Chengdu has starring role in Kung Fu Panda 2

From China Daily:

It's no accident that Sichuan's provincial capital Chengdu features heavily in Kung Fu Panda 2. Huang Zhiling reports.

While Kung Fu Panda 2 has made audiences roar with laughter since it hit mainland screens on May 28, it has also put grins on the faces of publicity officials in Sichuan's provincial capital Chengdu. That's because they have managed to put their internationally obscure city on the world's silver screens. The animated flick incorporates many cultural icons of Chengdu, which hosts the world's largest captive panda breeding base.

"Mount Qingcheng, spicy dandan noodles, mapo tofu and hot pot all appear in Kung Fu Panda 2," chief of the city's information office Xiong Yan says.

That's because the production team - none of whom had seen a real panda before working on the sequel - visited the city twice.

Interesting!  I noted in my review of Kung Fu Panda 2 that I really liked the more pronounced Chinese imagery in the second movie, and speculated it might have been due to the fact that the movie was the first Hollywood animated feature directed by an Asian American woman.  Perhaps it was, instead, the time the production team spent in Chengdu.

We spent a few days in Chengdu in 2007, eating dandan noodles and visiting the same place the production crew visited to pet baby pandas, the "Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding." The girls also got to pet a baby panda there!