Kung Fu Panda: Secrets of the Furious Five (2008)

Secrets of the Furious Five is an American animated short produced by DreamWorks Animation, which serves as a semi-sequel or spin-off to the animated feature film Kung Fu Panda and appears on a companion disc of the original film's deluxe DVD release. It was later broadcast on NBC on February 26, 2009 and is now available as a separate DVD as of March 24, 2009.

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

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

In this short, Monkey is voiced by Jaycee Chan, son of Jackie Chan. Jaycee Chan also voiced Crane in the Cantonese version of the original film.

Production of the film was outsourced to Reel FX Creative Studios, who worked on CG animation, and to Film Roman, who worked on traditionally animated sequences.

Synopsis

Po (Jack Black) is assigned by Master Shifu (Dustin Hoffman) to teach an introduction to Kung Fu class for a group of rambunctious bunny children. Fortunately for Po, it doesn't take him long to bring the class to order and for the kids to calm down, and begins to emphasize to the kids that combat is not the only part of what Kung Fu is about, while its true meaning is "excellence of self." To illustrate his point, he uses the stories of the Furious Five's individual pasts and the basic philosophical concepts they learned that enabled them to be great Kung Fu masters.

Actors