Kung Fu Panda The Dragon Knight review: Netflix show is flabby and sags

But when you turn that into an 11-episode series (out now on Netflix), size is all that matters. And however much the good intentions, the bad-ass fights and some interesting new additions, The Dragon Knight is flabby and sags – quite unlike its graceful Po.

There are no discoveries to be made about oneself here, Po having all grown up and even semi-retired as the feted Dragon Master. This latest adventure comes his way when he is on a Food Tour of China and runs into a pair of weasels who are after a mythical gauntlet (shaped quite like the Iron Man’s glove, but never mind).

The weasels, Veruca and brother Klaus Dumont, are voiced by Saba and Geere. And Saba is especially a delight as Veruca.

Also on their chase is the best thing about this series, a bear called Luthera the Wandering Blade, an English knight out to save the Queen and Country from the Dumonts. If the siblings get hold of the gauntlet, followed by three other mythical weapons, they can destroy the world.

Watch Kung Fu Panda The Dragon Knight trailer here:

That kind of thing comes easy to Po, plus or minus many gameful tumbles. What Luthera (Ora) adds, apart from the romantic angle, is myth-building about England and its knights that parallels Po’s own kung fu mysticism. Subliminally there is also a suggestion about the East’s essentially quiet demeanour unlike the muscle-flexing of the West, not the normal discourse now in the wake of China’s rise.

If Luthera’s sword is “forged from the Black Steel of Equinox”, the other weapons in her fellow knights’ armour that she explains in great detail are ‘Bone Kisser’ and ‘Skull Piercer’, to name a few.

Po, the unassuming darling that he is, voiced superbly by Jack Black again, is very, very impressed. So impressed that he pleads with Luthera to let him be her page, the first step in a knight’s journey.

But moments such as these where Po and Luthera, Po and Ping, Dumont and Dumont, can just be, are few and far between. There are always some lizards to fight, lava rivers to cross, imperial guards to tackle, and forbidden fighters to contend with.

Moreover, the great Shifu doesn’t make an appearance, nor do the fab Furious Five. Po does not even get to eat a meal to his “full potential”. And that is a real pity.