First Teaser Trailer: Kung Fu Panda 3

Last week, DreamWorks Animation unveiled new stills and characters in the first look of the upcoming Kung Fu Panda 3. As the story hinted at the end of Kung Fu Panda 2, a whole new world inhabited by pandas was yet to be explored by our lovable lead, Po (voice of Jack Black). In the first teaser trailer released today, after a requisite fighting sequence showing us the returning characters Furious Five in action (plus Po and Master Shifu), we finally see the big moment when Po comes face to face with his long-lost father Li Shan (voice of Bryan Cranston) and it's everything we've come to love and expect from this winning series.

The reason why the Kung Fu Panda series still resonates amongst viewers is that despite everything he's achieved, Po remains the adorable goofball we first laid eyes on. He's a skilled martial arts warrior but he will stop along the way to eternal glory to finish that bowl of dumplings he's just seen. With what we've just seen from the teaser, good old dad seems to be exactly like his son Po. I think it's safe to say that we can count on hijinks a plenty in Kung Fu Panda 3 releasing January 29, 2015. The film is directed by Jennifer Yuh Nelson and Alessandro Carloni.

New Photos: DreamWorks' Kung Fu Panda 3

DreamWorks' Kung Fu Panda 3, landing an early release next year, showed off some photos from the upcoming film in USA Today. In the series, Po (voice of Jack Black) believes that he is the last of his kind and his father Mr. Ping (voice of James Hong) found him as a abandoned baby.  However, the previous film revealed that Lord Shen (voice of Gary Oldman) was trying to destroy the village that Po and his family lived at. Po finally learned that his parents sacrificed themselves to save him.

Po and his father Li. (Photo: DreamWorks Animation)

But that's not all folks! The last scene of Kung Fu Panda 2 showed Po's biological father (and a whole village FULL of pandas) sensing that his son was still alive. Kung Fu Panda 3 expands on that last scene as Po finally gets a reunion with his father Li (voice of Bryan Cranston) and gets to live, for a bit, with pandas who look just like him.

Meet Mei Mei! (Photo: DreamWorks Animation)

He even meets Mei Mei (voice of Rebel Wilson) who becomes quite interested in him. But Po remembers he still has obligations alongside the Furious Five: Tigress (voice of Angelina Jolie); Monkey (voice of Jackie Chan); Mantis (voice of Seth Rogen); Viper (voice of Lucy Liu) and Crane (voice of David Cross).  The gang, with help from Master Shifu (voice of Dustin Hoffman), have to fight the new big bad, a supernatural villain named Kai.

Frolicking baby pandas in the river. (Photo: DreamWorks Animation)

But before that, Kung Fu Panda 3, directed by Jennifer Yuh Nelson and Alessandro Carloni, promises a film filled with lots of panda babies. Nelson even went to the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding in Sichuan, China to observe pandas in their natural habitats and saw nurseries filled with adorable baby pandas. More film time devoted to baby pandas is a-okay by me. 

The film is scheduled to release on January 29, 2016. Let's hope the release date sticks this time.

Weekly News Update: First Look at Violet & Daisy, Anne Hathaway joins Interstellar and Ebert's last review

(Photo: Enterntainment Weekly)

• First Look from Entertainment Weekly on Gregory Fletcher's debut flick on teenage assassins, Violet & Daisy starring Alexis Bledel, Saoirse Ronan and James Gandolfini.  If the director's name name sounds familiar, it's because Fletcher won the adapted screenplay Oscar in 2010 for Precious.
• EW also has some great news stills from Star Trek Into Darkness that I quickly skimmed through and tried to forget as I want to experience it all on May 17th.  Take a look, the gang's all back! 
• If you want to know how production's going on the new X-Men: Days of Future Past, follow Bryan Singer on Twitter who seems to tweeting lots of new pictures and info regarding the film.  
• Post her Les Miserables success, Anne Hathaway is reportedly thisclose to joining Christopher Nolan's Interstellar. Nolan does have a habit of working with actors from his previous films so look for some familiar faces to pop up here soon.
• Bryan Cranston (Breaking Bad), Mads Mikkelsen (Hannibal) and Rebel Wilson (Pitch Perfect) are now part of the cast of Kung Fu Panda 3 which will also be directed by Jennifer Yuh Nelson.
• And finally, it is with a heavy heart that I link to Roger Ebert's last review aptly for a film called To The Wonder.  This review is Ebert at his best who asks all the right questions, he writes: Why must a film explain everything? Why must every motivation be spelled out? Aren't many films fundamentally the same film, with only the specifics changed? Aren't many of them telling the same story? Seeking perfection, we see what our dreams and hopes might look like. We realize they come as a gift through no power of our own, and if we lose them, isn't that almost worse than never having had them in the first place? This makes me want to experience Malick's To The Wonder even more.  His website just got updated to a new look this week and contains a wealth of information for any movie fan to explore.  Do check it out, you'll find yourself seeking out some of the great films he championed over the years.