Po (Kung Fu Panda)

"Skadoosh!"

- Po's famous catchprase

"Legend tells of a legendary warrior whose kung fu skills were the stuff of legend."

- Po's opening line in the first film

"I'm not a big fat panda, I'm THE big fat panda."

- Po to Tai Lung

"Am I the son of a Panda? The son of a Goose? A student? A teacher? Turns out I'm all of them. I am the Dragon Warrior!"

- Po confronting Kai in the Spirit Realm

Master Po Ping (born Lotus Shan) is the ultimate main protagonist of the Kung Fu Panda franchise. He is one of Master Shifu's students, Mr. Ping's adoptive son, and Li Shan and his unnamed wife's biological son. He is also the "Dragon Warrior", though he refused to believe it first.

He was voiced by Jack Black who played Dewey Finn from School Of Rock, R.L. Stine from the Goosebumps movie, Ignacio/Nacho from Nacho Libre, and lastly voiced Lenny from Shark Tale and Zeke from Ice Age.

Personality
Po initially comes off as kind-hearted and good-natured, if not a little immature and stubborn. He was shown to be obsessed with Kung Fu and the Furious Five as he collected action figures of them all and dreams of being a member. He also shows an extensive knowledge of history, as when Po was thrown into the Jade Palace he was aware of the Kung Fu artifacts and their history, he can also come off as being gullible as when he thought the Vase of 1,000 Souls was talking to him when it was actually Shifu and while being trained by the latter he was completely unaware that he was trying to get rid of him.

He is shown to have an immense appetite and is overweight, barely walking up two steps will completely drain him of energy. Po is also very clumsy and unintentionally destructive, he destroyed a priceless, century-old artifact and then kicked a hole in the wall. He gets ostracized, belittled and marginalized by the Five and bewails in brood in whether to quit or resume. However, Oogway approaches him and delivers him solace and tells him to forget what's been, stay excited for whats to come and focus on the time that is given to him. Po prevails and with his comfort and continues his training with Shifu. Unfortunately, he exacerbates for himself as he is belittled and being resentful by the Five (excluding Tigress) until dusk.

After the training, however in the evening Po is shown to be cowardly and self-loathing. When Oogway had just died, the task fell on the Dragon Warrior to defeat Tai Lung he instantly fled from the Jade Palace only to be stopped. During his confrontation with Shifu Po revealed that the reason he endured the Five and his cruel way of training him was because it could never have hurt more than just being himself.

Even before becoming a seasoned Kung Fu master, Po was very determined an example of this would be when he was locked out of the tournament that would decide the Dragon Warrior he desperately tried to get in despite his ideas causing him constant pain. After being properly trained by Shifu, Po showed signs of bravery and was finally able to believe in himself and was able to confront Tai Lung then later defeat him.

Given Kung Fu Panda 2 Po's personality took a change, he has taken up more responsibility as he and the Furious Five devote their energy into protecting the Valley of Peace. However he still had puerile qualities as when he tried to fit 40 dumplings in his mouth. After confronting a pack of wolves Po begins to have an identity crisis, he has proven to be reckless as when he launched a one-man assault on Shen's firework factory to discover the truth about himself which caused him to nearly get killed.

After finally coming to terms with his past and accepting who he was, Po managed to find inner peace and was able to destroy Shen's entire fleet. He showed a great deal of mercy and tried to reason with Shen despite him being the one to cause him so much pain.

Powers & Skills

 * Martial Artist: Thanks to his tough training under Shifu's teachings, Po displays mastery over kung fu & is very adaptive with his combat skills, creating new techniques to defeat new foes. He is also proficient with various weaponry & even tools. Po in particular, is so talented in kung that it's shown to be able to learn legendary and complicated kung fu techniques in a short period of time, whereas most masters and practitioners of kung fu had to train years to learn them.
 * Intelligence: By the end of Kung Fu Panda 3, he became wise enough to understand Oogway's sayings & words of wisdom, effectively becoming a Kung Fu teacher and chi master. Po is also very smart when it comes to combat and kung fu, always coming with an new strategy or way to defeat his foes.
 * Panda Physiology: His natural physiology is so durable that he is immune to nerve attacks & most forms of physical harm. He took a hit from Shen's explosive cannon, with only moderate injuries & fell into a short coma. He can even use his weight to intimidate his foes, via sitting on them
 * Chi-Based Powers: He also has mastery over chi, using it to enhance his physical attributes, levitate or instantly heal others & himself as well. His chi mastery was so strong that he was capable of overpowering Kai, a demonic chi-powered spirit warrior.
 * Enhanced Strength: Due to his weight and size along with his kung fu training, Po possess an incredible physical strength that makes him an dangerous opponent in hand-to-hand combat, he is able to send flying and lift enemies far more weight and taller than him. However, Po's strength seems to not match with other kung fu masters (like Tigress).
 * Enhanced Speed: Despite his size and weight, Po is amazingly fast (though not the fastest character in kung fu panda), in combat, Po is able to perform kung fu moves and techniques with amazing speed and coordination and can dodge or counter attacks even from an entire army of enemies attacking him at the same time.
 * Enhanced Agility: Po is incredibly agile and fast as an kung fu master, he is shown to perform incredible maneuvers and jump at high heights with no issue. Po is able to keep with Shifu, the five furious and others kung fu masters in terms of agility and athleticism.
 * High Durability/Pain Tolerance: Through the films and TV series, Po is able to survive a lot of punishment, both physical and mental, even before receiving formal training in kung fu he was able to restore himself from many injuries and wounds. While incredible durable, Po's still able to feel pain, but is able to ignore it and keep fighting for long periods of time with no issue.
 * Adaptive Combatant: Po is an amazingly clever genius in combat, whenever he faces an new opponent he is always able to adapt to his environment and learn/find new ways to defeat his enemies, even learning new and difficult kung fu techniques in a short amount of time. Po is also not above using the environment, his size, weapons or improvising in order to win a fight if he needs it.

Trivia

 * Po is similar to Alex from one of another Dreamworks franchise, Madagascar.
 * Both are the protagonists for all films.
 * In the second film, we see they were lost from their real family when they were cubs with the story shown and also the main antagonist of the film is mostly the main cause for it like Makunga in Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa and Shen in Kung Fu Panda 2.
 * Po is also similar to Goku from Dragon Ball franchise. Both of them are very friendly, righteous and skillful martial artist who strives to become the best martial artist ever.
 * Throughout the franchise, some fans see that Po has romantic feelings for Tigress.
 * Po made an apperance on the game show Jeopardy!

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Po (Kung Fu Panda)