A scene from Kung Fu Panda 3. [Photo/Mtime]

The third installment to the Kung Fu Panda franchise earned a record 380 million yuan ($57.79 million) on the Chinese mainland in just three days since its premiere on Jan 29.

Abroad, it beat Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu's The Revenant, starring Leonardo DiCaprio and one of the hottest films vying for the Oscars this year, earning $41 million in ticket sales compared with $12.4 million by The Revenant in US and Canada in its opening weekend.

To director Teng Huatao, the Chinese counterpart to the Jennifer Yuh Nelson, the mastermind behind the Kung Fu Panda franchise, even though the Chinese production team wove numerous Chinese elements into the film, and even with the Chinese-language version tailored for the Chinese audience, Kung Fu Panda 3 is still not a Chinese film "because it is a film for the world to see."

Serene leadership

"I was talking with DreamWorks about a possibility of filming something. I was very interested in animation, and they said 'you should be part of a mega-anime production'," Teng reflects on how he joined the team of the third installment to the beloved panda franchise.

By the second half of 2014, Teng and Oriental DreamWorks were in Los Angeles working with their US partners.

"They've been working on it for two and a half years. We had weekly script meetings, and the Chinese team would share their thoughts on scripts. Jennifer would show me their dubbing sessions. I was there for three months, and returned home to cast actors for the Chinese version," revealed Teng.

In Teng's eyes, Nelson, who storyboarded the first film and directed the second, was very peaceful and serene in private.

"She said her role was to calm everybody down when they were loud; otherwise her words will go unheard. A good work is not made in a hurry. It's an advantage for someone of her character to make animation, for it is a very long process. Sometimes, you are dealing with the same thing for four years," added Teng.