harvey @ deneroff.com

I was delighted that John Stevenson and Mark Osborne’s Kung Fu Panda, DreamWorks Animation’s latest effort. more than lived up to its hype. I really have little to add to general critical applause the film has elicited for its sharp take on martial arts films, which compares favorably with Quentin Tarantino’s Kill Bill films (though it is considerably less bloody).

What impressed me even more, partly because I was not expecting it, was the film’s visual richness, which is sumptuous to say the least; I was especially impressed with the vivid detail which the film seems to luxuriate in. Afterwards, I regretted not having made the extra effort to see it in its IMAX version (which was playing a half hour away in Buford), which is obviously the way to see it. (The standard version in your local multiplex ain’t bad either.)

Both directors are new to the feature animation scene, at least in terms of directing. John Stevenson previously directed episodes of DreamWorks Animation’s ill-fated CG TV series Father of the Pride, and has a number of credits as a storyboard artist, including Madagascar. 

Interestingly, co-director Mark Osborne is not new to IMAX, as his 1998 Oscar-nominated stop motion short, More (see QuickTime version  here) was made under the auspices of the Large Format Films Association; this was an initiative that involved independent filmmaker Christine Panushka and also resulted in the production of Aleksandr Petrov’s Oscar-winning version of The Old Man and the Sea. More recently, Osborne directed episodes of SpongeBob SquarePants and Dropping Out (2000),  an independent live-action comedy that screened at the Sundance Festival.