Introduction: The Beginning of the Journey

In the movie Kung Fu Panda 2, Po's journey is to find the truth behind his mother's disappearance while also growing into a better fighter and person. The movie starts with Po, fighting off against some wold bandits and thinking. Near the beginning of the film, Po gets a flashback of mother leaving him behind. This is triggered by seeing a very specific symbol on a wolf’s arm. Feeling curious as to what they could have meant, Po goes to ask his adoptive dad. Po confronts his adoptive father, Mr. Ping, about this. Mr Ping tells Po the truth, about how he was found in a radish box outside of his shop. Mr Ping cleaned and fed Po, which showed a good, potential father figure. However, Po is initially dissatisfied and wanting more answers after the story told. These few scenes show the discomfort at his origins and despite the kindness that his adoptive father gave him, he wanted to know the truth of his parents. It brings up the comparison of children not satisfied with the lack of parents, especially a mother figure.

Body: The Shocking Truth

When on a boat sailing to the providence of Lord Shen, Po gets a nightmare flashback. He gets a silly imagination of his parents replaced him with a Kung Fu radish?? This leaves Po left feeling conflicted, demoralized, and reminded of the symbol once more. He is unable to vent out his frustration, as well as practice an inner peace technique used by his master. When meeting Lord Shen at the Tower of the Sacred Flame, Po realizes that Shen personally carried out an attack to destroy the entire panda species, in fear of a prophecy that a panda would defeat his plans of conquering China. While attacking Shen, Po gets distracted by Shen opening his plume, seeing the symbol, and getting another flashback which lets Lord Shen get away to prepare ships with cannons attached to them.

Po ruins his teammates plans of destroying Shen’s cannon factory, after the desire to seek the truth broke him. His thirst for the truth puts his life and his teammate’s lives at risk in order to find the truth. Lord Shen taunts Po, questioning why he wants to know. He questions whether the truth will heal him, or will only break him. I turns out that it was the latter, as Po is hit with a cannon blast and knocked into the ocean, with heavy injuries. The truth being found out was to preserve the goodness of Po's mother. The scene shows how his mother selflessly sacrificed herself so that her son can live, and opened up the possibility for a father figure/potential mother figure to step up and adopt Po.

The Turning Point: Finding Resolve in Oneself

Po wakes up to Soothsayer ( A fortune telling Ram) healing him of his injuries. After Soothsayer saves Po by healing him at the carnage remains of his village, Po remembers the tragedy that unfolded at the location. Shen attacked the village, and Po’s father protected his family while they escaped, his mother hid Po so she could be a distraction to die to the wolves. After a short period of grieving, Po reaches inner peace by accepting the tragedy, instead of fighting/suppressing it. Po acknowledges that his mother sacrificed herself so Po can live. Soothsayer tells Po that a tragic beginning doesn’t determine a person, rather than what they do with their life (who you choose to be).

Po realizes scars heal, Lord Shen doesn’t. Po learns to let go of the past and to accept the present/future. Since Shen doesn’t it leads to his downfall, where his anger gets the best of him and leads to his death. In the end, Po learns to accept and be happy with the family he has now, and to learn to let go of the grief he carried in the past.

Final Thoughts and the Takeaway Message

This movie portrays a struggle that one who has lost a mother might go through. Self doubt, and grief can be growing inside such a person as they cling to such troubled past. In fact as stated by Leighann morris’ article, “It's also plausible that fairy tales deliberately featured protagonists whose parents were dead, absent or inattentive in order to teach their listeners a moral lesson that helps guide them into adulthood.”(Morris). The message is not to forget about the deaths of your parents, but rather to overcome and seek a happier future for yourself. This applies especially to those who have foster/adopted parents, as you should find happiness towards these people. The journey that Po takes is showing how one can cope with, and develop into a better person with a haunting past as losing a parent.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     

Morris, Leighann. “Why Are so Many Disney Parents Missing or Dead?” Hopes&Fears, 20 Nov. 

2015, http://www.hopesandfears.com/ hopes/culture/film/216573-disney -single- parents -dead-mothers.