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Jonathan Aibel. Cyrus Voris. Ethan Reiff. When the Valley of Peace is threatened, lazy Po the panda discovers his destiny as the "chosen one" and trains to become a kung fu hero, but transforming the unsleek slacker into a brave warrior won't be easy. It's up to Master Shifu and the Furious Five -- Tigress, Crane, Mantis, Viper and Monkey -- to ...
Jun 6, 2008 · Kung Fu Panda: Directed by Mark Osborne, John Stevenson. With Jack Black, Dustin Hoffman, Angelina Jolie, Ian McShane. To everyone's surprise, including his own, Po, an overweight, clumsy panda, is chosen as protector of the Valley of Peace.
- (530K)
- Animation, Action, Adventure
- Mark Osborne, John Stevenson
- 2008-06-06
- Overview
- Biography
- Personality
- Fighting style
- Relationships
- Clothing
- Trivia
Master Shifu is one of the main supporting characters of the Kung Fu Panda franchise. He is the current senior master of the Jade Palace and trainer of many kung fu warriors, including Tai Lung, the Furious Five, and the Dragon Warrior Po.
A former student of Master Oogway, Shifu became a highly skilled master of kung fu who hoped that his first student, Tai Lung, would become the legendary Dragon Warrior. Some time after Tai Lung's betrayal, however, Shifu went on to train Tigress, Mantis, Monkey, Viper, and Crane, the Furious Five. Though these students became well-known for their heroics, none of them were selected to be the Dragon Warrior, and Shifu was outraged when Po was chosen instead. Witnessing the panda's potential and determination however, Shifu eventually came to believe in him, successfully teaching Po the skills needed for him to ultimately save the Valley of Peace. He now acts as a mentor to Po.
Early years
It is known that Shifu departed his family to dedicate himself entirely to the duties of kung fu. However, in Kung Fu Panda: Legends of Awesomeness, Shifu explained that he and his father had traveled to other villages to sell fake amulets ever since he was a young boy. One day, his father dropped him off at the Jade Palace, promising to return in five minutes. Shifu waited for him until nightfall, when eventually Master Oogway found him and took him in, making him a student at the Jade Palace.
Training
Shifu underwent kung fu training under Oogway's instruction as a member of the Former Furious Five—alongside Fenghuang the owl, Rooster, Elephant, and Snow Leopard. It is presumed that the Five eventually disbanded and went their separate ways some time after Fenghuang turned to evil and fled after failing to defeat Oogway. After becoming a master, Shifu became overwhelmed by the mass of new responsibilities that was placed upon him. As a result, Shifu became internally unbalanced (or, as Shifu himself stated, "trapped in transition"), and at one point, this resulted in him getting beaten up by a dummy on a rope. The stress soon became too much for Shifu and he removed his master's robe, preparing to quit kung fu and return to his old life. However, Oogway stopped him and kindly proceeded to teach him "hing kung", a discipline aimed at balance. Shifu succeeded in this training and learned an important lesson: true balance is attained not by allowing the weight of the world to control you, but by becoming weightless and taking control of the world. Shifu would then go on to teach this discipline to his future student Po.
