DreamWorks Animation has successfully brought back one of its most iconic franchises with the release of Kung Fu Panda 4. Jack Black’s heroic Giant Panda Po last graced theater screens in 2016’s Kung Fu Panda 3, and he’s been honing his mad martial arts skills in the 8 years since. Directed by DreamWorks veteran Mike Mitchell (Shrek Forever After, Trolls) and co-directed by Stephanie Ma Stine (She-Ra and the Princesses of Power), Kung Fu Panda 4 sees Po tasked by Master Shifu (Dustin Hoffman) to find a new Dragon Warrior to take his place as he rises to become the Spiritual Leader of the Valley of Peace, like Grand Master Oogway (Randall Duk Kim) before him. But finding his successor proves to be more challenging when he doesn’t want to give up the title because he loves it so much.
Enter Zhen (Awkwafina), a sly Corsac fox who’s an expert thief. Although Po and Zhen get off on the wrong foot at first, they soon decide to join forces to track down a powerful new foe named The Chameleon (Oscar-winner Viola Davis). The Chameleon may look like just a tiny lizard, but she’s really a powerful sorceress who can shapeshift into any creature. She plans to use Po’s Staff of Wisdom to re-summon all of the master villains from previous films, including Tai Lung (Ian McShane). Zhen claims she’s the only one cunning enough to find The Chameleon, thus setting the odd-couple duo on an adventure to the faraway urban land of Juniper City. As they face off against all kinds of thieves and scoundrels on their quest, Po discovers that heroes can be found in the most unexpected places, pointing to Zhen being the next Dragon Warrior.
A Panda’s Iconic Legacy
Revisiting the last three Kung Fu Panda movies will make anyone realize that the franchise’s action and stylized animation were always ahead of its time, often mixing 2D and 3D visuals with impressively choreographed fight scenes. Recent animated films like Spider-Man: Across the Spider-verse, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem, and DreamWorks’ own Puss in Boots: The Last Wish have signaled a new creative renaissance for Western animation. So, it only makes sense for the Kung Fu Panda series to continue this progress with its long-awaited comeback. In sitting down with director Mike Mitchell for an exclusive interview, we were able to learn how Kung Fu Panda 4 managed to elevate the fight sequences to a whole new level of intensity.
In this sequel, every punch and kick is felt across the screen and adds weight to the story’s cinematic scale. According to Mike Mitchell, a lot of this has to do with the fact that plenty of the artists and animators on Kung Fu Panda 4 also worked on the previous trilogy. “They know this world, they know the characters, and I think they are the best animators I’ve ever worked with at DreamWorks Animation,” the director says firmly. However, it wasn’t just the returning crew who played a huge role behind the scenes. The project inherited “a lot of fresh animators” as well Mitchell explains, some who even grew up with the first Kung Fu Panda film as kids in the theater. “They had tears in their eyes because they were like… I can’t believe that I’m now going to animate Po, this is amazing!”
Po and Zhen Get a Stunt Team
Director Mike Mitchell emphasized that the combination of new and returning artists familiar with the series was pivotal in the animation process of Kung Fu Panda 4. This is mainly because this sequel was going to experiment with a new technique that the previous three films had not done. For the first time in the franchise, DreamWorks hired a professional stunt team to assist the animators with the fight scenes. “We hired a stunt team, many of whom worked on Marvel films, and they would act out and do the kung fu moves,” Mitchell reveals. There’s way more to this technique than meets the eye because it took multiple steps for the Kung Fu Panda 4 animators to transfer the stunt team’s physical martial arts choreography over to Po and Zhen’s action scenes.
“We would videotape [the stunt team] and the woman who played Zhen even wore a big tail so the animators could watch the follow-through of all her movements,” says Mitchell. Funnily enough, this sort of means that Po and Zhen had stunt doubles! Mitchell recalls that “the stunt team acted out spectacular, authentic moves, specifically with Po’s new weapon the Staff of Wisdom.” Po was given the Staff of Wisdom by Grand Master Oogway in the spirit realm at the end of the third movie. In Kung Fu Panda 4, fans get to see a new side to Po as he learns to fulfill his responsibilities with the staff and pass on knowledge as the new Spiritual Leader, in his own silly yet wholesome way of course. This hilarious progression for Po wouldn’t have been possible without the stunt team acting out his moves with the staff itself.
Mixing the Old School with New School
There was plenty more work to be done after the stunt team acted out all the choreography on camera. Director Mike Mitchell explains that another team of animators then stepped in to draw the stunt team’s moves in traditional 2D animation. “I call it mixing old school with new school,” Mitchell proudly states. “They would hand draw the moves with a pencil and then we would hand animate it.” But why go through the process of hand drawing the fight scenes if Kung Fu Panda 4 was going to be mostly 3D animation? Mitchell claims that this process created “a really cool look that had a loose feel to it” when it was then put into CGI. The action in the final film is both incredibly dynamic and fluid, so it seems like this technique paid off big time.
Plus, according to Mitchell, hand-drawing the action sequences and then transferring them over to the computer for 3D animation “actually saved time.” Kung Fu Panda 4 opens the door to a new possible trilogy, so it wouldn’t be a surprise if DreamWorks Animation utilizes a stunt team again to bring the fight sequences to life and perhaps even continue to elevate the cinematic scale with new methods. The Kung Fu Panda franchise seems like it’s far from over, thanks to director Mike Mitchell, co-director Stephanie Ma Stine, and their team of artists and animators. As we said in our Kung Fu Panda 4 review, “The final battle between Po and the Chameleon (Viola Davis eating up the scene per usual) is some of the best action DreamWorks has ever animated, period.” Fans who grew up with the original trilogy will want to see this on the big screen.
Release Date: March 8, 2024.
Directed by Mike Mitchell.
Written by Jonathan Aibel, Glenn Berger, & Darren Lemke.
Produced by Rebecca Huntley.
Main Cast: Jack Black, Awkwafina, Viola Davis, Dustin Hoffman, James Hong, Bryan Cranston, Ian McShane, Ke Huy Quan, Lori Tan Chinn, & Ronny Chieng.
Composers: Hans Zimmer & Steve Mazzaro.
Production Company: DreamWorks Animation.
Distributor: Universal Pictures.
Runtime: 94 minutes.
Rated: PG.
