Who Plays Monkey In The Kung Fu Panda Movie And TV Show?

The "Kung Fu Panda" franchise focuses primarily on its titular character, Po, the Dragon Warrior (Jack Black). However, it also features plenty of other martial arts-trained animals, such as the protagonist panda's primary allies, the Furious Five. These legendary masters are themed after famous kung fu styles, and while they tend to take the back seat while the spotlight shines on Po, they're still important supporting characters throughout the series.

Since the Furious Five are so prominent, their voice actors also sound quite familiar — for instance, Angelina Jolie voices Tigress in the movies, while Lucy Liu, David Cross, and Seth Rogen lend their voices to Viper, Crane, and Mantis, respectively. The fifth member of the group, Monkey, also has some serious vocal talent behind him. Here's a look at the two actors who play Monkey in the "Kung Fu Panda" franchise, Jackie Chan and James Sie.

The story of Jackie Chan's career features its share of voice acting, but few of his voice roles manage to combine the comedic martial arts aspect of his live-action roles with animated fun as successfully as Master Monkey, whom he voices in the initial "Kung Fu Panda" film and its first two sequels.

The seasoned actor and producer's career started in the early 1960s, and his prop-heavy, lighthearted brand of kung fu has become his calling card. There's a lengthy laundry list of movie scenes that nearly killed Chan during his career-long résumé of death-defying stunts, and his movies, from his best to his worst, all hold their own charms. But seeing as Monkey's acrobatic, humorous fighting style bears more than a few similarities to Chan's own live-action stylings, the "Police Quest" and "Rush Hour" star was a natural choice to voice the character.

James Sie takes over Master Monkey's vocal duties for the franchise's various small-screen installments, including 2008's "Kung Fu Panda" video game and its 2011 sequel, "Kung Fu Panda 2." He voices a young version of Monkey in 2012's "Kung Fu Panda: Awesome Secrets Collection" and the adult version of the character in the three-season Nickelodeon animated show "Kung Fu Panda: Legends of Awesomeness" and 2016's "Kung Fu Panda: Secrets of the Scroll." He's also voiced several other characters in assorted "Kung Fu Panda" shows and movies, including another prominent monkey character, Sun Wukong, on Amazon Prime Video's "Kung Fu Panda: The Paws of Destiny" series.

It may not be a complete coincidence that Sie is perhaps the most fitting person alive to voice a character made famous by Jackie Chan. After all, he's voiced the animated version of Chan himself in all five seasons of "Jackie Chan Adventures." He also provides the voice for several characters on "King of the Hill," "Avatar: The Last Airbender," "Batman: The Brave and the Bold," and "Stillwater" — among many others. He also appears as a cabbage merchant in two episodes of Netflix's live-action "Avatar: The Last Airbender" as a fun nod to his work as the same character in the animated Nickelodeon series.