14 images (& sounds) of the The Little Panda Fighter cast of characters. Pics of the The Little Panda Fighter voice actors (Movie). The Fighter feels like a movie coming from someone who is still honing their trade-you catch glimpses of brilliance like the raw feel of the fights coupled with their effective camerawork as well. Jan 12, 2015  This feature is not available right now. Please try again later.

The Little Panda Fighter (titled Ursinho da Pesada in Brazil and previously titled Heavy's Little Bear) is a 2008 Brazilian direct-to-videocomputer-animatedsportsactioncomedy film directed by Michelle Gabriel. The film has drawn criticism as a mockbuster of the DreamWorks Animation film Kung Fu Panda.

Plot[edit]

A giant panda named Pancada works at a boxing club. He has dreams of one day becoming a professional dancer, and is in love with a waitress named Beth. His boss, a polar bear named Polaris, is scheduled to fight a large bear named Freak Teddy. Pancada visits his dancing instructor, Master Xin, who teaches him about loyalty. The following day, Polaris has found a black costume, and tells Pancada to wash it for him. The costume shrinks in the wash, resulting in Polaris having the appearance of a panda bear. As Polaris begins the fight with Freak Teddy, Pancada goes to a dance competition, wherein he ends up winning.

Polaris wins the match against Freak Teddy, and because of his panda-like appearance, the club's patrons mistakenly congratulate Pancada for being a powerful fighter. Pancada, having won the dance competition, erroneously believes that he is being congratulated for his dancing skills. After some words of wisdom from Master Xin, Pancada himself enters the ring to fight Freak Teddy and loses. After the fight, Polaris informs Pancada that he had made a bet that Pancada would lose the fight, and therefore, he becomes wealthy. After Polaris retires to the icy mountains, Pancada transforms the boxing club into a dance club.

Cast[edit]

Production[edit]

The film was produced by animation studio Vídeo Brinquedo to coincide with the film Kung Fu Panda. The similarities that the film has with Kung Fu Panda have brought many to consider it a mockbuster, a characteristic associated with many of Vídeo Brinquedo's films.^[1][3] The film's animation was completed by Paulo Biagioni, Renato Fujie, Arturo Hernández, and its director, Michelle Gabriel.

Release and reception[edit]

The movie was released on DVD on November 18, 2008^[4] and was panned by critics, primarily because of its similarities to Kung Fu Panda, which was released only a few months before. On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film has a 'rotten' score of 17% based on 99 user ratings. A columnist for the website Nster News wrote, in comparison to Kung Fu Panda, The Little Panda Fighter is 'a trashy uninspired rip-off with a similar plot and lower budget'.^[5] Mike Jeavons of Channel Awesome stated that 'the animation is terrible, the dialogue physically hurts, and the story is contrived and barely feels complete enough to fill the 50-minute runtime. The music is bad, the whole thing lacks imagination, and the characters and their motivations are awful'.^[6]

References[edit]

1. ^ ^abEdwards, C. (8 January 2014). 'The Ultimate Guide to Animated Mockbusters'. Cartoon Brew.
2. ^'The Little Panda Fighter - Pancada'. Behind the Voice Actors. Retrieved 13 March 2016.
3. ^Rossi, Jones (8 July 2007). 'Estúdio brasileiro, 2007'. Globo.com. Retrieved 22 September 2012.
4. ^'The Little Panda Fighter DVD'. Amazon. Retrieved 21 March 2016.
5. ^'Funny and Ridiculous Rip-Offs of Famous Movies'. Nster News. 2014. Archived from the original on April 10, 2016. Retrieved December 5, 2019.
6. ^'Shameful Sequels: The Little Panda Fighter'. Channel Awesome. 21 January 2015.

External links[edit]

• The Little Panda Fighter on IMDb
• The Little Panda Fighter at Rotten Tomatoes

Vídeo Brinquedo (also known as Toyland Video and Video Toys, and formerly known as VBF Produções and Spot Films) is a Brazilian animation studio, located in São Paulo,^[1] that produces direct-to-video animated films widely viewed as mockbusters of comparable films from Walt Disney Pictures, Pixar Animation Studios, Paramount Pictures, DreamWorks Animation, 20th Century Studios, Blue Sky Studios, Hasbro Studios, Sony Pictures Animation and Astley Baker Davies. The company was founded in 1986 to distribute animation with the intention of distribution in its home market of Brazil, as well as to other global markets.^[2] The company has been active since 1986.

