Welcome back stinkers, for today I have decided to talk about the film Kung Fu Panda 4. Now I have already seen the other films which are great, I highly recommend you go check those out. So without further ado, Kung Fu Panda 4.
Non-Spoiler Review
So I’m just gonna say that I enjoyed this film a lot more than other people do. Now don’t get me wrong I think the first three are better, I just didn’t go into this with the expectation that other people would have after watching the first trilogy. I think the key to my enjoyment of the film was that it was starting something new. It was pretty lucky they were able to get a trilogy let alone get a fourth installment. Taking what the director has said and the story from the movies itself, it’s not going to be those first three films. What I like about the first three is that they were able to stand on their own, but also build off of each other. And my guess on what’s going to happen is that Dreamworks are going to go ahead with Kung Fu Panda 5 and 6. And we’re just going to take a giant step back. And each and everything is going to be great and amazing again. Because if Dreamworks gets the right people, all this new trilogy is going to do is not only build off of each other, but I would say build off of the original trilogy. So, when the movie finished I’ve really just come to appreciate it for what it is. It’s got super cool action sequences that are just tied together so well with the score. I was so glad when I saw that Hans Zimmer came back for the film. I think the music helped convey some emotion in little parts throughout the film as well. Now there isn’t emotion like in the second one, but I would say each Kung Fu Panda film succeeds in showing some sort of emotion. I even liked the chemistry that Awkwafina and Jack Black had. I thought it was pretty fun and enjoyable to watch this relationship grow throughout the film. I also thought that the sub plot of the story with Lee and Ping was pretty sweet. I also enjoyed how experimental the movie got with introducing brand new animals, with a whole new location, making one big adventure that we’ve never really seen before in the franchise. Getting into my negatives, I have some issues with the villain and a bit of the setup. Our villain in this story is The Chameleon, who can shapeshift into anybody, including Po’s old villains. With an ability like that the Chameleon should seem mighty and powerful, the most powerful villain in all of the franchise, but it wasn’t really conveyed very well. We never even really got a lot of her either. She has such a weak backstory as well, a backstory that pretty much no one feared. Another thing that I didn’t really like about her is when she started to touch pretty much entire arcs from the previous movies. It just left a pretty bad taste in my mouth. One other negative that I took away from the movie was the setup. It was very forced. A lot of stuff in the movie felt forced. From main plot points to characters and their dialogue. Pretty much if you took away this one push that Po gets to start his journey, none of this would have happened.
Kung Fu Panda 4 Comparison
Now that my overall thoughts are out of the way, this is usually where I like to go back through those thoughts, and talk about them more in depth, marching into spoiler territory. You’ve been warned. So let’s talk about the comparison people make between this one and the original three. I don’t understand all the whining that has been going on. It’s not good because it doesn’t have The Furious 5 in there, or it doesn’t have Master Oogway in there. At the end of the day you just need to let go. Yes that charm they brought before wasn’t there, but the character Zhen had some pretty big shoes to fill, and there would be no way she would be able to fill the shoes of five characters all with their own personalities. What I keep trying to say is that you just have to give it time. Kung Fu Panda is a story that is long and continuous that takes a hot minute for it to unfold and wrap up. Another reason I would like to bring up is that it’s a different director. Every single Kung Fu Panda movie has a different director, with the exception of the 2nd and third one, but even though the director of the second film was a part of the 3rd installment, there was still another person that influenced the story. So, each movie in a way has its own sort of vision. Kung Fu Panda 4 is just the most noticeable, but that’s ok. I mean at some point you have to let go of the past. I mean the director, Mike Mitchel, said himself that they tried to include the Furious Five, but not a whole lot to where they can start new things, including new character arcs. I think the Furious Five only showing up at the end almost benefited the story. Kung Fu Panda movies are so good at character development, and they haven’t really had a new character that is integral to the story and they stayed for more than one movie. Really the only exception you can make is Lee, who I think is great. I like his character very much. So, I’m glad that they decided to move away from The Furious 5. It wouldn’t be that easy to put in a new story when it gets too crowded. All I’m saying is that you just got to let Kung Fu Panda cook. Kung Fu Panda cooked before I think it’s gonna cook again. I am going to leave off with the fact that when you have these characters on their own journeys, like when Po explains where the five have been, you do start to make room for spinoffs. And like I said about the whole overarching story, once you get through this second trilogy, Po could officially go off to the spirit realm and leave Zhen off on her own Dragon Warrior journey.
