting their actual kung fu careers in late teens at the earliest. Hard to tell about Monkey. Po is more than thirty in the second movie and no more twenty two - twenty three. Tai Lung is forty (and now close to fifty, if he's alive), give or take a few years, depending on how fast he trained, might be biologically younger, due to the effects of the restraining shell. Shen is around fifty (thirty years of exile + his youth), maybe a bit younger, again, depending on how much of a prodigy he was. And the Wolf Boss should be around the same age as Shen.
 * Why is it that Mantis is refered to as a He-Man Woman Hater when he seems to work perfectly fine and respect both Viper and Tigress?
 * Well, if any guy believed that most women want to bite his head off, I wouldn't blame him for being a He-Man Woman Hater. But... Mantis apparently sees that as the mark of a good family woman. By all accounts, it doesn't make sense.
 * Viper and Tigress aren't female mantises. Female mantises eat the heads of the males after they mate.
 * Why didn't Oogway just give Tai Lung the scroll and explain the lesson of self-worth? It was, apparently, the only thing he was missing from his training; if Oogway knew that Tai Lung and Shifu had been working towards making him into the Dragon Warrior but missed something crucial (like humility and self-esteem?), shouldn't it have been his responsibility as Shifu's master to say "Hey, you're missing the point of excellence of self"? Philosophy and fate and the illusion of control aside, his actions seem fairly arbitrary. Oogway saw a darkness in his heart, but never felt particularly inclined to identify or address it? He just said 'no scroll for you, fuck off'? He couldn't at least have said, "You're awesome at Kung-Fu, but the Dragon Warrior is meant to save the Valley from some horrible threat and there just isn't one right now"? There's a lot about Oogway's actions in the backstory that come off as very questionable, even if the tellers of the tale can't be counted on to explain everything in accurate detail.
 * Because Tai Lung was a sociopath. Look at how he reacted to being denied the scroll in the first place, he went on a rampage so horrific it got him imprisoned for decades. He probably wouldn't have listened if Oogway tried to explain it, he would've gone berserk anyway. Oogway seems to be a great judge of character overall, it'd probably be clear to him that Tai Lung wouldn't listen even if he told him. Yes, it was largely Shifu's fault that Tai Lung ended up how he ended up, but if Oogway didn't see Tai Lung's evil before he was denied the scroll, after Tai Lung goes on a horrible rampage, it's obvious he's not going to listen to reason at all. The simple fact was Tai Lung was clearly mentally unstable and violent. At best, being told the Dragon Scroll wasn't what he thought would mentally crush him, at worst, it'd send him on a psychotic rampage even worse than the one he went on before. On top of it, Shifu wasn't just Tai Lung's master, he was his father, Oogway could advise Shifu, but he was in no position to force Shifu to do anything when it came to Tai Lung because it'd be overstepping Shifu's right to raise his child. On top of that, we can't be sure that Oogway saw how Tai Lung was being raised, so he might have been in no position to do anything abut it for a number of reasons.
 * Tai Lung was not a sociopath. A sociopath would have tried to manipulate his way into getting the scroll after being denied it despite mastering all the kung fu there is. He might be crazy, but he put his entire life into Kung Fu and seeking validation through its mastery, because Shifu taught him that was what was important: you are the Dragon Warrior, and so you are a worthwhile person. And then Oogway just denies him the scroll, but doesn't explain himself, so what does a guy with literally zero self-worth outside of martial arts do when the wisest creature in his world says "No, you suck", and his own father doesn't protest and therefore endorses that assessment? Oogway should have known that denying Tai Lung the scroll would go poorly, and we already know that Oogway IS in a position to influence Shifu's students: he does it with Po. He's Shifu's master and the ruler of the Jade Palace and the founder of kung fu. Even if he knew that Tai Lung wouldn't take the news well, he could have done better than just turning his back on him, instead of actually explaining anything about his decision. How hard would it have been, to just tell him, "Your training is incomplete, and you aren't ready for the scroll?", or even, "The Dragon Scroll isn't a prize; it's a relic of prophecy and it isn't meant for you". Oogway didn't just deny him a scroll, he completely denounced a young man's entire life with no explanation; Shifu says that obeying his master was the right thing to do, but Oogway wasn't Tai Lung's master, and Shifu clearly didn't understand either, he just put his head down and didn't have anything to tell him. Oogway just walks off and doesn't do anything to help the situation until his own life is threatened.
