Trivia / Kung Fu Panda 3

• Acting for Two:
  • Jackie Chan reprises his role as Monkey in the English dub while voicing Po's father, Li Shan, in the Chinese dub. He had previously voiced Monkey in the Chinese dub of the two previous films as well, but is replaced by Jay Chou for this film. Special mention goes to the fact that Chan couldn't simply record the two languages in the same studio. No, he had to travel all the way between the US and China to do so. That's some dedication to a voice acting role.
  • Mick Wingert voices the Farmer Goose and Rabbit that Kai confronts upon his return from the Spirit Realm.
• Channel Hop: The previous two films in the franchise were distributed by Paramount Pictures, with this film being distributed by 20th Century Fox.
• Cross-Dressing Voices: A minor example with Lei Lei who is voiced by a boy.
• Deleted Scene:
  • Two deleted scenes from this movie would have featured Po bringing his dirty laundry to Mr. Ping to wash, taking off his pants as he did, and accidentally exposing his rear to the Furious Five, who were reviled, and a scene in which Mr. Ping brings back Po's dirty laundry to his barrack at the Jade Palace. In that scene, Mr. Ping voices his displeasure at Li Shan being included as one of Po's father figures after only being in his life for a few months, and Mr. Ping attempting to right his wrongs towards Li Shan by making plans to prepare an expensive feast for him.
  • A fully animated scene has Po introducing Li Shan to the Five while they're training, with Po eventually joining in. Clips from said scene can still be seen in some of the trailers.
  • Another finished scene has Mr. Ping visiting Po's room at the Jade Palace and the two talking about Li Shan.
  • A deleted scene would have featured Master Shifu speaking to the statue of Master Oogway, expressing his concerns about how the world would be consumed in darkness, and how Shifu might need a hobby or a girlfriend.
  • Originally, Li Shan would sleep in the palace, and despite Po's optimism to show his Kung Fu abilities, Li refuses everything Po's likes to do, because he says that's not what a panda should do and that he doesn't belong on the Valley of Peace but rather with his kind. He then lies on the floor and says to Po to leave tomorrow with Po looking concerned.
• Dueling Movies: With two other animated features: Norm of the North (which also has a bear as the lead who is trying to preserve their homeland; this movie ironically features another The Legend of Korra alumnus, Korra's voice actress Janet Varney, in a cameo), and Zootopia (which also has J. K. Simmons in it and features anthropomorphic animals, the third movie in the Disney Animated Canon after Robin Hood (1973) and Chicken Little to use them). Norm of the North temporarily earned a 0% on Rotten Tomatoes and was subsequently crushed at the box office. Needless to say, Disney has obviously fared much better than Lionsgate did, as Zootopia received highly positive reviews and beat Kung Fu Panda 3 at the box office. Although, this doesn't stop the two films from having mostly Friendly Fandoms.
• Kids' Meal Toy: As they did with the first two movies, McDonald's had a Happy Meal tie-in with the film's theatrical release. This one was a set of eight connectable figures; Tigress, Mr. Ping, Li, Mei Mei, Kai, and three different versions of Po.
• Missing Trailer Scene: There are... quite a few scenes in the various trailers that aren't in the movie. These include:
  • Po and the Five passing a teacup to each other while dodging various obstacles in the training hall (see Deleted Scene above).
  • Po interrupting Shifu while the latter is meditating.
  • Po showing the village pandas how to throw a punch, resulting in the pandas accidentally punching each other when they try to mimick him.
  • Another shot that kept being repeated in trailers, but never appeared in the film was of Po posing on a cliff in the spirit realm with Oogway's staff and a Badass Cape while facing Kai.
  • Yet another brief clip from trailers had Po seeing fireworks while travelling to the panda village.
• The Other Darrin:
  • Po's father was voiced by Fred Tatasciore in Kung Fu Panda 2 in a small cameo. Bryan Cranston replaces him for this movie. However, Tatasciore does return to voice new character Master Bear.
  • In the Latin American Spanish dub, Master Shifu and Master Oogway were voiced by Pedro Amendariz Jr., and Esteban Siller, respectively, for the first two movies. Due to both of them passing away before the third movie was dubbed, Shifu and Oogway were voiced by Octavio Rojas and Pedro D'Aguillón Jr. this time.
