doodle-empress66:

If you think about it, Kung Fu Panda was the perfect trilogy. The antagonists represented Body, Mind and Spirit. Tai Lung was a physical battle. Shen was a mental and Kai was spiritual.

I agree that the 3rd was underwhelming. Mostly because Kai doesnt have much depth, his connection to oogway wasnt really built upon and his main goal was just to be the most powerful. His main motif being ‘finding yourself through failure’ lacked impact but later comes to effect.

Kai lacked any memorable features like Shen’s cunning and Tai lungs rage and physical prowess. However Kai being tragic wouldnt have really worked for him. With the other 2 movies having emphasis on their villains, the 3rd didnt have that and instead focused on Po’s journey.

It focused on how Po went from a nobody to the master he is now, essentially the dragon warrior. Po being the strongest maybe second to Oogway. It focused on him and tigress finding their spiritual way through the panda tribe and eventually leading to Po mastering chi.

With this in hand, Po defeats Kai which goes back to his motif of identification through failure. 3 in a sense acts as the reasoning for 1. Oogway even states to Po that his life has gone in full circle. This mastery of body, mind and spirit is why Oogway chose Po.