Scene Analysis #7 Kai’s Return—Kung Fu Panda 3 · 9:59pm Feb 18th, 2023
Scene Rating Scale:
9/9: Flawless! Outstanding scene!
8/9: Great scene! Totally Rewatchable!
7/9: Pretty good. Not as perfect as I expected though.
6/9: Decent. Doesn’t ruin the movie/episode.
5/9: Mid.
4/9: Pretty bad. One of the weakest scenes of the movie/episode.
3/9: You hear that? It’s the wind of lameness.
2/9: One of the worst scenes of the film/episode.
1/9: Horrible, unwatchable, and unacceptable.
Hello, hello, hello, my wonderful friends! Mr. J is in the house with another scene analysis for you all today! This afternoon, I will be reviewing Kai’s return from “Kung Fu Panda 3”. Now, as some of you may know, Kai is one of my favorite villains of all time and is on par with the likes of Tai Lung and Lord Shen. And as much as I enjoyed this film, I do think it could have improved some scenes which would have made it a lot better. This scene being one of them…
Kai has now returned from the spirit realm right after absorbing the chi of Master Oogway. He then confronts two terrified farmers who were just minding their own business. As he asks them where he was, they reveal that he is back in the mortal realm. The moment he triumphantly proclaims his return, they begin to question who he is.
Now, look, I love Kai to death, but…..I hated how they took him less serious than the previous villains. Throughout the first half of his screen time, he gets downplayed by poorly-timed comedic moments like this. First, let me explain why it made no sense for these characters to ask “Who?” right after he announces his name.
Why would they be bewildered by the thought that they’ve never seen this guy before? When Lord Shen terrorized China, did any of our heroes—before they would meet him in person—ever ask “Who?” in a comedic fashion? No. So why does Kai get this treatment? The only thing these farmers should be worried about is that this evil supernatural entity (who obviously has ill intentions) is approaching them in an intimidating manner. Who cares if you’ve never heard of him before? You should be begging for mercy and down on your knees!
But this isn’t the only issue; this also makes Kai an idiot by a margin. The buffalo has been gone for over 500 years in the spirit realm until this point, so what did he seriously expect these civilians to say? Unlike him, Oogway has been in the land of the living for a very long time—spreading peace and wisdom to everyone he encountered. It made sense for them (and everyone else except Oogway) to not know who this new guy is. I get that he was caught up in the moment, but he should have known that nobody would remember him as he was banished in the spirit realm while Oogway has been living his life on earth.
All the people that lived in Kai’s time are dead at this point, so his expectations for the new generation to somehow know him after 500 years just doesn’t make any sense. Now, some would argue that he could have been preserved through the history books, but there is only one scroll that remotely mentions his name, sooooo…I don’t know why Oogway didn’t bother making copies of that scroll and share it with everybody so they know the history between them both. He still loved Kai, didn’t he?
Kai could have simply utilized some sort of lethal chi power to kill those farmers off-screen to emphasize how serious he is when he said that there will be no one left to remember Oogway’s name by the time he is finished taking the chi of every kung fu master in China. He would have been taken a lot more serious as a villain if he actually had a body count. But hey, it is what it is.
Overall, this was a fairly decent scene for his second on-screen appearance, but it had poor execution. I’ll give it a 6/9. I do admire J.K. Simmons’ voice acting, the animation of his chi powers, and his epic theme. It’ll never get old.
Peace!
Ironically, I actually consider this scene one of my favorite parts of the film. And one of the funniest.
In retrospect, I think it has a lot to do with my belief that Dreamworks can normally make any comedic moment fun to watch.