Arrival of Tai Lung
It was presumably some time after becoming a master that Shifu had heard the cries of an infant outside the palace gates, where he discovered an abandoned snow leopard cub in swaddling cloth. He adopted the cub and granted him the name Tai Lung, loving him as if he were his own son and fulfilling the role of both father and teacher. He raised Tai Lung and trained him kung fu. Seeing his natural and perfect skills in kung fu, Shifu believed Tai Lung to be the prophesied Dragon Warrior, constantly praising the young leopard's continuous efforts and apparent skill, thus unknowingly boosting Tai Lung's growing pride. When the time came many years later, Shifu presented his prize pupil to Oogway for judgment. The old master, seeing darkness in Tai Lung, disappointed them both when he said that Tai Lung could never be the Dragon Warrior. Enraged and feeling betrayed by Shifu's reluctance to speak up in his defense, Tai Lung went on a furious rampage across the Valley of Peace, ravaging the Valley and its citizens before rushing back to the Jade Palace to take the Dragon Scroll by force. Shifu tried to stop Tai Lung and defeat him, but at a crucial moment, he hesitated, unwilling to deliver a critical strike against the son he raised and loved. Paying for his hesitation, Tai Lung knocked Shifu aside with a crushing blow to the hip, and leaped up towards the Dragon Scroll, only to be disabled by Oogway's paralyzing strikes, which immobilized him. Suffering a shattered right hip and a broken heart, Shifu bowed to the wishes of Oogway and oversaw the construction of the Chorh-Gom Prison in the frigid outskirts of Mongolia, the sole purpose of the prison to hold one prisoner, Tai Lung, where Tai Lung had spent twenty years of his life in payment for his crimes against the Valley of Peace. Bitter of heart, Shifu left Tai Lung under the watchful eye of Commander Vachir and the Anvil of Heaven, and would not to see Tai Lung again until a full two decades later.
Master Shifu was seen as a loving father and devoted teacher to a young Tai Lung when the cub first showed up. But after Tai Lung's betrayal, he became distant, a firm and uncompromising taskmaster to his students. It wasn't until he expected to depart from his students one last time that he confessed he was proud of them all, including Tigress, who especially sought to earn his approval. Since Po's heroism in becoming the Dragon Warrior, Shifu has let go of his bitterness and attained inner peace.
He also appears to have a bit of a devious side, and before befriending Po, was shown to have a cruel sense of humor. This was shown from the moment Shifu met Po, as he seemed to take delight in trying to drive the amateurish panda away, slowly turning up the heat with every challenge he gave Po and chuckling to himself at his incompetence.
Shifu also exhibits sarcasm. This is seen when he reprimanded the Furious Five to be "doing well if they were trying to disappoint him" when they failed to defeat him in a training session earlier in the first film. He also regarded the existence of a "Level Zero" when Po failed at his first day of training.
He was also very objective in terms of loyalty to his master, following Oogway's every word closely. He exhibited this when he did nothing regarding his master's rejection of his beloved student Tai Lung as the Dragon Warrior, and also when he was forced to fight (albeit halfheartedly) Tai Lung when he tried to steal the Dragon Scroll for himself. Despite his obedience, however, he does sometimes question his master's actions and wisdom, such as when he try to deny Oogway's claim that Po was truly capaple of being the true Dragon Warrior. This strong sense of loyalty and objectivity eventually proved to be one of his strongest characteristics, as seen when he decided to believe and train Po to become the Dragon Warrior due to Oogway's final directions before passing on.
Meditative, perceptive, and creative, Shifu approached kung fu and teaching with dynamism. These traits effectively enabled him to see the key to training Po, as seen when instead of reprimanding the latter regarding his "food outbursts", he simply used this knowledge to develop Po's instinctive "food skills" into tremendous kung fu strength, thus paving the way for Po to defeat Tai Lung and ultimately lending a hand in bringing peace to himself.
Despite his former hardened heart, Shifu does have a sense of humor. In the credits of the first film, he is seen laughing at the way Tigress was acting, due to seeing that she attempted to try Po's cooking and had a noodle hanging on her lip. He was even able to chuckle at the name Taotie gave to Crane when he was brainwashed, which was "El Storko".
Small, fast and cunning, Master Shifu is an extremely talented warrior. As the master of the Jade Palace, Shifu's abilities could possibly rival those of his own master Oogway, who was considered by many to be the greatest master in kung fu history. Although Tai Lung defeated him a second time during their rematch, Shifu was able to hold him off long enough for Po to arrive and defeat him.
Possessing the knowledge of many kung fu styles, and being able to use paralyzing nerve strikes that block the chi in an opponent's body and disable them, Shifu is a force to be reckoned with. Shifu is also known for his amazing sense of hearing, possibly due to his large ears. In the first film, he was able to hear Po ransacking in the barracks kitchen all the way from Peach Tree Hill.
