2924. Master Viper

Master Viper is a green snake with two small lotus flowers on top of her head. Although she has a serious birth defect for her species, being born with barely visible venomous fangs, she compensates with her strength, sinuous nature, beauty, and precision. In defiance of the villainous stereotype of snakes, Viper is the most charming, kind, compassionate and sweetest of the Five as demonstrated with her quickly developing empathy for Po as his indomitable tenacity became obvious and being the only one who didn't mock him in any way.
In Secrets of the Furious Five, Viper was born the loved daughter of Great Master Viper, protector of the village where she lived who relied on his venomous fangs to fell his enemies (referred to by Po, and later on by the Great Master as the awe-inspiring awesomeness of his "Poison Fang Technique", said to fell 15 gorilla warriors and a mid-size crocodile in one strike), and his beautiful wife. The Great Master hoped she would carry on his legacy once she was born, but she was without fangs and never developed them as she grew up, much to the dismay of her father. To make her father feel better, Viper took up ribbon dancing at age six, blossoming into the best dancer in the village. During one Autumn Moon Festival, Viper was too timid to attend the festival and stayed home with her mother. But when her father fought against a gorilla bandit who attacked the village and used venom-proof armor to shatter the Great Master's poison fangs, Viper, seeing him in trouble, mustered the courage she needed to defeat the gorilla by confusing him with her dancing skills and tying him up with her ribbon. Thus her father's legacy was secure with his daughter becoming a mighty warrior on her own terms.
In Kung Fu Panda Holiday, it is revealed that Viper has sisters whom she loved to cook with during the Winter Feast, but in Secrets of the Furious Five, she is shown as an only child; it may be possible that Viper is merely the firstborn in her family and her sisters could all be younger siblings, though this remains unconfirmed.
In Kung Fu Panda 2, Viper is shown to be the most transparent in her feelings and the most openly compassionate. When the group, hidden inside a Chinese dragon costume, witness the wolves' brutal treatment of the peasants of Gongmen City, Viper's face is shown to be openly horrified. She is also shown to be able to pick locks with her tail.

2539. Master Mantis

Master Mantis is the smallest of the Five, but he is obviously the strongest proportional to his size. He can perform such feats as throwing Po and single-handedly holding up a severed rope bridge burdened by most of his comrades and Tai Lung and still have the strength to snap the bridge when needed. He is also a skilled acupuncturist, although his success does depend on the type of body he is working with; a body like that of Po or Viper can sometimes give him problems until he familiarizes himself with the particular anatomy. Pragmatic and open minded with a dry sense of humor, Mantis was the first of the five to develop acceptance and liking of Po as a person, alongside the factor of Po's girth, declaring size did little to define a warrior and could actually be used as an advantage no matter what style one practices. An unused line from the movie is Mantis saying, "I've got to admit, that panda has a lot of heart. And he's incredibly fun to watch bounce."
When he was a few years younger (in Secrets of the Furious Five), Mantis was extremely impatient, feeling that the world was too slow for him and he was too fast for the world. On a mission to retrieve wool coats back from the Wool Stealing Crocodile Bandits, he was captured due to his overconfidence and lack of listening skills when one of the sheep villagers tried to warn him of the bandits' traps. Mantis was locked in a cage for days and forced to sit and wait for something to happen, and he entered a trance that allowed him to survey the world moving faster than he did. This allowed him to develop the patience needed to devise a plan of escape, playing dead to trick the crocodiles into opening his cage and defeat them.
In the sequel, Mantis' background is further revealed. When the group interrupts Po and Tigress in an effort to give "emotional support," Mantis says wistfully that he never got to know his father, because his mother ate his father's head. Later, when it seems as if they are about to die, Mantis sighs that he always expected to settle down with "a nice girl who would later eat my head."
Mantis is also shown to be able to move at inhuman speeds and break metal with his super strength.

