Master Shifu teaches Po a lesson in Kung Fu Panda (Dreamworks)

This week I am pleased to introduce two new KPBS Teen Critics, Raymond Mai and Vikram Bhoyrul. They both had reviews up this week (of Kung Fu Panda and You Don't Mess with the Zohan,respectively) and I hope you check them out. Raymond is someone I've known since he was in elementary school with my son and he's always had very strong opinions about movies, so I'm thrilled to have him aboard. Vikram, on the other hand, I just met. I was introduced to his father at an Indian film screening and his dad explained how Vikram had started his own paper at Bishop's. Now that's initiative. Anyway, I hope you check out their reviews. But I wanted to throw my two cents in about Kung Fu Panda and You Don't Mess with the Zohan (both opened June 6 throughout San Diego). Also, being a martial arts fan I thought it was worth mentioning that three films that opened on Friday - Kung Fu Panda, You Don't Mess with the Zohan, and Foot Fist Way - contained martial arts to varying degrees.

First let me start with Kung Fu Panda, an American animated martial arts film about a panda with big dreams. The film seems in part to tap into the fact that all eyes are on China as it prepares to host the summer Olympics. The film starts with a strikingly animated prologue that turns out to be a dream. Po (voiced by Jack Black) is an eager, out of shape panda that wants nothing more than to be like the heroes that he worships (and has a full set of action figures of). This open got my interest up because the animation style recalled the Emmy-winning Cartoon Network show Samurai Jack. Unfortunately, when the dream ends, so does the innovative visual style and we're back to the standard 3-D computer animation that everyone is using. I know it's state of the art and I should appreciate how the hair looks so real... but all right already. Kudos to the technicians and animators. But this style of animation seems to place more emphasis on the technology than the artistry, and I've begun to grow weary of it.

I think that there is more visual innovation in animation occurring on American TV than in American animated features (I won't even mention the great stuff being made on a regular basis in Japan and increasingly in South Korea). The boldly animated Samurai Jack was the creation of Genndy Tarakovsky who went on to animate Clone Wars for Cartoon Network as well. Afro Samurai, a collaboration between the U.S. and Japan, also displayed a fresh, almost monochromatic animation style. All of these TV shows are far more cinematic than any animated American feature. They are also more experimental in narrative structure, often leaving long sections without dialogue, and knowing how to mix furious action with moments of absolute stillness and calm. These shows also emphasize the story and the telling of the story as opposed to the teaching of a lesson, which is why their appeal is across age groups. Okay, that's my little tangential rant/rave.

We are not impressed... the general reaction to Po's kung fu skills in Kung Fu Panda (Dreamworks)

But despite the predictably high-tech animation, Kung Fu Panda proves appealing as Po becomes the unlikely "chosen one" selected to defend the valley against the villainous escaped convict Tai Lung (Ian McShane of cable's Deadwood). Helping Po scale seemingly insurmountable odds is Master Shifu (Dustin Hoffman). But here's where I ran into another problem with the film. Dustin Hoffman provides the voice of a kung fu master while Jackie Chan - martial artist extraordinaire - gets a couple lines as one of the support team. As a fan of both Jackie Chan and martial arts action films, this was all wrong. Hoffman is hands down the better actor but why bother including a martial arts legend if you're not going to use him in a manner that honors his talent. I have to say that Chan's least impressive talent would be his voice, but if the film chose to use him then they should have had him be Master Shifu, or at the very least, the old turtle master. It's just disrespectful and downright wrong to not have Chan be the master. Having Chan voice Shifu would have allowed him to bring something beyond vocal talent to the role, and for many of us who are fans of Chan's it would have been an improvement to the film.

Ian McShane voices teh evil Tai Lung in Kung Fu Panda (Dreamworks)

But Chan's influence hangs over the film nonetheless. Kung Fu Panda steals (or the more polite word would be "borrows") heavily from Chan's films, especially Drunken Master. In that film, an elderly and a bit eccentric master devises a clever training program to teach a young student how to fight (a scenario typical of other Chan films and martial arts films). Kung Fu Panda, co-directed by Mark Osborne and John Stevenson with a screenplay by Jonathan Aibel and Glenn Berger, does develop some nice interplay between Po and Shifu, as the master discovers that food is the key to the hefty panda's training.

But the title character of Adam Sandler's new film needs no training at all. In You Don't Mess with the Zohan, Sandler plays a crack Israeli Mossad agent who fakes his own death so he can pursue his dream of being a hair stylist in New York. But once in the Big Apple the newly rechristened Scrappy Coco finds that the tensions of the Middle East have preceded him to America. Arabs, Palestinians and Israelis are still at war but in a different way on the streets of New York. But Zohan wants none of that. All he wants to do is style hair and find peace. But once a loony Arab cab driver (Rob Schneider) and a terrorist/entrepreneur (John Turturro) realize that Scrappy Coco is none other than the Zohan, all hell breaks loose.

John Turturro goes over the top in You Don't Mess with the Zohan (Columbia Pictures)

The racial stereotypes that emerge in this film are as over the top and potentially offensive as Eli Wallach's Tuco in The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. But what redeems the film to some degree is its general good naturedness and overall message about peace and everyone just getting along. This film is not quite a pot comedy but it's definitely inhaling the fumes as it reveals a laidback attitude and an underlying sense that most people are nice and friendship is worth somethinhg. Maybe that's a direct result of Judd Apatow's involvement. Apatow served as one of the writers, and he's the man behind the TV show Freaks and Geeks and the feature film Knocked Up (definitely in the pot comedy mold). Apatow, despite a penchant for some gross out comedy, often displays an oddly sweet streak in his comedy and the comedy he produces (Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Superbad, Walk Hard). Sandler and Robert Smigel (of Triumph the Insult Dog fame) are the other two contributors to the screenplay. The film's tone may also benefit from the direction of former actor Dennis Dugan, who worked on one of Sandler's better features, Happy Gilmore.

The comedy in Zohan is very broad and very crude with Sandler's character providing not only hair styling but sex to all his middle-aged women clients. Hence his popularity. As for his lethal fighting skills, these are depicted in cartoon style with an emphasis on hilarious exaggeration. Not quite as inspired as Stephen Chow's work in Kung Fu Hustle but delightfully goofy in its absurdity. I find Sandler much funnier in roles where he's ridiculous yet cocky as opposed to the roles where he tries to be pathetic and funny and wring some emotions from the audience.

All Adam Sandler's character whats to do is be a hairdresser in You Don't Mess with the Zohan (Columbia Pictures)

You Don't Mess with the Zohan (rated PG-13 for crude and sexual content throughout, language and nudity) follows in the footsteps of Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo in terms of trying to mix crude humor with current politics in order to deliver a message. But Harold and Kumar can deflect some criticism since at least the leads are actually actors of Korean and Indian heritage and it's the whites that are the victims of the most offensive stereotypes. In Zohan, however, you have Schneider in brown face make up) and Turturro playing Arabs and looking particularly stupid. Since neither the comedy nor the message is that sharp, these portrayals have the potential to offend -- even though characters prove nice guys in the end. Arab comedian Ahmed Ahmed (who was featured in the Vince Vaughn doc) does appear in a small role, but his stand up comedy addresses these political and racial issues with more insightful bite than this film. But for a dumb, crude comedy, Zohan proves oddly appealing despite numerous offenses.

Companion viewing for Kung Fu Panda: Samurai Jack, Drunken Master, Warriors of Virtue

Companion viewing for You Don't Mess with the Zohan: World Police, Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo, Knocked Up, Happy Gilmore, Caramel