"Kung Fu Panda 3" premiered in Shanghai, China on Jan. 18, Monday, with Hollywood celebrities Jackie Chan, Jack Black and Kate Hudson with Taiwanese singer Jay Chou in attendance. Aside from voicing the character of Master Monkey in the Chinese version of the film, Chou also sang the official theme song of the movie.
Chan returned to the franchise as the English version of Master Monkey and the Chinese version of lead character Panda Po's biological father.
"It felt like coming home because I have been doing this for nearly ten years," CRI English quoted Chan as saying. Chan also said that there were some Mandarin words that he could not pronounce too well.
Black, on the other hand, voiced the lead character Po in the English language version of the movie. During a press conference of the film, he expressed his excitement about meeting Chan for the first time despite both starring in all three installments of the movie.
Hudson, who plays Mei Mei in the film, was another a-list star present during the China premiere of the film. The English version of the animation also features the voices of Angelina Jolie Pitt, Dustin Hoffman, Lucy Liu, Seth Rogan and Bryan Cranston.
Joining Chous in the voice-over cast of the Chinese version of "Kung Fu Panda 3" are Yang Mi, Jiang Wu and Huang Lei. DreamWorks Animation CEO Jeffery Katzenberg mentioned that Chou was not only invited to record the song because of his popularity in China but also because his music resonates well with the film's concept, ECNS News has learned, as cited by Cinema Online.
The 3-D animated film is the third installment of the popular franchise, which tells the story of the main character Po reuniting with his biological father. The two travel together to a secret sanctuary of pandas where he must fight against a villain who wants to take away the master's Kung Fu powers.
The movie is co-produced by the United States and China and is co-directed by Jennifer Yuh and Alessandro Carloni. "Kung Fu Panda 3" is set for worldwide release on Jan. 29. Watch Chou's performance of "Try, the theme song of the movie, here:
