Jack Black knows kung fu!

source: mb.com.ph

In the book “Kung Fu (I): An Elementary Chinese Text” (Jamieson, Lao, Zhao/Chinese University Press), it is said that kung fu is now also used in context unrelated to martial arts. In fact, colloquially, it is said to also refer to any individual accomplishment or skill cultivated through long and hard work. If this is truly the case, then Jack Black is practically an expert at kung fu.

From a career start on television, appearing in shows like “Northern Exposure” and even “The X-Files,” he slowly made his way around Hollywood with another series of small roles in such movies as Sylvester Stallone’s “Demolition Man” and Tim Robbins’ “Dead Man Walking.”

By 2000, he would play a wild record store employee alongside John Cusack in “High Fidelity” in what many consider to be his breakout role. Since then, the “Jack Black comedy” has become known to moviegoers around the world. For kids, though, Black is the voice behind Po, the once lumbering, lazy eating machine of a panda who later transforms into a Kung fu fighter.

Black’s own amazing journey of late is also tied in with the journey of Po, the panda. Black recalls, “When I finally saw the whole thing put together (“Kung Fu Panda”) it was one of the proudest moments of my career. It takes many years to make one of these movies—a lot longer than a regular live-action film.”

More than voice acting, though, Black reveals his work on the “Kung Fu Panda” franchise allowed him to gain a much deeper appreciation of martial arts. “Yes, I did some training in kung fu, for both films,” he says, just as “Kung Fu Panda 2” nears its theatrical release date.

“It wasn’t just for research purposes,” Black insists, if a little seriously. “It was also to kind of get in shape. What really drew me is that there’s a combination of exercise and self-defense, along with a third, sort of unseen, component: a spiritual one. When you’re really practicing kung fu, living it and feeling it, there’s a meditative quality that seeps in. It feels almost religious. It’s an art form, really. Oh, well, duh, it’s called martial arts.”

Black welcomes the opportunity to revisit his character to give viewers a chance to delve deeper into Po’s background. “Now, Po is having flashbacks of his childhood, before he lived with his father, who’s a goose. So he comes to realize that he’s actually adopted, and he doesn’t know where his birth parents are or what happened to the other pandas. Why did they give him up?

“So in addition to this being a hero’s journey to save the day, it’s also a journey of self-discovery,” Black relates. And as he begins to look into his real identity, “it just so happens that these questions arise at the same time that a new villain, Lord Shen, the peacock, arrives on the scene. Mysterious, no?”

Appearing in the first “Kung Fu Panda” has also given Black a lot of interesting experiences. “I got to go to the Atlanta Zoo, and see the latest panda born in captivity… and they named him Po,” Black shares recently. “Wow. I’d say that’s a pretty big deal. He’s not ready for a throw-down yet, but give him time. He’s gonna be one heck of a panda, I just know it.”

And another offshoot of working on the “Kung Fu Panda” movies is a forged friendship with his co-star Angelina Jolie, who plays Tigress.

Jolie—who loved making the “Panda” movies because, “You get to come to work in your pajamas,” she jokes—described the films as “fun and cool and hip” bit with “a sense history and culture” and “how to behave, how to treat your friends.” But she adds, “But mostly, it has Jack Black, which I feel is the main reason people went to see it—it would be my reason! He’s so funny, and the dynamic between him and the Five, it’s almost a classic dysfunctional family.”

A mutual fondness between Black and Jolie was also evident when, in 2008, back at Cannes where “Kung Fu Panda” first screened, it was the former that inadvertently spilled the beans on the latter’s pregnancy with twins. Prior to that time, Jolie and partner Brad Pitt had been mum on the subject but the expectant mom, while caught off-guard, did not seem to mind.

Speaking to OK! Magazine in the US, Black told the story what he considers as a gesture from Jolie. As published online on May 11, Black shared, “You [Jolie] were preggers, and I spilled the beans. And my wife, Tanya, was like, `That is the most amazing maternity dress I’ve ever seen…'" Black’s wife was also pregnant at that time.

“And then, what do we get in the mail like the next week? That gown. You sent it over. It was one of the sweetest gifts of all time,” Black gushed to Jolie.

Black and Jolie also came back out to Cannes this year to promote the “Kung Fu Panda 2,” this time with Dustin Hoffman (who voices Master Shifu). Jolie was accompanied by Pitt.

This would be Black and Jolie’s third trip together to the festival. Aside from 2008’s “Kung Fu Panda” premiere, they had shared the Cannes red carpet back in 2004 when they did voice for the animated movie “Shark Tale,” with Will Smith.

“That float on the ‘Shark’ was the beginning of a blossoming friendship,” Jolie told OK! “That was our bonding moment.”

“Kung Fu Panda 2” opens locally on May 24.

source: mb.com.ph