He's fat, he's lazy, he's an underachieving slob. But Po the Panda could just be the answer to the prayers of a martial-arts master in "Kung Fu Panda," this summer's animation blockbuster from Dreamworks, opening in Japan to precede the Beijing Olympics.
My guess is that it's a ploy to have us all get in touch with our inner Asians; what with this movie and the excitement of the Games, in a week or two we'll be waving chopsticks in the air in one big surge of solidarity. Forget the panda politics. Forget, in fact, any panda that can't display a few kung-fu maneuvers after slurping bowl after bowl of noodles and unleashing a truly majestic belch.
Apparently, many under-15 theater-goers here will be convinced that "Kung Fu Panda" is a Japanese movie (enhanced by the fact that a famed boy's pop group, Heisei Jump, is singing the Japan version theme song) — unaware that what they'll be flocking to see is dubbed, and there's an original, English one in which stellar Hollywood names like Dustin Hoffman and Angelina Jolie do voice-overs.