If there was one movie thus far this summer that was most surprising, in that I did not expect to be mentioning it so often, it would definitely be Kung Fu Panda. For one, ole’ Jack Black has the tendency to over do it a bit. Additionally, Dreamworks Animation isn’t a studio that has wowed me in the past. Thankfully Kung Fu Panda has come along and wiped all of that away, leaving me with nothing more than the satisfaction of an immensely entertaining experience.

One of my absolute favorite parts about the film is the beautiful animation — it is on a level that we have not seen in the past from the aforementioned Dreamworks Animation team. And two particularly cool parts are the opening moments, a beautiful dream sequence that mixes flat, sketch-like animation with the fully rendered CG, and the closing credits, which delivered much of the same. With that in mind, I am more than happy to share with you the following clip, which is the entire closing credits from the film. Hopefully you will see what I mean when I talk about the beauty of the animation:

Designed by Shine, a studio that has worked on title sequences and promos for such projects as “The Sarah Connor Chronicles” and the Marvel Entertainment opening (with the flipping comic book pages), the closing sequence also features a cover of the classic jam “Kung Fu Fighting” by Gnarls Barkley’s Cee-Lo Green and Jack Black. The sequence could serve, at least in my opinion, as a featurette in itself, as it shows of tons of great concept art from the film. It is just one of those little things that so many people often overlook, but when you really think about it a lot of hard work and creativity goes into this part of the production. Sometimes it is worth it to stay until the end of the credits, even when you know that Samuel L. Jackson won’t be showing up.

For more on the work of Shine, check out their site at ShineStudio.tv. For more on Kung Fu Panda, I would humbly recommend our Kung Fu Preview.