It really is a big world full of wonders, and hidden masters just keep coming out of the woodwork! I came across this badass review over on Douban, -_- Is the author a huge detective & mystery fan or what? They actually worked out a hidden plotline. I can’t track down the author’s site for now — I’d really love to go pay my respects.
What follows is the original text:
I watched the movie twice more from the beginning and picked out a few details here and there, and I found that Tai Lung isn’t actually bad — he was most likely framed. On the contrary, Tortoise may be the real mastermind behind it all.
I roughly pieced together the outline of what happened: the Dragon Scroll was actually brought up the mountain together with Tai Lung. Tai Lung was destined from birth to be the Dragon Warrior, and the Dragon Scroll isn’t a martial arts manual but a scripture for cultivating immortality. But Tortoise secretly swapped out the real Dragon Scroll and put an empty one back in its place. So when Tai Lung came of age and wanted to take back the Dragon Scroll, Tortoise stopped him, and came up with a way to lure Tai Lung into seizing the scroll, then framed him and had him thrown in prison.
Over the next twenty years, Tortoise kept studying the contents of the real scroll and made some modest progress. He had a premonition that Tai Lung was about to return, so he hoped Badger would take some action — but Badger was scared witless. With no other option, Tortoise had to say they should open the Dragon Scroll. When it came to choosing the heir of the Dragon Scroll, Tortoise originally wanted to give it to the tiger, because the tiger is stubborn and fiercely competitive — even if she found out it was an empty scroll, she’d just study it herself and wouldn’t be exposed for a while. But when he saw the panda, who knows zero martial arts, he chose the dopey panda, figuring that would buy even more time (or maybe he thought it was almost a good thing?).
Later, when he heard that Tai Lung had really broken out, he got scared again, so he pretended he had reached the end of his life — but in fact he just used the immortal arts he’d learned from the scroll to fly away. That’s why his departure was so sudden.
Later still, on his way back, Tai Lung ran into the Furious Five, beat them, but didn’t kill them — instead he let them go back to the mountain. And when he himself returned to the mountain, he called himself a disciple, and when Badger said he wanted to fight him, he initially meant to turn and leave. There are also a few details worth special attention. First, Tai Lung appeared at the very instant the lightning flashed in Badger’s eyes, but he didn’t take the opportunity to launch a surprise attack. Second, when Tai Lung saw the staff the old Tortoise had left behind, he went silent all at once, because he thought the old Tortoise was dead and he’d never be able to take revenge on him — which was exactly the point of leaving the staff behind. What a scheme. Third, when his master said “I’m sorry,” Tai Lung’s expression changed immediately, which shows those words hit him hard; but in order to take back the scroll that was rightfully his, he hardened his heart and kept demanding the scroll. Yet during his fight with his master he actually held back his strength considerably, as you can tell from how his master was still full of fight a moment later (and he knows the Wuxi Finger Hold too — if he’d wanted to kill his master, he’d have used it long ago).
So really, Tai Lung isn’t bad by nature at all. Think about it: he was framed and locked up for 20 years, so a little bit of retaliation on his part is honestly nothing. Tortoise is the true culprit — everyone has been played right into his hands.
A few more details:
1, The Furious Five probably don’t even know for sure what happened 20 years ago, because they only joined after Tai Lung was imprisoned. And Badger would most likely avoid mentioning what happened to his most prized disciple, so the story of Tai Lung slaughtering the valley could very well have been told to the Five by Tortoise with plenty of embellishment. And with even a little thought, you can see it’s unlikely to be true: Tai Lung even let the Five go, which shows he isn’t someone who kills the innocent. How could he possibly slaughter ordinary folk? Besides, his goal was the scroll — sneaking in to grab it would be far easier than stirring up trouble in the valley first so that Tortoise and Badger were on their guard and then having to fight his way in. Tai Lung had no reason to do that. The only one he hated was Tortoise.
2, About Tortoise: he first began his cultivation on that very mountain, yet he rarely returns to the Jade Palace. Why? Because he needs to secretly practice the immortal arts — otherwise, no matter how powerful his martial arts, there’d be no reason for him to be able to foresee the future. Of course, his so-called “passing” was also faked, because the timing was just too convenient: if Badger hadn’t come up at that moment, he would have just ascended on his own — wouldn’t that mean nobody would even know? And even if his body turned into a sky full of peach blossoms, his clothes can’t have dissolved along with it, so the peach blossoms were just an illusion. That’s a very common spell in traditional Chinese novels.
