YMMV / Kung Fu Panda 2

• Adorkable: For being a brutal warrior, Wolf Boss has many dorky features, like whimpering when his toe is stomped or annoying Shen with out of place comments.
• Alternative Character Interpretation:
  • Lord Shen. Is he just a power hungry, cold blooded killer who will do anything to get what he desires? Or a tragic character who truly felt unloved by his parents and is taking out his pain on the rest of the world? Or how about both: A villain who is driven to increasingly wicked acts by his flaws and trauma. Also his death, being either a defiant attempt or being a total Death Seeker. The creator's commentary also heavily implies that he has some sense of morality, continuing his destructive path because he knows he can't just turn around and render all his genocidal actions "mistakes".
  • The prophecy of the "Warrior in Black and White". While Po is certainly the most obvious candidate who fits the mold perfectly, there is another great warrior of black and white who could qualify just as well: Shen himself. After all, it's only after his attempt at genocide that he was exiled from his home. He also died at his own hands, intentionally or not. And while Po did effectively destroy Shen's army, he sure had a lot of help from all those cannon balls that Shen kept sending his way, even after witnessing then and there how Po was directing them back at him.
• Angst? What Angst?:
  • What finally stuns Lord Shen at the end is not Po countering cannonfire with kung fu to singlehandedly destroy his fleet, but the fact that Po is neither permanently mired in a Heroic BSoD believing the lie that his parents abandoned him because they hated him, nor charging in a Roaring Rampage of Revenge for the extermination of his people.
  • When Po discovers what Lord Shen did to his parents, and for that matter species, his response is to... let go of his pain and find inner peace. Shen, who has never got over his own deep-rooted issues, is utterly shocked. While it goes with his All-Loving Hero status and is a potent emotional moment, it can still be rather jarring to see Po so easily forgive the genocidal dictator and would-be conqueror who massacred his species with next to no reason to do so other than "letting go of pain." It comes across as borderline apathy to what Shen did to his knowledge at the time. Po might just be one of the most forgiving characters in cinema.
  • Played with when the Soothsayer and Shen first meet Po. They know that Shen attempted genocide against the Pandas, and assume that the reason that the Panda is here is to a) avenge his family/species, and b) destroy Shen once and for all. Both are shocked when they learn that not only had Po never heard of Lord Shen, but had no idea why he should have. The look on Shen's face when Po just brushes him off, totally ignoring the well-prepared speech upon their first meeting, is priceless.
• Award Snub: Some may feel it suffered this when it lost the Best Animated Feature Oscar to Rango, though the latter was a stronger critical success.
• Awesome Art: The animation as a whole is fantastically fluid, but it also provides us with not one but two gorgeously 2D segments in different art styles: Shen's backstory in the prologue, told in the form of Chinese shadow puppetry, and Po's memories of his childhood, done in an incredibly vibrant and colorful style that rivals if not excels Disney at its peak.
• Base-Breaking Character: While Lord Shen has been widely praised as one of the best DreamWorks villains yet, thanks to being a surprisingly dark yet multi-layered villain with a killer performance from Gary Oldman, there's a bit of a divide as to how sympathetic he really is. Some feel sympathy for him due to his backstory of feeling unloved by his parents and his desire to find true happiness as a result, while others see him as an irredeemable monster completely undeserving of sympathy due to him committing genocide, bringing his unhappiness on himself. And then there are those who Take a Third Option: that his insecurities are absolutely no excuse for his actions, yet they still make him pitiable to a degree.
• Big-Lipped Alligator Moment: While trying to convince Masters Ox and Croc to escape the prison, Po delivers a Rousing Speech about how they will defeat Shen and destroy his weapon. A random prisoner then enthusiastically agrees, but he's never seen again. Oddly, he was a boar and had a completely unique character model. It turns out that this character was going to be in the movie as a fourth master (alongside Ox, Croc, and Rhino), but was cut for one reason or another and the character model was used in the place of a random criminal (and also recycled for a gang of bandits that appear Kung Fu Panda Holiday special).
• Contested Sequel: While it's generally agreed that this is an excellent sequel, opinion is pretty strongly divided regarding which movie is superior between this and the first - the first movie is generally regarded as having a stronger structure, balanced tone and a classic theme, while supporters of the second point to superior characterization, more emotional scenes and the darker tone.
• Cry for the Devil: Lord Shen. He's a sadistic, Ax-Crazy warlord who committed near-genocide on the pandas just because of a vague prophecy. However, he struggles with deep-rooted insecurities due to believing that his parents never loved him and desperately seeks happiness as a result. His conversations with the Soothsayer especially bring this to light, as it's strongly implied that he knows that what he's doing won't bring him happiness but believes that he's come too far to stop now.
• Draco in Leather Pants:
  • Lord Shen. Any surprise? He is painted as a Tragic Villain by many because of his insecurities and unsureness of what he wants to truly be happy. This is in spite of the fact he is also a genocidal tyrant who committed genocide against the pandas for flimsy reasoning (he overheard the Soothsayer's prophecy), raided villages for metal, murdered innocents like Master Rhino, took over and oppressed his family's city, attempted to murder Po several times, murdered his own men, and tried to take over China. To top it all off in the movie itself, Po even gives Shen the second chance for redemption that many of Shen's fans think he deserves but Shen's only response is to make one last attempt to try to murder Po again. Driving the point home further, he tends to get the Bishōnen anthropomorphic treatment in fan art.
  • The Wolf Boss has also been subject to this. Despite his prominent role in the panda genocide, the plundering of innocent villages, and the direction of the goon squad that terrorizes Gongmen City, some people portray him as a cuddly puppy. He's a goofier character than Shen, but he's far from an Anti-Villain. Even him turning on Shen was a case of Even Evil Has Standards, not any remorse for what he's done under his command.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: The Soothsayer. Much like Master Oogway in the first film, she's utterly beloved for being an incredibly wise, funny, and yet deeply human mentor figure, and her one-on-one scenes with Shen and Po are some of the best in the entire movie.
• Evil Is Cool: Unsurprisingly, Lord Shen's many fans definitely think so.
• Foe Yay Shipping:
  • Boss Wolf mentioning how "cuddly" Po is on a few occasions.
  • In one scene when Boss Wolf and Po are in mid air, they promptly hug each other.
  • Oddly enough, there's a Shen/Viper pairing out there. While there's little "proof" in the film, fans have paired them up.
• Harsher in Hindsight: The end of the movie confirms that Po's father Li Shan and a handful of pandas survived the onslaught, providing hope that his mother did as well. Sadly, Li Shan confirms that she was killed in the attack.
• Heartwarming in Hindsight: Li Shan fighting off the Wolf Boss to protect his son and wife is even more heroically badass when the third movie reveals that he has no knowledge of kung fu whatsoever... and went up against Shen's forces armed with nothing more than a father's love...and a rake.
• Jerkass Woobie:
  • Lord Shen could be considered one if you pity him enough for his Freudian Excuse: although for the most part he is a genocidal monster, a large part of his motivation is that he felt unloved by his parents and deeply unhappy as a person. No matter what he does or how much power he possesses, he can never be happy—he's left stupefied when Po is able to move on from his trauma because he himself is utterly incapable of it.
  • The wolf boss was Shen's only friend when he was young and served Shen loyally for 30 years. Shen murdered him the instant he refused to fire on his own men.
• Like You Would Really Do It: You didn't really believe that Po was dead when Shen shot him with his cannon, did you? Because they wouldn't kill off the main character of the franchise. Likewise, he survives, thanks to a wok shielding him, which is shown less than three minutes later.
• Moral Event Horizon: Lord Shen starts the movie far on the other side of this trope. When he overhears a prophecy that "a warrior of black and white" will stop his plans to conquer China, he resorts to the genocide of an entire panda village in an attempt to avert the prophecy.
• One-Scene Wonder: Master Thundering Rhino. He makes a good first impression showing how little he is intimidated by Shen. Pity it doesn’t last long.
• The Problem with Licensed Games: The game for the original was well received, but the video game for this was sub-par at best. The PS3 version, however, stands out, resembling a meeting pitch prototype shown to the publisher to continue work, but was released as a finished product instead.
• Self-Fanservice: While some people already find Shen alluring, people who have drawn him as a human will often portray him as a Long-Haired Pretty Boy with pretty youthful features for a character that is meant to be around 50 years old.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: Addressed by the writers themselves with the Soothsayer being voiced by Michelle Yeoh, a skilled martial artist, while her character is one of the very few never performing any martial arts in the film. They considered it justified seeing as the Soothsayer is an old lady, but still found it an ironic casting.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: While learning about Shen's panda genocide, Po is mostly concerned about what happened to his biological parents, and never brings up the fact that his entire species may be extinct. The film's ending revelation that the pandas actually survived also prevented his thoughts on this from being explored in the future.
• What Do You Mean, It's for Kids?: This film has genocide, PTSD, and Parental Abandonment as main plot points. Some kids can probably relate to the latter hardship, the two former? Not so much.
• The Woobie: Po starts getting PTSD flashbacks when he sees Shen's crest, and his lack of knowledge about his past is a major plot point.

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