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Nov 18, 2008 The Little Panda Fighter, titled Ursinho da Pesada in Brazil and originally titled Heavy's Little Bear, is a Brazilian direct-to-video computer-animated sports action comedy film. The film has received criticism for being a knock-off of the DreamWorks Animation GMW film Kung Fu Panda GMW. May 31, 2017  Our first foray into the cheap, deceptive land of the mockbuster dawns with two ripoff movies for the low price of one, The Little Panda Fighter and Chop Kick Panda, respectively exploiting the success of both Kung Fu Panda (2008) and Kung fu Panda 2 (2011), with both releasing alongside the bigger animated movie counterparts.

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Ursinho da Pesada, known in English as The Little Panda Fighter, is a 2008 Brazilian Direct-to-Video film by Vídeo Brinquedo that is, to say the least, 'inspired' by Kung Fu Panda. A panda named Pancada works at a boxing club, but dreams of becoming a professional dancer. His boss, hoping to get back in the ring, fights a bear named Teddy Thunders, but due to an incident with the washing machine, everyone thinks he's Pancada. Now, Pancada is forced to fight in the ring for a battle that could determine the fate of the business.

See also Chop Kick Panda, another Kung Fu Panda knockoff.

This film provides examples of:

• Batman Gambit: At the end of the movie, Polaris bets all of his money on Pancada losing to Teddy Thunders, and is able to hand the Bear Bar Box over to Pancada, who turns it into a dance club, while Polaris retires to the icy mountains.
• Clark Kenting: Taken Up to Eleven. Polaris the polar bear manages to hide his identity by putting on a leotard and a bandit mask while fighting the current boxing champion Teddy Thunders, and when his disguise shrinks instead of being exposed everyone thinks he's Pancada the panda, even though they look completely different.
• Covers Always Lie: The artwork on the cover looks much better than the film's actual animation. Plus, the scene showchased does not appear in the actual movie.
• Everybody Was Kung-Fu Fighting: Averted. There are no kung-fu-fights, but boxing. And Pancada isn't very good in boxing, cause he wants to be a dancer. The cover lies, as mentioned above, to get the attention of Kung Fu Panda-fans.

Advertisement:

• Karma Houdini: Polaris pretty much tricks everyone into giving him their money, and gets away with it.
• Limited Animation: In one scene, Beth says, the boxing club is sold out, but no customer can be seen.
• The Mockbuster: A pretty flagrant rip-off of Kung Fu Panda.
• Never Trust a Title: The titular panda is not 'little', as he is one of the largest characters in the movie. Plus, he only fights for thirty seconds at the end of the movie, and he gets his ass kicked.
• Non-Action Guy: Pancada would prefer to dance rather than fight.
• One Dialogue, Two Conversations: A bunch of people come up to Pancada and commend him on what they thought were his fighting skills and he thinks they're talking about his dancing audition, even though they were clearly not there watching. This is soon followed by another one between Pancada and Polaris, which is even more poorly constructed.
• Panda-ing to the Audience: Pancada is a panda.
• Satellite Love Interest: Beth serves no purpose in the story aside from being Pancada's Love Interest.

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]

The Little Panda Fighter Imdb

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]

The Little Panda Fighter Ytp

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