3, About the scroll: it definitely wasn’t placed there long ago, because when the panda couldn’t get it open no matter what, Badger took it and opened it in one go — he even knew which end the opening was on (only now as I write this do I remember that Tai Lung knew too…). That shows he had opened the scroll before, or at least seen someone else open it, though he hadn’t seen what was inside. So it’s possible it was brought up together with Tai Lung, and he opened it back then; at the time there may have been something inside besides the scroll — something about Tai Lung’s identity.
Also, I don’t think the real Dragon Scroll could be blank, because if it really were blank, then what you could attain from it wouldn’t just be “martial arts” — it would be more like “Zen.” And would someone who can grasp Zen still do evil? So what reason would Tortoise have to deny Tai Lung the scroll? And in fact, Fat Po didn’t really gain any insight from the scroll at all — the only reason he could beat Tai Lung is that his fur (or fat?) is too thick for pressure points to work…
4, About Tai Lung: his origins are a mystery. When Badger opened the door and saw Tai Lung, it was nighttime (there’s a lantern behind him), so there’d be no reason to open the door and go outside in the middle of the night unless someone knocked. And whoever brought Tai Lung there would have had to run down that long mountain path in just that brief moment (note the part where the panda can’t get in the door — you can tell there’s nowhere to hide on the mountaintop), so their kung fu couldn’t have been too shabby either. That suggests Tai Lung may have come from a martial arts family, and his later extraordinary talent for learning kung fu seems to confirm it.
Tai Lung grew up strong under Master Badger’s tutelage, learning every one of his master’s countless skills. But my guess is that, having lived so long with a master as kind as a loving father, Tai Lung’s personality may have come to resemble Master Badger’s in some ways: stubborn to a fault and, being so straightforward, easy to trick — yet under Master Badger’s guidance, Tai Lung’s nature could never be too bad. Tai Lung’s growth did not escape old Tortoise’s eye. When Tai Lung came of age and was about to take back the Dragon Scroll, old Tortoise set a trap for him: he tricked Tai Lung into trying to seize the scroll to prove he was worthy of being the Dragon Warrior, and sent his men disguised as Tai Lung to go on a killing spree in the Valley of Peace and frame him (this part is pure speculation), making Master Badger believe Tai Lung had turned evil. Then, during the “trial,” he suddenly struck and hit Tai Lung’s pressure points, giving him no chance to explain, and had him thrown into a prison prepared in advance — locked up for 20 years.
So Tai Lung was framed by Tortoise, not only failing to get the scroll but also being locked up in a heavily guarded dungeon. And to be precise, it was a very, very, very heavily guarded dungeon — so heavily guarded it was almost overkill: a thousand-plus guards, a dungeon dug hundreds of zhang deep, sturdy walls and fortresses and all kinds of deadly traps, and even heavy siege equipment of the kind you’d only see in large-scale warfare. But the most over-the-top things were Tai Lung’s shackles and the final go-down-with-everything scorched-earth move.
Speaking of the shackles, we have to talk about old Tortoise. This dungeon was clearly set up by Tortoise, because the shackle that locked Tai Lung up was a tortoise shell! Even if Tai Lung had committed the most heinous crime, locking him up would be enough — did you have to chain him up so tightly that he couldn’t even scratch an itch? As the saying goes, the worst you can do to a man is kill him; old Tortoise didn’t kill Tai Lung but arranged things this way, which must have had a purpose.
Then there’s the prison’s last line of defense: lighting the explosives and blowing up the whole prison. Don’t forget there were still plenty of rhino guards alive down there — why would their commander order the explosives lit (or rather, why set up such a twisted mechanism at all)? Sacrificing hundreds of his own men just to keep Tai Lung in? That can only mean there’s some great secret about Tai Lung worth far more than those men’s lives! My guess is it definitely has to do with the Dragon Scroll. Also worth noting: those rhino guards don’t look like good guys at all — doesn’t that also reveal the true character of the sanctimonious old Tortoise?
So Tai Lung narrowly escaped the prison with his life and headed straight for the Jade Palace. Along the way he ran into the Furious Five, who had come to stop him. From what we see in the film, against Tai Lung and his pressure points, dealing with the Five was a piece of cake — so why didn’t he use a pressure point in that first fight on the bridge? I think it’s because anyone hit with one can’t move, and if Tai Lung had hit them on the bridge, the Five would likely have fallen to their deaths — something Tai Lung, as their senior brother, didn’t want to see. In fact, Tai Lung didn’t even want to fight them at all; he just wanted to defeat the so-called “Dragon Warrior,” reclaim his honor and win his master’s approval. This respect for life made the Five doubt — even waver over — the rumors they’d heard before. They didn’t know whose side to take, which is why they left before the final battle; otherwise, given their bravery and their personalities, there’s no way they’d have left their master alone on the mountain to face a powerful enemy by himself.
Later still, when Tai Lung returned to the mountain, he found himself facing his master rather than old Tortoise or the so-called “Dragon Warrior,” and his master refused to forgive him no matter what — that’s when he said those sour words (listen closely and there’s almost a sob in his voice…). Deep down he was jealous of Fat Po. Then, out of respect for his master, he didn’t want to fight him and meant to turn and leave, but his master insisted on fighting, so he had no choice but to strike (though this part is a bit of a stretch). After defeating his master, what Badger said moved him deeply, but the Dragon Scroll might be hugely important to him and his family, so he had to harden his heart and press for the scroll’s whereabouts. Yet even though he wanted the scroll badly, the kind-hearted Tai Lung still refused to hurt his beloved master too much — otherwise he could easily have struck a few pressure points that would have caused his master excruciating pain to force the scroll’s location out of him. But he didn’t do that (though I can’t rule out the possibility that foreigners don’t know pressure points can be used that way…). And when he saw Fat Po, he only hit his master’s pressure point so he couldn’t interfere in his fight with the so-called “Dragon Warrior” — he didn’t want to hurt him; otherwise, in that situation, a casual toss into the water might well have drowned Badger…
Then he fought the panda. Though he didn’t like this junior brother, he’d learned from the Five that their master wouldn’t teach the panda and the others the pressure-point technique, so, being a seeker of the martial way, he held to the principle of fairness and never used pressure points. And he didn’t really fight the panda much at all — on the contrary, the panda kept beating on him… Until he actually got the scroll, only to find it was a fake (only a simpleton like Fat Po would believe the Dragon Scroll was blank). Being clever, he knew Tortoise had pulled a trick — but since he thought Tortoise was dead, there was probably no one left who knew where the real scroll was. Decades of effort down the drain; his spirit broke, and he struck the panda hard. Unfortunately for him, the panda was immune to pressure points, and Tai Lung, reeling from the blow, had no heart for the fight, while the panda, heartless thing that he is, hit especially hard — so in the end he was defeated and killed by the panda (or was his kung fu stripped?), truly a case of a tiger fallen to the plains being bullied by dogs.
5, About the panda: dopey as he is, you have to admit he’s also a martial arts prodigy. And since he’s an orphan too, I suspect he’s connected to Tai Lung and the Dragon Scroll. Maybe both the panda and Tai Lung are the orphaned survivors of the clans that guarded the scroll. Of course, Tai Lung is probably a generation older than Fat Po. Fat Po’s dad might be a polar bear (Tai Lung is a snow leopard; their home base could be an ice field, maybe even the model for the Peach Ridge Prison), and his mom a black bear from the Valley of Peace (obviously a panda can’t actually be born from that — I’m just making this up). As for why he wasn’t with Fat Po, I’m not sure — maybe it’s connected to Tortoise sending men disguised as Tai Lung to massacre people in the Valley of Peace 20 years ago, and his parents died fighting to the last. Tortoise might well have known about this too, which is why he chose Fat Po as the Dragon Warrior — maybe he thought it’d be fun to have the descendants of the two guardian clans kill each other~ What an evil old man~
6, About the Wuxi Finger Hold: this probably isn’t martial arts at all — it’s most likely an immortal art Tortoise learned from the real Dragon Scroll. Tortoise told Badger about it so he could defend against Tai Lung, and Fat Po, being a descendant of the guardians, figured it out on his own.
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Most of the above is well-grounded — it’s pieced together from details in the film plus guesswork and association, not just talk. But what follows is pure nonsense, purely my own speculation…
Long ago, at the end of the Third Dynasty, the Sorcerer King’s rule was about to be brought to an end. The last of the Sorcerer royal family ordered the imperial guards — the snow leopard warriors and the ice bear strongmen clans — to migrate with their entire clans to the kingdom’s treasury, the Peach Ridge Vault, to guard the last treasures of the Sorcerer Kingdom: the Dragon Scroll and the Phoenix Scroll, until they were once again summoned by the Sorcerer King. In exchange, the strongest members of the two clans could study the contents of the scrolls and share in their powerful and mysterious force.
Time passed; centuries went by and dynasties rose and fell. Over those centuries the warriors of the two clans multiplied and prospered, still keeping their oath, guarding the two scrolls in that ice-bound land unknown to anyone. Until one day a man appeared who changed the fate of both clans: the son of the chieftain of the polar bear clan, and Fat Po’s biological father, Whitewave. One day, while out hunting, young Whitewave was caught in a powerful blizzard. He risked his life pulling a companion who’d been blown away by the storm back into a sheltered cave, but was himself blown off a cliff. After days of unconsciousness, he was — how soap-opera is this — rescued and taken home by a beautiful young woman of the black bear clan who was up the mountain gathering herbs, Blackie (yes, I’m being way too silly…). And even more soap-opera: they fell in love just like that… And the most soap-opera part needs no explanation: the fair maiden (fair bear?) Blackie was, of course, the adopted daughter of the big villain old Tortoise. And Whitewave, being naive, carelessly let slip quite a few of the scrolls’ secrets to his future father-in-law. Old Tortoise, who had already cultivated his kung fu to its peak and could scarcely advance further in his own practice, naturally turned his greedy eyes toward the Dragon and Phoenix Scrolls.