Oogway
Oogway took Shifu in and raised him from the age of twelve when Shifu's father, Shirong, left him on the steps of the Jade Palace after falsely promising to come back in five minutes. Shifu was a very loyal student to Oogway, whom he greatly respected as both a mentor and a friend. In general, Shifu was dedicated to his master and rarely argued with his wisdom, no matter how eccentric it might have seemed to him. However, they disagreed on who the Dragon Warrior should be. On the day of the tournament when the Dragon Warrior was to be chosen from among the Furious Five in the first movie, Oogway told Shifu that the chosen one would not only bring peace to the Valley, but to Shifu as well. When the time came for the choice to be made, Shifu thought that Oogway was going to choose Tigress until Po fell in front of her. Oogway took this as a sign from the universe and named Po the Dragon Warrior. Shocked, Shifu argued that Po's arrival was all an accident, but Oogway replied, "There are no accidents." Unable to go against Oogway's wishes directly, Shifu tried scaring Po off in the hope that Oogway would choose one of his students instead. But Po didn't leave, and Oogway still didn't change his mind. Things went from bad to worse when Shifu learned that Tai Lung was free and coming for revenge. Oogway, however, encouraged Shifu that Po could defeat Tai Lung if he would believe in him. Shifu promised that he would try, and sensing his time had come, Oogway handed Shifu his staff before he ascended into the Heavens. Shifu kept the staff, as well as his promise. He trained Po and soon came to believe he really was the Dragon Warrior. And after Po defeated Tai Lung, Shifu saw that Oogway's prophecy about him had come true.
Po
Shifu had been told by Oogway that whoever he chose to be the Dragon Warrior would bring peace to the Valley, and to Shifu himself. When the tortoise declared the Dragon Warrior to be Po, Shifu was shocked and appalled, and even objected to his master's decision, believing the whole ordeal to be an accident. After meeting the clumsy panda face-to-face, Shifu wasted no time in trying to intimidate him, insulting his portly body weight and threatening him with potential use of the Wuxi Finger Hold when he talked back. After making it clear to the distressed panda that he would regret ever being chosen, Shifu proceeded to do everything in his power to get rid of him, setting him up to fail in the Training Hall and several brutal sparring matches with the Furious Five and himself, snickering and offering no help as the panda stumbled and got hurt in each obstacle. However, Shifu only became more infuriated when his attempts failed as Po, being such a big fan of kung fu, showed only excitement during his tortuous training, even after Shifu literally kicked him out of the Jade Palace. After hearing that Tai Lung had escaped prison and was returning, Shifu sought help from Oogway, still convinced that Po wasn't the Dragon Warrior and couldn't possibly stop Tai Lung. Before passing away, Oogway assured him that the panda could indeed stop Tai Lung, if Shifu would only guide and believe in him. After sharing the news with his students (Shifu unamused as Po had been mimicking him at the time), Po was alarmed and fled after hearing that since Oogway had died, he was the only one who could stop Tai Lung. Shifu stopped him outside the palace stairs, and the two argued, with Po asking the master why he'd been trying to get rid of him, and that neither of them thought he was the Dragon Warrior. Shifu asked him why he hadn't quit in spite of everything, and was taken aback when Po admitted that being beat and humiliated was still better than living every day being himself, and hoped that by staying, the kung fu master could change him into something better, believing he was the only one who could do so. When Po demanded just how Shifu could actually help him to win against Tai Lung, Shifu was at a loss and quietly retreated without an answer. The next morning, Shifu discovered the panda had raided the barracks' kitchen, eating everything he could find in his distraught state. Shifu was astounded to see that Po displayed an unintentional talent in kung fu while trying to rummage the place for more food, even making a perfect split while doing so. Shifu understood that the best way to teach him was to use food as motivation, and with that, he took the panda to the Wu Dan Mountains. He proclaimed that he would be Po's master and would teach him kung fu, much