The filmmakers took pains to create a believable world in Kung Fu Panda, adhering as much as possible to a set of rules that governed what could and could not happen.

"Because it wasn't a photorealistic movie you don't expect the same [reality] you do from live-action. We had to sell what it meant to be a panda in this world. You see his weight tumble around in action sequences -- we had to make it happen in a believable way so we don't lose the audience. We were checking ourselves throughout the process: does this fit into the rules we set up for this world? The directors never stopped analyzing what was happening onscreen: if we're breaking the rules of this world, are we doing it for a good reason? The tricky part is always 'is this cool and something that doesn't break the believability of the film?'"

In order to ground the film's battles in real-life kung fu, the filmmakers watched a demonstration from fight arranger and stuntman Eric Chen, then turned to one of their own: Rodolphe Guenoden, a Panda supervising animator who also happened to be trained in tae kwon do.

"Rodolphe has a great appreciation for the other martial arts as well," Zibach enthuses. "He has the ability to choreograph fights, that's why they feel so authentic. He worked as a storyboard artist and did what we call 'pose-to-pose:' planned drawings for what the action could look like. He would almost animate on a very limited number of frames, every 20th or so to show the animators what these poses could be. It's because of that we have such great action. There was so much integrity put into the fight choreography because they weren't just for show -- there was a dramatic context to what the fights were about -- big story things were going on."

In an age when CGI rules the feature animation roost, Kung Fu Panda throws the audience a curve ball by beginning with a stylish 2D animated sequence, a visual tour de force from the James Baxter studio depicting Po's dreams of kung fu glory. (Interestingly enough, Blue Sky's Horton Hears a Who allows its star a similar moment of 2D fantasy.) "We talked a lot about anime for that scene," says Zibach, "but we didn't want to get too Japanese, we wanted to do our own style. We thought we came up with a nice blend that has the energy of anime but doesn't look like anime. Coming from traditional animation, I just loved doing that sequence.

"I'm worried that 2D animation is now considered the niche," he continues, "maybe because it's too dependent on having a traditional look. What I liked about our dream sequence was that it really had a graphic, impactful style. I don't know if we could support that for an hour and 20 minutes, but it was great to see it on the big screen."

The film throws the audience a curve ball by beginning with a stylish 2D animated sequence, a visual tour de force depicting Po's dreams of kung fu glory.

Perhaps the biggest difference between Kung Fu Panda and previous DreamWorks efforts is Panda's near-total absence of contemporary pop-culture references. Po may have his room decorated with posters of his heroes ("Wow, you're much bigger than your action figures" he says upon meeting them, "except for you, Mantis, you're about the same size"), but there's not a single ancient Chinese Starbucks logo or panel of Martial Arts Idol judges anywhere in sight.

Both Manninen and Zibach are well aware of the change in tone. "We didn't think of the film as a parody," says Manninen. "It was a comedy set in an ancient world. The comedic part wasn't to make that world non-believable or funny, but putting a modern Jack Black character within it: an awkward fanboy who doesn't fit in. That was the contrast we wanted to have stand out. If we'd made other things funny, his character and arc wouldn't have played as well. That was the esthetic we wanted to serve."

"We make a certain kind of film [here at DreamWorks] most of the time," Zibach admits. "Shrek heavily depends on spoofing the fairy tale genre, there's so much there to have fun with. John [Stevenson] and Mark [Osborne] love kung fu films, so we didn't want to make fun of the genre. There are a few moments where there's this nice bridge between the modern world and the more ancient one, but we didn't have to go all the way to references from today to get there."

Joe Strike is a regular contributor to AWN. His animation articles also appear in the NY Daily News and the New York Press.