Sneak peek: 'Panda 3' amps up bear count

Bryan Alexander | USA TODAY

For two Kung Fu Panda animated movies, portly Po has believed all his bear kin were in panda heaven. That he was the lone survivor.

But Kung Fu Panda 3 proves Po wrong. The new film (opening Jan. 29, 2016) is Panda-palooza.

"There is great joy," says Jack Black, the voice of Po. "Lo and behold, there's a secret panda village. There's intense rejoicing as I am reunited with my people."

Po has a chance run-in with his long-lost panda father Li (Bryan Cranston), who brings Po back to an enclave where the pandas have been living since a fierce panda attack alluded to in DreamWorks Animation's 2011 hit Kung Fu Panda 2.

"There are even cute baby pandas," says Black. "Those guys are going to be the life of the party, for sure."

Also found in the village: an overeager, amorous young female panda Mei Mei (Rebel Wilson), a wannabe ribbon dancer. This does not turn out to be a panda love story.

"Po's a little freaked out, since he's never been around a female of his own species," says Black. "I don't think he has game in that realm yet."

But directors Jennifer Yuh Nelson and Alessandro Carloni will be able to feature panda frolicking, swimming in streams, rolling down hills. Nelson even visited the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding in Sichuan, China, to study playful panda behavior for use in Panda 3.

"That is the most shockingly adorable place — there are nurseries filled with gaggles of baby pandas," says Nelson. "A lot of how the pandas play was inspiration for the movie."

It's not all fun. The biological father/son reunion causes concern for Po's adopted father, the noodle shop-owning duck Mr. Ping ("He feels very protective," says Black). There's also a menacing supernatural villain called Kai who poses a threat to the village and the world. Po has to train his fellow pandas in martial arts to fight back.

Kung Fu Panda 3 enlists the original characters from the past hit films, with all Furious Five kung fu warriors returning: Angelina Jolie as Tigress, Jackie Chan as Monkey, Seth Rogen as Mantis, David Cross as Crane and Lucy Liu as Viper. Warrior trainer Master Shifu (Dustin Hoffman) returns as well.

Meanwhile, the new voices are bringing their own talents in the recording studio. Wilson even wrote a love poem dedicated to Po and pulled out pink nunchucks during her first meeting with directors to demonstrate how much she was thinking about her animated character.

Her martial art talents were appreciated. "We were blown away, she does play a nunchuck-wielding panda," says Carloni. "But I wanted to point out (to her) that this is an animated film."