to the elation of the panda. During an intense period of training, the two formed a bond of friendship and trust, and Shifu saw Po's mastery and humility in a final test of "keep away" using a dumpling as the prize. Though Po won, he gave back the dumpling, declaring with confidence that he wasn't hungry, and ended bowing respectfully to his master, with Shifu bowing to him in return. By the time they returned to the Jade Palace, Shifu believed that Po was ready to receive the Dragon Scroll, and used his name instead of calling him "panda" when addressing him. But when the scroll turned out to be blank, both Shifu and Po were confused, and Shifu did not see how Po could defeat the snow leopard on his own. With Tai Lung approaching, he ordered the Five to evacuate the Valley, while he would fight Tai Lung himself. Po was reluctant to let Shifu fight alone, afraid he would be killed, but he obeyed and left with the Five. Once he reunited with his father and realized the true secret of the Dragon Scroll, Po returned to the palace just in time to save an injured Shifu from Tai Lung's attack. After Po defeated Tai Lung, he again returned to the palace and found Shifu, who weakly thanked him for saving the Valley and bringing him peace, seeing that Oogway had indeed been right, and that Po was the Dragon Warrior foretold of in legend. After the master trailed off and closed his eyes, the panda pleaded with him not to die, only for Shifu to yell back that he wasn't dying, he was only at peace, and master and student shared a long meditative moment side by side, until Po interrupted, asking if Shifu wanted to get something to eat, which the red panda agreed to after a sigh. Po and Shifu then shared a meal of dumplings at the Peach Tree of Heavenly Wisdom, together as two friends. Shifu stated when Po was to go a camping trip with his adoptive father, he viewed Po, in a way, as the "son he never had". Although Shifu has accepted Po, he continues to show some impatience with the panda, and later stated that the day Po was chosen as Dragon Warrior was the worst day of his life, though also noted that Po had not been the real cause of his turmoil, but rather it was his own expectations and presumptions. He also appeared to be slightly jealous that Po had mastered inner peace at such a young age, though he was deeply impressed at Po's incredibly swift mastery and how he used it to defeat Lord Shen. This jealousy carried on into the third film, where he was jealous of Po's mastery of chi, despite the fact that Shifu had attempted to master chi years before Po and had only managed to make a flower blossom, but he humbly asked Po to teach him, once again showing reverence at Po's abilities and switching their position of master and student. The two now continue to sustain a good friendship, with only the occasional quarrel, and Po has also come to consider Shifu as being part of his family.
Tai Lung
Shifu's first student—both his greatest success and worst mistake—was Tai Lung. Shifu found him as a cub, raised him as his son, and trained him in kung fu. During all this time, Shifu expressed nothing but love and pride in his student, raising and training him until he saw that Tai Lung's natural and formidable kung fu skills would make him the prophesied Dragon Warrior, not realizing that he was creating a monster until it was too late. When Tai Lung was denied by Oogway the title of Dragon Warrior and the Dragon Scroll, Shifu had to stop him from taking the scroll by force, but could not bring himself to harm him. Tai Lung, however, did not hesitate to shatter Shifu's hip. He was halted by Oogway's nerve strike attack, and Shifu was forced to put Tai Lung in prison for the rest of his life. For the next twenty years, Shifu was tormented by the memory of Tai Lung and tried not to repeat the same mistakes with his other students, especially Tigress. Then one day, Oogway told Shifu that he had seen a vision foretelling Tai Lung's return. Shifu took steps to prevent this, but it was all in vain as Tai Lung broke free of his prison and set out once more to take the Dragon Scroll. This time, Shifu did not hesitate to face Tai Lung in combat, but he was no match for his opponent's rage. Even when Shifu broke down, admitted his mistakes and apologized for them, Tai Lung still demanded the scroll and would've killed him for it if Po hadn't arrived in time. In the end, Shifu was forced to accept the cub he loved as his son was gone, and that all that was left was a selfish monster.
