Everyone loves an underdog tale, and this is definitely a good example of one of those. Po, a panda who works for his dad in a noodle shop, dreams of being a well-known martial artist on the level with the Furious Five: Crane, Mantis, Monkey, Viper, and Tigress. He also accepts the reality of his life as he does not want to disappoint his father, a crane, by not taking on the family business.

Things change when he sneaks into a big celebration at the local temple. The goal of the celebration is to identify the Chosen One, who has been foretold of in prophesy. Through a really interesting accident, the ceremony identifies Po as the unlikely Chosen One. He is adopted into the temple to train with the Furious Five, his heroes. The only problem is that none of them, including his trainer, think he can live up to the prophecy.

To make matters a bit dangerous, one of Master Shifu's previous students, the snow leopard Tai Lung has broken free and is trying to take on the mantle of the Chosen One. He was Master Shifu's most cherished students and was expected to live up to the prophecy until things went terribly wrong. Tai Lung adopted the expectations of greatness, making him forget that a hero serves others not his own ego. It was only under the guard of a thousand soldiers that he remained imprisoned. Now that he is free, he wants to regain his greatness.

As the now leopard makes his way back to the temple, Po is actually learning that he is better than he expected. Often sheer luck (and a love of dumplings) shows that he is more agile and talented than anyone expected. He has a gift that just needs to be honed for him to be a great hero.

As you can expect, it is going to be up to Po to save the day when Tai Lung arrives. Ray and I really enjoyed this. There was the expected moral that can be found in a lot of cartoons, but it was still fun. The time just flew by.