 * Thing is, we don't really know how things leading to Tai Lung's rampage unfolded. Tai Lung's flashback cannot be truly relied upon for obvious reasons, and Master Tigress is not even a witness of the events. That Tai Lung started wrecking shit in the Valley of Peace, instead of going right after the scroll very strongly suggests that he flew off the handle suddenly (fics that insert some last-straw provocation there might have a point) and unexpectedly - even for himself. The rampage was pointless in terms of seizing the Dragon Scroll, on the contrary, it actively reduced Tai Lung's chances. Note, he completely ignored the village upon his return, going straight for the temple. Tai Lung normally - when not in sight of the Dragon Scroll - is pretty smart and composed. I think, Oogway predicted that Tai Lung will react badly, and quite possibly try to take the scroll by force, but failed to predict the extent of his outburst, because such rage was uncharacteristic for Tai Lung. Oogway most likely expected that if explanations won't work (and again, we don't know, how Oogway presented his refusal), Tai Lung will just challenge him to a duel, which he will win, and after which Tai Lung can be goaded towards a less self-destructive path using the old "you lost because you lack this quality, now go to obtain it" bait. In addition, it seems Tai Lung just wasn't close or emotionally attached to Oogway (he didn't care when he saw Oogway's staff in the Hall of Heroes and realised that the turtle is dead), and therefore wasn't inclined to accept unpleasant truths from.
 * Agree 100%. One bit of food for thought: the reason the rampage in the village doesn't seem to fit or make sense for someone whose goal was just to claim the scroll may be a result of Tai Lung being found too sympathetic by audiences. In the DVD commentary, the directors admitted that people were feeling so sympathetic for Tai Lung they had forgotten he was the villain, so they inserted the rampage to remind people how and why he was bad. The mistake they made is that because of this insertion not being part of the original script, the event itself no longer makes sense in-universe, requiring us to figure out why he would go on a rampage, then come back up to get the scroll. There are really only two explanations: he really was that enraged and maddened as to go on a slaughter before gaining the thing he craved (undermined by him being cool, calm, and smart for most of the movie, and him ignoring the village when he comes for the scroll at the end); or something set him off...which just gives people more reason to sympathize. Either way, Dream Works shot themselves in the foot.
 * It boils down to the fact that telling him the lesson or not telling him the lesson doesn't help him actually understand the point of the lesson. Given that Oogway spends the vast majority of his time trying to teach Shifu (and by proxy, Tai Lung and Tigress) the same lesson in various ways, he may very well have been trying to impress the idea that Tai Lung didn't need the Scroll to be the Dragon Warrior. Would telling Tai Lung that he's not ready yet - or in Tai Lung's eyes, that he wasn't good enough/he was flawed/etc etc - really have taught him the lesson any better? Would Tai Lung really have taken those sorts of statements any better? Would Shifu have understood either at that point? That's what Oogway was looking for and what motivated him to eventually move on; in order for Oogway to find his successor before he passed, he had to pass in order for Shifu (his successor) to understand that Shifu was indeed his successor... he just needed to realize that that sort of wisdom and insight was already there.
 * Okay, so Tigress explains to Po that she doesn't feel any pain, right? But if you look closely in the scene where Po and the Five are heading towards Shen's tower and they all have handcuffs on, Tigress whispers a hardly audible "ouch", due to the pain of the handcuffs. What's with that?
 * Only saw the film once, so I might have missed something, but I think she meant her hands were unable to feel pain, not her entire body.
 * Logically, she meant her paws when she said "now I feel nothing", wording was just deliberately ambigious to set up the dialogue during the confrontation with Po in prison.
 * They're acupuncture cuffs. Assuming Tigress was speaking literally, her hands have probably been desensitized to the force of impacts, not piercings.
 * Don't get me wrong, I love the movie, and the fights were great; but I always found the villain's defeat kinda lame... I mean, what's up with the Badass Decay of Tai Lung in the last fight? In all his previous scenes he totally outclassed everyone (all the rhino guards, the Furious Five, his master), yet he has no chance against a fat panda with little to no training (at least compared to his level of training)? The first part is fine, since Tai Lung was obsessed with the scroll, but when he focused on killing Po and saw that his Pressure Point technique didn't work, shouldn't he be able to finish his opponent in a bazillion other methods?
