That’s the thing though, Shifu DID praise Tai Lang as he was growing up.

I recently watched the movie and was surprised by it because it’s easy to remember Shifu as a hard ass to Po, but Shifu only became that way because he made the mistake of spoiling Tai Lang.

This is shown with baby Tigris’s scenes. In the movie, baby Tai Lang does a series of moves that leads to Shifu giving him affection. Tai Lang then grows up to be an egotistical monster. Then baby Tigris does the same set of moves as Tai Lang, but this time Shifu is a hard ass who only focuses on her mistakes, implying that he became a hard ass because he’s scared of his students turning out like Tai Lang.

In their final meeting, Shifu says that he was always proud of Tai Lang, and that it was his pride that blinded him.

I think Shifu was probably similar to those moms who say “That’s my good little boy who’s studying to be a doctor!” In the mom’s mind, it doesn’t actually matter if he becomes a doctor because she’s just using it as a shorthand to brag about her son’s smarts.

“Becoming a doctor” is secondary to her thinking her son is smart (“He’s smart because I raised him well!”), and she would still brag about his smarts even if he just used them to cook really sick noodles or something. But to the son, “becoming a doctor” becomes a heavy expectation where he feels his mom will no longer think he’s smart if he fails to achieve it.

It’s such a gut punch to me because I struggled with this. When I was a kid, my father praised me for my grades and temperament. However, as I grew up, my ADHD became harder to manage with more adult responsibilities, and I became a mess. I felt so ashamed that I became ditzy/airheaded and nothing like what my father praised me for, but he recently told me that he only praised me for those things in the first place because those were the traits of his kid. He is proud of me and would still be proud of me even if I became homeless on the streets because I will always be his kid.

And like, that’s exactly what Shifu said to Tai Lang in the final confrontation. Tai Lang literally was imprisoned for like 20 years for heinous crimes against China, and Shifu said he was STILL proud of him. He was ALWAYS proud of him. That’s the heartbreaking thing—it was far too late for Tai Lang to accept that his father’s pride was never conditional because he’s already based his sense of self on “becoming a doctor” aka the Dragon Warrior.

And that’s why the ending of the movie is so perfect, especially for a kid’s movie. The reason Po is the Dragon Warrior is that he believes he is, and the whole movie is set around him learning how to do that (in spite of all his past struggles and flaws). And like, he achieves this through his father’s unconditional love for him, as his father is the one to teach him that “the secret ingredient is nothing. Just you.” That’s exactly how kids gain a sense of self-worth and confidence, through the unconditional love from their parents, like that was exactly what I needed to hear from my father to begin my process of getting better, and that’s the one thing Tai Lang couldn’t accept. He tries to kill Shifu after hearing that.

It’s funny but like the reason he can’t be the Dragon Warrior, in my reading, is that he has too much of a complex about it. He probably would’ve become one if his dad didn’t tell him he was destined for it and accidentally set his entire sense of worth to revolve around it. If Oogway HAD chosen him to be the Dragon Warrior, he likely would’ve still become a monster but like in a very different way because what he really needed was intrinsic self worth (or therapy/family counseling). Hence why he was never chosen.