Fridae

First Kungfu Panda (2008), then Panda Diary (2009), and now Trail of the Panda. Believe us when we say, there’ll be more movies about these black-and-white furballs, these national treasures of China, now that China is fast becoming an economic powerhouse.

The latest panda drama stars 10-year-old Chinese-Japanese actor Daichi Harashima as an orphan who lives with a kind old man (Zheng Xi) in the wilderness of Wolong, Sichuan. When the pair find a panda family in the forest, they decide to tell a scientist (Feng Li) about their discovery. But the scientist decides to take one of baby pandas away for research instead. It is now up to the boy to save our cute baby panda…    

Trail of the Panda was shot against the stunning backdrops of Siguniang Mountain, Balang Mountain and Wolong Giant Panda Nature Reserve in Sichuan Province in early 2008. Without a doubt, there’s plenty of Nature’s beauty to feast your eyes on. But as a film, Trail of the Panda is disappointingly childish and simple. It should please kids and nature lovers, but it may bore everyone else to sleep.

You may, however, still want to watch it for the Wolong scenery. Parts of it were destroyed in the Sichuan Earthquake in May 2008 which killed more than 70,000 people as well as one of the pandas in the movie.