Kung Fu Panda 2

The movie Kung Fu Panda 2 is a humorous DreamWorks production about a panda who, as the title suggests, practices Kung Fu. The worldview of Kung Fu Panda 2 is definitely Western Spiritualism, as we will see. As the sequel to Kung Fu Panda, it picks up the story after Po (the panda) has gone from a soup server to the Dragon Warrior of Kung Fu. But now there is a new nemesis abroad, an evil peacock warrior named Shen who is bent on ruling the empire using a new devastating weapon—a cannon! But Po must find his 'inner peace' before he will be able to defeat this enemy.

In the beginning of the movie, Po hears from his teacher Master Shifu that he needs to find his inner peace as the next step in his training. Master Shifu tells him that when he found his inner peace, he “was able to harness the flow of the universe.” This is similar to Western Spiritualism's idea that you can find the ability within yourself to enable you to ‘harness’ powers, or in this case be at one with the universe to such an extent that with eyes closed one can ‘know’ when a drop of water will fall and catch it. But Po the panda has trouble finding his inner peace because he’s an orphan, and it isn’t until he finds out that all of the pandas were killed years ago in an attempt to stop a fortune telling prophecy from coming true that he has the opportunity to find his inner peace. Once he moves past his grief and sorrow and comes to terms with this horrible news, he has inner peace and is one with the universe. This enables him to catch cannon balls and fling them back at the cannons—because he can harness the power and is one with it all.

The fortune-telling in itself is another way we see that the worldview here is Spiritualism. There is a seer throughout the movie who originally foretold Po’s coming as the dragon warrior, and who then uses a bowl of water to ‘scry’ the future. This is very much like certain spells used by Wicca and other Spiritualistic groups. Because of these factors (and more) we see that Kung Fu Panda 2 is definitely Spiritualistic.

—Ben