So, following the standard soap-opera script, Whitewave and Blackie innocently returned to Peach Ridge with the fine wine old Tortoise had given them — doctored, of course. The two clans, seeing the young chieftain they’d thought dead return safe and sound, and having brought back a petite dark beauty to boot, joyfully threw a grand banquet, and even the guards drank a lot. Then old Tortoise charged into the vault with a band of wicked rhino bandits. The warriors of both clans, having drunk the poisoned wine, were too weak to fight back. Only Whitewave and Blackie, along with the snow leopard chieftain’s young son Tai Lung, managed to fight their way out; every other clan member was killed. But apart from a great hoard of gold and silver treasures, old Tortoise searched the entire vault and could not find the two legendary mystic scrolls.
Whitewave and Blackie, both wounded and with young Tai Lung in tow, fled in a panic and ended up near the Jade Palace, intending to ask Master Badger — one of Blackie’s former suitors (I first thought he was a red panda; a badger chasing a bear is a bit weird, heh~) — for help. But at the foot of the mountain they were caught up by Tortoise and his crew (don’t ask me why a tortoise can run that fast…). With no way out, Whitewave and his wife threatened to carry the scrolls’ secret to their graves, making the scrolls’ whereabouts an eternal mystery. Old Tortoise had no choice but to strike a deal with them: Tai Lung would be raised by Badger until he came of age and would inherit the power of the Dragon Scroll, and in return Whitewave would hand the Phoenix Scroll over to Tortoise. So Whitewave left Tai Lung outside the gates of the Jade Palace and gave the Dragon Scroll to Master Badger for safekeeping, asking him to bestow it on Tai Lung when he came of age. Whitewave and Blackie then settled down in the Valley of Peace.
In the blink of an eye, 19 years passed. Tai Lung grew up strong under Master Badger’s guidance (and with the love of Whitewave and Blackie, of course — though they never told Tai Lung about the clan’s massacre, and Master Badger didn’t know either). His martial arts progressed at astonishing speed: sparring bare-handed with Master Badger, who was in the prime of his life, he could hold his own for hundreds of moves without giving ground. So in no time the day came for Master Badger to bestow the Dragon Scroll on Tai Lung — but the cunning old Tortoise had plans of his own.
On the morning of the ceremony day, Tortoise told Master Badger that etiquette required the ceremony be held at night, but he told Tai Lung that Master Badger didn’t think his character was upright enough and would no longer choose him as the Dragon Warrior. Dejected, Tai Lung went down the mountain to find Uncle Whitewave, who had always doted on him, only to find Whitewave and his wife lying in a pool of blood. It turned out old Tortoise knew Whitewave was going to retrieve the hidden Phoenix Scroll that day and had been following him, then caught him off guard and struck, wounding Whitewave and his wife. With his dying breath, Whitewave told Tai Lung about the clan massacre and his feud with old Tortoise, then breathed his last. Enraged, Tai Lung rushed back up the mountain to challenge Tortoise, but was defeated by him, framed for killing Whitewave and his wife, thrown into the Peach Ridge Vault, and secretly had the real scroll swapped out for a blank one. Meanwhile, though Whitewave and his wife were dead, they had left behind a son not yet a year old — Fat Po (what a prescient name!). After their death he was taken in by a kind-hearted neighbor who ran a noodle shop.
Another 20 years flew by, and so the movie begins… The author is truly unbeatable. My admiration for him… flows on and on like an endless river, and to quote the old saying, “hearing is false, seeing is true” — this is the real deal, I’m genuinely impressed…
Never mind saying the author is nitpicking or overthinking things with too many twists and turns of the mind — after all, there are plenty of BUGs in this film (and many of those BUGs exist because the gags try to be too clever by half, which is how others spot the holes). Everyone has a different level of sensitivity, and highly sensitive people, in order to explain those BUGs to themselves, will naturally go to great lengths with all sorts of logical deductions and assumptions. The result is that they’ve reworked this film into a hidden plot in the style of a Chinese wuxia story — and that research spirit deserves praise.
Even though the plot isn’t really this complicated, and I prefer the simple original story, this guy’s analysis makes a lot of sense too. Upvoted. I learned something!