Background[edit]

For the first nine years, Vídeo Brinquedo distributed home video releases of shows such as Sonic X and The Little Lulu Show in the Brazilian market.^[1]

One of the studio's early distributions was an obscure religious-themed cartoon called United Submarine. This title sold only a few copies until the release of the 2003 Pixar film Finding Nemo. United Submarine and Finding Nemo had several similarities, such as the presence of a clownfish and a story centered on parent-child relationship. From the huge number of sales the company had on the cartoon, Brinquedo wanted to start not only distributing cartoons but also create their own.^[1]

Brinquedo's first animations were traditional, 2D-styled, based on fairy tales and classics such as Pinocchio and the Three Little Pigs, but with scripts that modernized the characters.^[1] They later expanded to 3D animation, their first title being The Little Cars (Portuguese: Os Carrinhos),^[3][4][5] loosely based on the 2006 Pixar animated film Cars. Originally aimed at children between two and three years old, over 3,000 copies were sold in more than 12 countries.^[1]

The original idea of the company was to jump on trends raised by the major studios and start production of animation with two to three years in advance. With the company borrowing ideas established in Hollywood, company director Mauricio Milani stated: 'We tried to imagine what it will be in evidence'.^[1]

Originally released with a Brazilian Portuguese soundtrack, many of Vídeo Brinquedo's titles were co-produced with Rexmore Company do Brasil,^[3] and distributed in North America by Branscome International,^[6] and MorningStar Entertainment with English and Spanish soundtracks.

The films are often only just over 40 minutes in length, the minimum required to qualify as a feature film and awards qualification.

Filmography[edit]

Film distribution[edit]

Besides producing its own animated movies, Vídeo Brinquedo has also distributed DVDs of foreign cartoons like Sonic X, The Adventures of Super Mario Bros. 3, Little Lulu, Batfink, and a number of lesser-known fairy tale films made by Video Treasures (now Anchor Bay Entertainment).^[7] However, one of its most controversial distributions is Mega Powers!, which bears a close resemblance to the series Power Rangers and Super Sentai, but was not produced by Vídeo Brinquedo themselves. The series is a production of Intervalo Produções.^[8]

Criticism[edit]

Vídeo Brinquedo's films have been heavily criticised for their very poor animation, voice acting, and questionable writing alongside scenes which merely exist to fill the running time so the film in question can qualify as 'feature length'. Erik Henriksen, a reporter from The Portland Mercury, criticized Vídeo Brinquedo as being 'the laziest/cheapest movie studio of all time,' due to similarities between its releases and the films of other animation studios, such as Pixar.^[9]

In his review of Ratatoing, a reviewer on ToonZone said: 'If you ate a copy of the worst cartoon you could think of, you'd still probably crap something better than Ratatoing', and went on to bemoan the animation quality, calling the movie as a whole 'a senseless waste of raw materials' and 'a waste of time, energy and effort for all parties concerned'.^[10]

Marco Aurélio Canônico of Folha de S. Paulo, who criticized the Little Cars series as a copy of the Pixar film Cars, and likewise Ratatoing and Ratatouille, discussed whether lawsuits from Pixar would appear. The Brazilian Ministry of Culture posted Marco Aurélio Canônico's article on its website.^[11]Virgin Media also stated, 'Even by the ocean-floor-scraping standards of Vídeo Brinquedo, it's a shameless knock-off'.^[12]

Disney's legal department was contacted by a reporter through a spokesperson about a potential lawsuit, but Milani did not comment.^[1]

In other media[edit]

Two of Vídeo Brinquedo's productions were parodied in an episode of The Amazing World of Gumball called 'The Treasure', in which Gumball picks up a mockbuster DVD called How to Ratatwang Your Panda. The film is a cross between The Little Panda Fighter and Ratatoing.

See also[edit]

References[edit]

1. ^ ^abcdefg'Estúdio brasileiro, 2007' (in Portuguese). Retrieved 22 September 2012.
2. ^'Empresa'. Vídeo Brinquedo. Retrieved 27 December 2008.
3. ^ ^ab'Vídeo Brinquedo'. Vídeo Brinquedo. Retrieved 22 December 2008.
4. ^'The Little Cars in the Great Race'. All Movie. Retrieved 22 December 2008.
5. ^'Os Carrinhos'. Vídeo Brinquedo. Retrieved 23 December 2008.
6. ^'Branscome International'. Branscome International. Retrieved 23 December 2008.
7. ^http://www.publicacaodigital.com.br/videobrinquedo2/#
8. ^http://www.mm.animator.com.br/quem-somos.html
9. ^'RIP, Pixar.Archived 2 August 2008 at the Wayback Machine', The Portland Mercury
10. ^Review on Toonzone.net
11. ^'Vídeo Brinquedo faz sucesso com desenhos como “Os Carrinhos” e “Ratatoing”Archived 29 April 2008 at the Wayback Machine.' Folha de S. Paulo at Ministry of Culture (Brazil). 2 September 2007. Retrieved on 16 April 2011.
12. ^Most blatant movie rip-offs: The Little Cars (2006). Virgin Media Accessed from 23 September 2012.

External links[edit]

• Official website(in Portuguese)
• Vídeo Brinquedo on IMDb