 * Consider what kind of effort the two of them had put in prior to their fights: Po had to climb a flight of stairs. Tai Lung had to cross however much distance, after fighting off the Furious Five, climb those same stairs, fight Shifu, and chase Po all over town while getting sat on intermittently by a very fat panda. Tai Lung was coming at it from something of a long exertion disadvantage, even if he was better able to handle it than Po would have been. Also, at least two of the direct hits he takes? Are his own. Possibly as a set up to the second movie, Po naturally reflects some of Tai Lung's strikes, and chances are, Tai Lung is the only person who can really hurt Tai Lung with a direct strike. By the time the end of that fight rolled around, he'd taken a lot of his own punishment.
 * Because Kung Fu Panda subscribes to the old martial arts trope of enlightement and inner strength being more important than physical strength. Note, that generally it just means that Right Makes Might, giving a good guy a timely powerup (see Kung Fu Hustle for a deliberately blatant and over-the-top example). But Kung Fu Panda actually uses this trope in a more thoughtful fashion (I would have said desonstructs it, had Deconstruction not actually meant "Grimderp" nowadays) - good guys can end up on the receiving end of it. For the most glaring example, see how far Po's skills degrade in the sequel, when he allows his old trauma to dominate him - Tigress, who lost to Tai Lung, both when it was one-on-one and five-on-one, wipes the floor with him without even trying. The Five and Shifu got beaten by Tai Lung for similar reasons. Anyway, before the final battle Tai Lung is utterly mentally crushed by the revelation of the Dragon Scroll. I actually believe, that he got the meaning, at least after Po, explained it to him. Tai Lung is not exactly dense. And this meant that Tai Lung slammed headfirst in the facts that his decades in jail were for nothing; his betrayal of Shifu AND rejection of Shifu's attempt to make amends just minutes ago were for nothing; he's not ever going to set things right and become the hero the way he wanted to by proving that he can master the secret of the Dragon Scroll and Oogway was mistaken (DVD commentary notes that Tai Lung secretly hoped so); his entire goal in life was wrong; and, to add insult to injury, some friggin fat panda from nowhere has better understanding of kung fu mysteries than him! Tai Lung cannot contest this truth, but he also cannot bear it. His attack is a furious denial expressed with kung fu. Of course he gets owned. Had he been able to keep enough cool to do more than blindly rush at Po, he wouldn't attack in the first place.
 * In short, he lacks the self-control - the discipline - necessary to be a true master and lacks the confidence at that point. He's trying to win, to prove that he's right. Po already believes he can/will win and is simply trying to fight.
 * Okay, in part one Tai Lung curb-stomps the furious five all at once. Then Po curb-stomps Tai Lung in single combat. In part two when Po fights Tigress (meaning the legitimate fight in the prison, not the sparring they did on the boat), Tigress curb-stomps Po... Umm... What?
 * Po didn't beat Tai Lung because he was simply stronger, but because Tai Lung's main technique didn't work on him. Which was pretty much the whole point of the film.
 * See second answer to the headscratcher directly above.
 * Anybody else noticed how Tai Lung never actually throws the first punch? Maybe it's just me, but in every fight starting from his escape, he doesn't seem to throw the first punch, unless he has a good reason anyway. When he breaks free in the prison, they start shooting huge arrows at him, then hundreds of normal arrows at once, and then all rhinos start coming at him in order to take him down, and he fights back (granted, they were doing their jobs, but still). When he rushes across the bridge, it's cut down, Tigress kicks him in the chin, and then she attacks him after he taunts them. When he arrives at the Valley, he leaves everybody alone, going straight to the palace instead of going on a rampage again. At the palace, he actually just talks to Shifu instead of attacking, and the fight doesn't start until Shifu makes it plain and clear that if Tai Lung wants the scroll, they have to fight. Finally, Po arrives and challenges Tai Lung, taunting him by showing him the scroll, which makes Tai Lung go for it. Honestly, the one time Tai Lung attacks without any provocation is when he sees the blank scroll, which is also pretty much when his dreams are shattered and his whole world crumbles around him, and one could still argue that the fight was not actually over.