Shifu is most often seen wearing a reddish-burgundy robe with a brown-colored sash. The robe has golden wave designs on the silver cuffs, as well as oval patterns on the back of the sleeves. He also wears black pants (white in the TV series), closed-toed sandals, traditional Shaolin leg wraps around his ankles and lower legs, and a ring-like item that holds together his small goatee.
In Kung Fu Panda Holiday, Shifu wears a silver shawl with faint snowflake designs laced into it. This garment goes over his regular clothing and is kept closed by a golden clasp. Shifu also wears a hat similar to the others at the palace feast.
In Kung Fu Panda 2, Shifu has ascended to Oogway's old position as Grand Master and spiritual adviser of the Jade Palace, he is seen wearing a jade green jiāshā kept closed by a golden clasp with an insignia on the back, much like his silvery winter shawl, and similar to one that Oogway wore before his passing. The sleeves of his standard burgundy robe appear to have been re-sewn with the same jade material in place of the silver. His belt also has been replaced with jade material and golden lining. The addition of this green wrap adds the symbolism of wisdom and peace to Shifu's aforementioned color scheme.
Shifu is seen with the same, green-colored attire in Kung Fu Panda 3 and Kung Fu Panda 4.
General
•Shifu's name is the English approximation of the Chinese word for "master/teacher" (traditional Chinese: 師傅?; simplified Chinese: 师傅; pinyin: shīfù). It also translates into "master-father" (師父?). •The simplistic design of Shifu's robe was made to resemble dedication to a simple lifestyle. •The colors Shifu wears (white, orange, and brown) are symbolic honor, energy, and dedication—a mirror of Shifu's traits. •According to the directors' commentary, there was a possible backstory that Shifu might have hoped to become the Dragon Warrior himself in his youth, but when he failed his own expectations, he vowed he would raise and train the Dragon Warrior instead. •Shifu looks unlike most red pandas. He is mostly white with light red/orange markings, whereas red pandas are typically mostly colored a dark red or orange, with a few white markings and lighter rings on the tail. His paws are also a dark brown whereas they tend to be almost black on red pandas. •It is unknown where Shifu sleeps.
In development
•Early in story development, Shifu was going to be Po's adoptive father instead of Mr. Ping. This was the reason for making him a red panda. •According to a video interview, Shifu had a longer nose in early character development. Upon seeing the design, Shifu's voice actor Dustin Hoffman determined that he didn't like it, and Shifu was redesigned with his final, smaller nose.[source?] •Shifu was originally designed to be much older, possessing a more exaggerated hump, a wrinkled face, and jagged teeth. His age was ultimately reduced a bit to allow the character more activity. •At one point in the production of Kung Fu Panda 2, character designer Nicolas Marlet also designed red foxes to serve as part of the population of China. They were eventually taken out because of their "slight resemblance to Master Shifu." These designs were later used to create Junjie from Kung Fu Panda: Legends of Awesomeness.
In popular culture
•Spoof characters of Shifu and Po have appeared in the MAD episodes "Are You Karate Kidding Me?" and "PO-blivion". •Shifu appears as a K.O. effect in the 2D platform fighter game Brawlhalla.
- 2 min
Voiced most times by Dustin Hoffman. Images of the Shifu voice actors from the Kung Fu Panda franchise.
Mar 19, 2024 · Dustin Hoffman As Shifu. Other Notable Movies: Rain Man, Kramer vs. Kramer, The Graduate, Tootsie. Kung Fu Panda boasts a heavy-duty lineup of voice performers, so how do you know them? We have all the information you need with our cast guide.
Dustin Hoffman as Master Shifu, an elderly and strict red panda and kung fu master to the Furious Five, and Po and Tai Lung's old master/adopted father. The Furious Five: Angelina Jolie as Master Tigress, a no-nonsense and tough-as-nails tiger and leader of the Furious Five.