2538. Po

Po is the main protagonist of Kung Fu Panda. In a fantasized version of ancient China populated by anthropomorphized animals, he is a giant panda who is improbably chosen as the Dragon Warrior, champion of the Valley of Peace. He is the adoptive son of Mr. Ping and one of Master Shifu's students. Po is also the prophesied Dragon Warrior.
Po lived in a village of Giant Pandas, until Lord Shen had it destroyed in his infancy as part of his campaign to exterminate to avert the prophecy that a black and white warrior would one day defeat him. In the chaos, Shen's wolf followers slaughtered the pandas and destroyed the village. Po's mother fled with her son in attempt to save him, while Po's father stayed to defend the village while ordering his wife to flee with their son. Po's father fights the wolves off. Eventually, Po's mother managed to temporarily elude the wolves and found a crate of radishes which she hid her son in while she sacrificed herself to lure Shen's forces away for her son. After that, the crate was eventually shipped across China to a village in the Valley of Peace, where the owner of a Noodle shop, Mr. Ping, found the panda cub. Mr. Ping decided to raise him as his son, giving him the name Po. With no conscious memories of his past life, Po grew up with the Goose and became a studious apprentice in his foster father's restaurant trade. However, Po's real passion proved to be for kung fu, but was reluctant to disappoint his father by revealing it. Unfortunately, despite having a mild and friendly personality, Po also developed a severe self-loathing, thinking he is a failure for being both obese (when in reality he is of a healthy weight for his species) and of a species not known for a warrior tradition. When upset, he usually gorges on food to dull the pain.

1884. Master Shifu

Master Shifu is the deuteragonist of the first film, and an important character in the second. Shifu is the student of Oogway and trainer of the Furious Five, as well as Tai Lung. Shifu once loved Tai Lung like a son after he was abandoned at his doorstep as a very young cub. He tried to subdue him after Tai Lung attacked the Valley and made a bid to take the Dragon Scroll by force, but froze, unable to destroy what he created through love, and failed. In Secrets of the Furious Five, it is revealed that he is Tigress' adoptive father as well. He taught her how to control her own fury by playing a game of dominoes with her and later adopted her as his own daughter from an orphanage despite all the other adults' fear of adopting her. His experience with Tai Lung otherwise stiffened him, unfortunately, causing him to train Tigress and the Furious Five in a harsher and more critical manner than he used with Tai Lung.
He is at first unwilling to train Po, not believing he has what it takes to defeat Tai Lung; he therefore tries to make the training unbearable to force Po to give up. As such, Shifu is greatly annoyed at how Po embraces and endures all his attempts. Shifu also voices his contempt of Po by referring to him as "Panda" rather than his name. After much convincing from Oogway as well as his new responsibility as the guardian of the Valley of Peace after Oogway's ascension into the Heavens, Shifu agrees to seriously train Po until he is ready to face Tai Lung.
This proves much more a challenge than he anticipated when Po, in addition to his apparent physical limitations, confesses a deep self-loathing that the monk felt powerless to counter. However, when Shifu discovers Po's considerable latent strengths when motivated by food, the monk fashions a personal training regime that enables the panda to quickly become a formidable warrior. Po's throwing back the dumpling they fought over in Po's final test is an even more encouraging sign that his student has improved his strength of spirit as well, an essential element of a warrior.

1757. Lord Shen

• Gary Oldman as Lord Shen, an albino Indian Peafowl

Shen (more commonly known as Lord Shen) is the primary antagonist of Kung Fu Panda 2. He is the son of the royal Peacock family and the heir to the Gongmen City throne.

His parents loved him, people began to find joy in fireworks and when Shen began to become obsessed with them and in the art of making weapons with them. Scared of what could happen with their son, his parents asked the Soothsayer what his future would be if he continued down the path he was on. The soothsayer then told them that she had a vision that his supposed destiny would be destroyed by a warrior of black and white. Hearing this and fearing any problems in his plans, Shen lead his wolf followers to attack and decimate a nearby farming village, populated by giant pandas. When his crime was discovered, Shen was exiled by his father from his home and his throne turned over to Master Thundering Rhino and the Kung Fu Council.
Shen is extremely smart, supremely lethal, and burns with ambition; it is a combustible combination. His past has forged in him the notion that he's been wronged and that the world owes him something. He intends to do everything in his power to take it, which includes inventing a powerful weapon unlike anything the world has ever seen. Shen is intent on using this weapon to wipe out Kung Fu and take over China. That puts him on a collision course with Po and the Five.^[2]