En route to a panda conservation in China, Jackie Chan is waylaid by an indigenous tribe insisting his adopted panda, Huhu, is destined to save them from catastrophe. In Panda Plan 2, slapstick humor abounds, and there’s a wonderful message about family. But mystical elements, minor language and suggestive moments might give some families pause.
In the first Panda Plan film, Jackie Chan (portraying a fictionalized version of himself) saved a baby panda named Huhu from a crime syndicate that wanted to kidnap and ransom her for a small fortune.
Well, Jackie stops the thugs, and Huhu made it out just fine. Now, the odd duo is headed for the safety of a panda conservation base in the jungles of China.
Along the way, a “rare celestial anomaly” stops them in their tracks. Jackie’s travel companions mysteriously disappear. And when he searches for Huhu, he finds her trotting toward a valley—one that mystically seals itself after Jackie and Huhu enter it.
They find themselves among a tribe of indigenous people who have never had contact with the outside world. They don’t know about action star Jackie Chan or the cute baby panda he rescued. What they do know is that there’s a legend about a panda’s arrival in their village. And if they don’t act fast, their entire tribe could be in danger.
The story goes that unless a “messenger” escorts the panda to Awe Summit—a nearby, impossible-to-climb mountain—they’ll be wiped out by a celestial catastrophe. They believe that Huhu is that panda.
And Jackie? Well, he might be the Messenger, whether he wants to be or not.
Jackie thinks that the panda tribe is, well, weird. For starters, children are expected to become independent at the age of 6. From that moment on, they aren’t allowed to call their parents mom or dad. They aren’t allowed to hug their family members. And they certainly aren’t allowed to say, “I love you.” Breaking any of these rules is considered weak, and the offending person is humiliated and beaten by his or her fellow tribe members.
But Jackie and Huhu’s arrival softens their hearts. They’re touched by how much Jackie and Huhu seem to care for each other. And Jackie tells them that back where he’s from—you know, our world—people don’t have such strict rules. Family members are allowed to express care and concern for each other. In fact, they’re encouraged to do so.
And that’s another lesson Jackie instills: We’re supposed to encourage one another, he tells the tribe, especially the littlest among us. Through his encouragement, the tribe learns how to work together and support each other. And their cooperative actions ultimately save them from doom.
By the film’s end, even those who initially opposed Jackie’s appointment as Messenger have changed their tune. They express love for their family members. The chieftain’s children begin calling her mom again, and their fractured family becomes whole once more. They even embrace embracing.
As mentioned, the panda tribe believes in a prophecy that says a panda’s arrival in their village will mark the beginning of a catastrophe that will wipe them out. However, if that same panda is escorted to the Awe Summit, it can summon the “immortals” to save them.
Although Jackie initially scoffs at this legend, the film portrays it as a real, mystical thing. When Huhu arrives in the valley, she inadvertently touches a magical stone that summons a terrible storm: Lightning repeatedly strikes Awe Summit and clouds ripple out from the mountain in waves. Other “celestial omens” follow, too.
The magic of the panda tribe’s valley is never fully explained, but it seems to be linked to ancestral beliefs.
The tribe’s chieftain has “lightness skills,” which allow her to float and even fly around her village. A magical butterfly often guides Huhu. And Huhu, who seems to have some cognitive abilities, chooses to follow the butterfly and save the tribe from disaster.
Someone swallows a “power pill” to gain mystical strength. However, we never find out if the pill actually works, since the man allegedly drains its power by talking too much before fighting. Jackie coughs up fire after eating spicy food.
When a man named Shan loses his memory in an accident, he mistakenly believes that Jackie rescued him somehow. He calls Jackie his “savior” for the rest of the film. It’s not portrayed as worshipful, but he does devote himself to serving and protecting Jackie and Huhu.
Jackie is given a magical whistle that allows him to summon members of the tribe to his side. When tribe members smash stone slabs bearing ancient and outdated rules, the tribe’s high priest is devastated, believing that they smashed their own ancestors. Someone says that Huhu brings fortune.
[Spoiler warning] When Huhu reaches the high peak, she activates another magical stone that immediately stops the storm and catastrophe. A tribal ancestor, depicted as a panda in the clouds, speaks to Huhu. She tells Huhu that the catastrophe wasn’t the storm in the sky but the storm brewing in their people’s hearts. Huhu and Jackie stopped the catastrophe by teaching the tribe how to love each other and work together. And she charges Huhu to “use your cuteness to cure this world.”
Shan unconsciously tries to snuggle with Jackie in his sleep, since they’re sharing a hut. When Jackie wakes one morning, the man’s hand is on his knee. As Jackie is removing it, a woman walks in and spots them in a compromising-looking position. She’s disgusted, seeming to believe they’re romantically involved. However, Shan and Jackie later clarify that they see each other as brothers.