  • In the Brazilian dub, Master Oogway was voiced by Jomeri Pozzoli in the first two movies. Due to his death in 2014, he's voiced by Carlos Gesteira here.
  • While he still voices Monkey in the English dub, Jackie Chan was replaced by Jay Chou as the character in the Chinese dub. However, Chan is still involved in the dub, dubbing over Bryan Cranston as Li Shan.
• Real-Life Relative:
  • One of Jack Black's sons voices a bunny early on while Angelina Jolie's children lend their voices to some of the younger pandas.
  • Big Fun and Lei Lei are voiced by father and son Wayne Knight and Liam Knight.
• Refitted for Sequel: At one point, the original film had Tai Lung leading a gang of evil warriors, one of whom was a "Four-Armed Yak Demon God on Fire". The character's design was reused for Master Ox in the second film (albeit with only two arms), while the character's concept as a demonic spirit inspired the creation of Kai for this film.
• Release Date Change: This movie was originally scheduled to be released on December 23, 2015, but the studio delayed release to avoid directly competing with The Force Awakens.
• Schedule Slip: Invoked. The movie was intended to be released in December 2015, but moved into 2016 to get it way away from The Force Awakens (probably a wise decision given its reception and box office rampage; it was still playing in theaters by the time KFP3 joined it there but no longer posed a threat to the movie), then moved up from spring and away from a few Marvel films and Zootopia to land it in January 2016. In the US and China anyway. It proved to be a smart move on DWA's part given Zootopia is going on its own box office blitz after KFP3 no longer posed a threat to IT.
• The Other Marty: Two roles had to be recast during production.
  • Mads Mikkelsen was originally cast as the voice of Kai. After rewrites shifted the character's personality, J. K. Simmons was brought in to replace him.
  • Rebel Wilson recorded most of her dialogue as Mei Mei when the character's original storyline was still in place. When the subplot was cut and the production schedule was extended, Wilson was unable to return to record her new dialogue, and was ultimately replaced with Kate Hudson. The change happened so late that Wilson was still credited in some of the film's early trailers.
• Throw It In!: Jack Black apparently ad-libbed the "Chitty-chitty-chat-chat" lines.
• What Could Have Been:
  • Mei Mei was originally meant to be in an Arranged Marriage with Po from a young age, and had gone a little crazy from waiting for him, but this idea was eventually scrapped.
    • For that matter, a Facebook post by Stephanie Ma Stine, co-director of Kung Fu Panda 4, stated that Tigress and Po were supposed to become romantically involved.
  • Li Shan, Po's father, was originally pitched as having a stern personality, but the creators feared this would make him unlikable and made him more relaxed and fun-loving instead.
  • There exists a character model for a jade jombie Tigress, implying she would have had her chi taken by Kai too.
  • Instead of Po and the Five being introduced by going to Mr. Ping's for breakfast, Po would have arrived ahead asking Mr. Ping to do his laundry, then removing his pants just as the Five arrived, much to Po's embarrassment. (see Deleted Scene)
  • A subplot that was ultimately cut from the finished movie was that Po, Shifu, and the Furious Five would have held off the jombie Masters at a standoff, at which point, the undead Masters would run off, rather than to dissipate into green orbs of light, as they had in the finished movie, but not before one quick skirmish, in which Master Porcupine fired three of his quills from his bow, one of them hitting Mr. Ping, who dove in front of Po to take the shot. In that subplot, Li Shan would have tended to Mr. Ping's injuries, and Mr. Ping would have blamed himself for being a burden to Po, partially due to the toxins of the quill affecting his brain.
    • The art book shows concept art of a storyline where Tigress would get hit by a poisonous arrow and Po would carry her all the way to the panda village to nurse her back to health. Interestingly, this is the same plot describing Oogway and Kai's backstory.
• You Sound Familiar:
  • Wayne Knight had voiced one of the warriors in the prologue of the first movie.
  • Fred Tatasciore (Master Bear) briefly voiced Li Shan in the second movie.

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