I know Kung Fu. But imagine it less Keanu Reeves in The Matrix and more … Jack Black in Kung Fu Panda 3!

One can learn a lot from movies. I’ve watched enough to know. I was a film major in college and even worked in Hollywood for a while. During university I lived next door to a cineplex. My student pass made it cheaper to go to the movies every night than own a TV.

I have watched a lot of rubbish! I quite often do it deliberately. Terrible films offer passive, mind-numbing escapism and they’ve taught me how not to write a movie. I wonder if, when I’m lying on my deathbed, I’ll be desperately wishing I still had all those hours I frittered on mediocre Hollywood schmaltz.

But every now and then you get a good one. A story that speaks to the heart, a character that inspires a smile, or an action, a line of dialogue that connects us to some truth — some mirror of our own passion, values or greatest desires.

Surprisingly I found all that last week in a butt-kicking, dumpling-eating panda. Often I’m sceptical of film franchises — must we string this out a third time? Apparently, yes. When it works, it works. And that chubby, vulnerable, imaginative, playful, loving, try-hard enthusiast gave a distinct nod and one of those come-hither/bring-it-on hand gestures (now think Keanu Reeves) to my own internal awesomeness. Sometimes we need reminders. We need inspiration.

“You can’t be someone else — only you. Your real strength comes from being the best you, you can be.”

I believe that’s true. Thank you, Po. With understated nudges to step outside our comfort zones and find our power in giving rather than taking, it’s an all-round life affirmer touching on the very life-lessons I endeavour to learn.

Another great is Richard Curtis’s About Time (2013): “I just try to live every day as if I’ve deliberately come back to this one day, to enjoy it as if it was the full final day of my extraordinary, ordinary life.” Perfect.

Or the 2006 film, The Pursuit of Happyness. I’d like anyone to get through that dry-eyed.

“Hey. Don’t ever let somebody tell you you can’t do something. Not even me. All right? You got a dream, you gotta protect it. People can’t do somethin’ themselves, they wanna tell you you can’t do it. If you want somethin’, go get it. Period.” Period.

This is the stuff we can learn from. Okay, so Jackie Chan might disagree that I now actually “know” Kung Fu, but I know a good movie. Siskel and Ebert … Skidoosh! If I were compiling a cine-library of optimism and positivity, Kung Fu Panda 3 (like its predecessors) just made the list. What’s on yours?

• Julia Pitt is a trained success coach and certified NLP practitioner on the team at Benedict Associates. For further information contact Julia on 705-7488, www.juliapittcoaching.com.