Someone mistakenly believes that Jackie wants to marry the chieftain after overhearing Jackie telling her that he loves her. But that person doesn’t hear Jackie go on to say that he considers her a little sister—and that she can call him her brother.
Shan, who has long hair, and he begins to wear it in braids after Jackie comments that, when it’s unbraided, it makes him look like a ghost. He sometimes flips these plaits over his shoulder in an effeminate manner and even styles them with some flowers one morning. Another man becomes jealous of Shan’s new ‘do, stating that Shan is “hotter” than him now. This same man also occasionally twirls his hair effeminately.
After getting soaked, Jackie squats behind a rock, apparently naked, while someone dries out his clothes. The person comments that Jackie’s skin is very “fair,” causing Jackie (who is only visible from the chest up) to dip even lower in embarrassment. Several tribesmen wear clothing that bares their chests. A few tribeswomen wear belly-baring, off-shoulder tops.
As with many Jackie Chan movies, there’s a lot of slapstick violence to go around. Jackie repeatedly tells opponents that he doesn’t want to fight them, but fights ensue nonetheless. Nobody really gets hurt, but plenty of people get smacked around.
That said, a couple of characters get bloody noses and other minor injuries from their antics. The panda tribe uses violence to resolve even the most innocuous of disagreements. They threaten Jackie—who is reluctant to fulfill his role as Messenger, since he believes Huhu will be in danger if they try to reach Awe Summit—with sharp spears.
Several people get injured whilst forming (and falling from) a human pyramid. Jackie himself gets cut up pretty badly while scaling a steep cliff. We even see him fall from this cliff, but a rope tied around his waist protects him from a more serious injury.
In a dream sequence, Jackie falls from a great height, awakening before his dream self hits the ground. A man starts coughing up blood when his son hugs him so tightly that his ribs crack. One man is repeatedly flogged—really just spanked—for showing “weakness.” He flinches away from his mother when she raises a hand to him, indicating that she has flogged him before. (She and the tribe stop beating each other after learning about love and encouragement from Jackie.)
Jackie and Huhu are chased through a jungle when they get caught in the middle of a boar hunt. The boar itself is also chased and shot with several arrows. One man gets hit in the head several times. With each blow, his memory fades in and out.
Someone plots to kill Jackie, sending several lackeys to commit the deed. Generally, the thugs are inept, and Jackie beats them up several times. However, at one point they manage to tie him and toss him into a river with rocks weighing him down. Jackie nearly drowns, but he’s rescued by Shan.
In the end credits, some thugs threaten a crowd with machine guns, but they’re scared away by the sudden arrival of warriors from the panda tribe.
[Note: This is a Mandarin film with English subtitles.]
There’s one use each of the s-word and “a–.” Jesus’ name is also taken in vain once.
Characters drink alcohol quite frequently, sometimes to excess. At one point, an inebriated chieftain invites Jackie to drink with her, and he begs her to stop imbibing.
Notably, Jackie does not drink at all, always tossing his drinks over his shoulder and simply pretending to partake. He starts to tell a story about how much he drank when he was younger, but he’s quickly cut off when his drunk listener passes out.
Several people hallucinate and act strangely after accidentally ingesting psychedelic mushrooms. We see someone smoke a cigar during the end credits.
A couple of characters, namely the chieftain’s son and the high priest, do not believe that Jackie should be the Messenger. They undermine him at every turn, employing subterfuge and sabotage to discredit him. In their antics, they sometimes treat Huhu cruelly, which Jackie admonishes.
The chieftain wrinkles her nose when Huhu begins passing gas, but Jackie assures her that Huhu only does that when she likes someone. Someone tries to swallow a “pill” roughly the size of a softball. It gets lodged in his throat, creating an unseemly appearance but otherwise causing no harm.
Panda Plan 2: The Magical Tribe is very much your run-of-the-mill Jackie Chan action flick. Slapstick comedy and endearing awkwardness abound.
And the film has a lot of heart to it, too. Panda Plan 2 is all about family—about demonstrating and proclaiming your love for your family without shame. It’s also about community, emphasizing that we’re stronger (and smarter) when we work together to solve problems.
That said, there’s a couple of things for parents to consider before heading to the theater to watch: English subtitles (this is a Mandarin film) reveal one use of the s-word and one misuse of Jesus’ name. Several characters heavily and regularly imbibe in alcohol. While played for humor, there are some questionable, suggestive moments between characters of the same sex. And there’s a lot of mystical elements at play, heavily rooted in Eastern spiritual beliefs about ancestral magic.
So while this is largely a light, fun film—and very on-brand for Mr. Chan—it might have one too many content concerns to navigate for some.
Emily studied film and writing when she was in college. And when she isn’t being way too competitive while playing board games, she enjoys food, sleep, and geeking out with her husband indulging in their “nerdoms,” which is the collective fan cultures of everything they love, such as Star Wars, Star Trek, Stargate and Lord of the Rings.
