29 - 'Failure...'

100 Theme Challenge #29 - "Secrets"

"Failure...? You think not being able to sell some chimes or keep some lousy job is failure? How about failure to come through on anything, failure to believe in yourself?? To believe you could actually be a real master?

What about the failure to protect the Valley?

...Failure to save your family from the arrows of tyrants...?

Failure to keep your promise to never let that happen again?!

Failure to find chi... Failure to teach chi, and the only student who finds it...uses it to bring back into the world everything YOU dedicated your life to protecting it from?!

Failure in teaching...

Failure in life..."

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Okay.....so I came across a video of a deleted scene from the first Kung Fu Panda in which, to be frank, Po is a serious jerk. He and Shifu really hate each other for a while in this version, Po doesn't respect him in the least and is always deriding kung fu (and Shifu constantly has to resist dealing out a deserved punch because it's not in a Master's ethics). Po is still chosen as the Dragon Warrior, however, and this is kinda the turning point of the movie where he and Shifu hit rock-bottom.

One night during late-night training, Po admits that he doesn't want to even bother learning kung fu because he feels he's failed at everything else in his life, and this will be no different. He also tells Shifu "you're good at this, so you can't understand how that feels". At one point, Shifu finally loses his temper and knocks the punching bag clean off the chain (hence why he's standing by a severed chain here), sending Po flying and afterwards almost spearing him to the wall. And then proceeds to give the monologue above.

I really found this scene interesting, especially since it includes Shifu just pouring himself out, and to Po none the less. I can understand why they took it out, I guess, and it further supports my theory that Dreamworks is waiting for the right moment to tell Shifu's story.

Really played with the lighting on this - how does it look?

And for those of you who want to see the scene that this pic was inspired from (it's in storyreel form), I'll be posting a blog on Kung Fu Panda Pals pretty soon all about it and some other deleted scenes. After I do some preparation for my new class starting tomorrow.

EDIT: Here's the link if anyone's interested. But be warned that there is some surprising language here you wouldn't expect. This scene was never released on DVD or anything, so the story artist/narrator doesn't censor himself very well at one point. [link]

Background stock found here ([link]) by ~stravaganzette
Chain brushes (c) *gigistar