Legend tells of a legendary warrior whose Kung Fu skills were the stuff of legend, begins Po’s early morning fantasy in which he imagines himself the fearless warrior defending peaceable furry little Chinese creatures against the banditry and ne’er do wellington of bad guys throughout the countryside.
Po slays his enemies by the thousands. His admirers swoon and cheer gratefully with each victory.
They shout, “He’s so awesome!”
“… and attractive.”
“How can we repay you?”
“There is no charge for awesomeness or attractiveness,” is his modest reply.
Po is a dreamer. He lives in a King Fu fantasy world where he is the awesome, attractive hero of all China. To say that Kung Fu is his passion is an understatement. It is his religion, his life, and his being.
Po is like a little boy who loves professional football and idolizes the greatest players. In this image the little boy sleeps with his football and wears a helmet to breakfast. He dreams of one day becoming a great football player himself. Except in this case, Po is a grown Panda/man.
Po shares this similar longing for Kung Fu and he idolizes his Kung Fu heroes, the Furious Five, the greatest warriors in China.
But Po is a big, fat panda. He is a glutton and an oaf. He serves noodles in his father’s restaurant, who is, by the way, a duck. Po is clearly, in his estimation and in others’, no Kung Fu hero.
Yet, Po’s longing for Kung Fu greatness will manifest soon in harsh brutality when he will be chosen as the legendary Dragon Warrior by the great martial arts teacher Master Oogway. The prospect of this lifelong honor juxtaposed against the pressures of being himself are often times too much for him to bear. It tears at his heart.
To say that Po is experiencing an identity crisis is an understatement. And it is exacerbated as he struggles to reconcile who he is, who is father thinks he is, what others think of him, and what he must become to fulfill the role of Dragon Warrior.
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