 * Considering he obviously intended to hurt people anyway, I think it was justified.
 * Shen's knifes. I can never seem to figure out how they work. How does he conceal them so easily without them falling out of his robes? If they're strapped to his body, how is he able to throw them without actually touching them? And if they're hidden under his tail, like my brothers guessed, how does he, well, you know, throw them? And also HOW THE HELL DID HE FIT AN ENTIRE ONE METER SWORD IN THERE?!
 * It seems like they're stuck where his feathers would be, and he throws them just by flinging his arm.
 * They're peacock sword feathers?
 * Why not just kill Tai Lung? Seriously, why bother keeping him locked up, far, far away, in a specially built prison that was carved out of a mountain, manned by a thousand strong army of Rhino guards, and kept trapped in an elaborate turtle themed box, possibly with speial magic/chi suppression built in, shacked with enough metal to chains to have served as a anchors for a small fleet, and on top of that, traps, SEIGE weapon stations, and a self destruct system that looks like its supposed to cave the entire complex in and bring the mountain crashing down.
 * Something as simple as a humble noodle vendor slitting Tai Lung's throat while Tai Lung was paralyzed would have solved many problems.
 * Oogway might've been a pacifist. Or, most likely, it could've been Shifu's doing. After all, Shifu saw Tai Lung as a son, and he felt responsible for the way Tai Lung ended up. (you know, getting his hopes up and all)
 * Taking the theory a few headscratchers above that says that the rampage was added in after people found Tai Lung too sympathetic and they didn't shift the rest of the story to compensate offers another explanation. In the original, i.e. before the rampage was added, Tai Lung's crime would have been trying to take the scroll by force and striking his master/father. A bad crime, enough to warrant a lengthy prison sentence, but not bad enough to get Tai Lung executed. Well, obviously, they couldn't kill somebody who didn't deserve it, but Tai Lung would break out of any normal prison easily. Thus, Chor Gom was built to house him. Once the rampage was added in, Tai Lung's crimes become bad enough to warrant execution, but like the attempted theft of the dragon scroll, they didn't adjust the rest of the story to account for the rampage, leading to the headscratcher.
 * Who pays for things like far away, tricked out mountain prisons and its upkeep along with the salary of a thousand guards?
 * Tai Lung's personal prison looks like very expensive real estate so SOMEONE has got to be paying for it. No one in the Kung Fu Panda world so far looks like they have pockets deep enough, or interests common enough, to toss the kind of money away.
 * The people who usually pay for that sort of thing: the government. Sure, the prison must be extremely expensive for just one prisoner, but that prisoner IS Tai Lung.
 * Oogway is a thousand years old, the inventor of kung fu, and highly respected, and therefore likely can call upon favors from the Emperor. Add to this Tai Lung's rampage and how skilled he was, thus requiring such expensive facilities to hold and punish him, and it becomes clear--not only would the Emperor want to help out Oogway, paying for Tai Lung's imprisonment would protect the people of the Valley and the empire, too.
 * How the heck baby Po go from drifting in a basket of radishes to being found in the back of Ping's noodle shop? That shop does not look like it is anywhere near the docks.
 * It doesn't have to be near a dock. There are such things as carts and wagons. Po is not the only person that can use one. As Mr. Ping seems to expect regular deliveries, he hired somebody to deliver the crates of food he needed. That is how Po got to Mr. Ping's in the first place.
 * The basket was never placed in the water, it's likely that the crates were delivered.
 * Was I the only one who found the way masters Storming Ox and Croc acted in a half of this movie slightly... illogical? They stayed in the cell and did not want to upset Shen and make him turn the cannons to the city - yet were perfectly all right with letting the heroes go alone and do precisely that anyway. Wouldn't it have been better for them to come along just to give the best odds on victory? And later, when Tigress left Po to the jail with them, they apparently did not even try to keep him safe like she said, allowing him to go right away back to the fray even despite the fact that the last time he messed up things pretty badly - and indeed, this time even more so. Did he have another inspiring speech for them? I would have liked to see it, to be honest: this way it seemed just random.
 * The truth is that Storming Ox and Croc could easily be absent from the movie and it wouldn´t lose much...