Lee and Ping
Alright. Let’s talk about the sub plot of the story with Lee and Ping. Overall I thought that it was a bittersweet story. I enjoyed it very much, the message it was able to deliver. I thought it was really solid. Now, like other people I do have to say that some of these characters suffer from imposter syndrome. So, with Lee it did feel like there was a bit of collision with how his character was portrayed in the past. He was shown as brave and bold, someone that will stand up for who he cares for. Now saying that, I kind of disagree with what other people have said about Lee in this. Now I understand he was more cowardly in this and they just jammed the development of overcoming your fears into this movie. But in a way he was doing the right things for the wrong reasons. Now let me explain. In the second and third movie Lee was presented as a dad that will do anything to make it up to his son, and he’ll stand up for who he cares about. In those two, he was protecting his family in a fearless manner. Now in this one he is standing up for Ping, he tries to fight in order to help out his son. So, he’s still standing up for who he cares about, but he was doing it in a way where he was hiding behind a cape and pan for a hat. It’s almost something that the old version of Po would do. Po would project his nerdiness into his fighting, and Lee was projecting his care in his fighting, wasn’t really the Lee that I watched from before. He isn’t a person that hides behind something he’s not, he is a person that’ll fight as himself. So, that’s what I kind of mean by, doing the right thing for the wrong reasons. He stood up for who he cared for, but he wasn’t really himself when doing so. Now that’s just one half of the sub plot, you still have Mr. Ping. Now I will always like Mr. Ping, James Hong always delivers with the emotion that he puts into the character. In each movie you see the care Ping has for his son, and it’s such an interesting storyline, in the first movie you had him lose a part of his son to kung fu, in the second one he lost a part of him to the truth, he almost lost him to death! Then and the third one he just about loses his son to his biological dad. All of these events are great at building character for him, and yes Po was always there for his dad, Ping never really lost his son, but in every movie in his view he just about lost his son in every movie. He just about lost his son to the spirit realm as well. So, seeing him in the fourth one, he was only worried of losing his son to criminals, but this time he was able to worry with someone else. Lee was there for him this time! So, I just thought that was great how once again, Kung Fu Panda was able to build off of each other, just in this way Lee and Ping both developed more character and they each literally lifted each other up.
Po and Zhen
Now that we’ve talked about the chemistry between Lee and Ping. Let’s talk about the chemistry between our main characters, Po and Zhen. Now I really enjoyed seeing these two on screen. I will always enjoy the character of Po. But now that we’ve taken away the Furious Five and replaced them with Zhen. Now she certainly has a lot of shoes to fill, replacing the five. But, it’s not fair to judge her based on that. Like I said, I think you just need to give it time, it’s absolutely impossible for a character to fill in for five different characters with five completely different personalities. So, I think we just need to grow with Zhen, and spend some more time with her. Watch, Kung Fu Panda 6 is going to come back and everyone is going to love her. Now of course I say that with hope that Dreamworks picks the right people, but if they keep doing what they’re doing I think they don’t have any problem. Of course they still have to fix the issues that appear in the movie which are pretty severe. I think for Zhen she has a pretty good backstory to where I was just barely able to connect with her character in a way I was able to do with the rest of the characters in the franchise. Let’s take the betrayal, the big turning point of the film. Now it was able to convey emotion, especially when she ran up and gave Po a hug, and I wanted to tear up, I really did. But it never delivered that big emotional push that the second film was able to do. I mean that scene when Po comes back to his dad gets me every time. I have a feeling that when I go back and rewatch the film, that at that moment I’m just not going to care. Which is really unfortunate to me. Now, the emotional bond between Po and Zhen didn’t completely work out for me, but the comedic playfulness that you get throughout the film did work. It was fun to see Po correct Zhen whenever she did something wrong. I mean some lines in here did give me a chuckle. You are going to get some of that low brow humor in here, which you just gotta accept for a kids movie. If you can’t beat’em join’em. I laughed at some of those jokes, I laughed right along with some of the other kids in that theater on that first watch. And to talk about Po, Jack Black sure hasn’t lost it. Jack Black still delivers that charm that he’s always brought to the character. I mean I would like to mention the Britney Spears Tenacious D cover of Baby One More Time. I mean truly beautiful, and the song had so much of an impact in theaters compared to my phone. I think the biggest take away that I got from the song was to not let Tenacious D cover your song because all they’re going to do is make it better.
Po Choosing the Next Dragon Warrior
Now this movie had a lot of positives for me. But of course this one sadly has some negatives. So, let’s get into this story’s setup. I would have to say it was pretty forced. It never really did a good job on explaining why Po had to find a replacement Dragon Warrior. I mean Oogway was never forced to choose a Dragon Warrior, he chose it when he was ready to choose. I mean why is Shifu telling what Po to do, because at this point Po is more powerful than him and he has to be the new Oogway, but Shifu is telling him that he needs to be the new Oogway like he was the current Oogway. It’s very confusing, the Kung Fu Panda story has a very clear story but this has to be the most forced, most confusing part of the story. It was pretty much just convenience, and I never really like it when they base a story off of convenience. So, now Shifu doesn’t feel all that helpful and wise, he just felt more pushy, something Oogway would never really do. And because Oogway is gone, Shifu has to be the one to step in and be the wise one to Po, but he kind of fails at that. And that’s kind of where the imposter syndrome comes into here. Shifu is yet another character that doesn’t feel like his own self. I do have to say, one thing that I liked after the movie was when Po chooses Zhen as the Dragon Warrior, and he hates the idea, and Po tells Zhen that he’ll come around. I thought that was a fun way to kind of make a full circle moment, especially if you’re going to finish and develop two other movies and send Zhen off on her own after that.
The Chameleon
Now one other big negative I took away from the movie was the villain. Every movie before this had amazing villains. I would say all three of them were beautifully written, they had a huge presence on screen. The Chameleon had so much potential. But her presence wasn’t really there. I think maybe if she had a bigger amount of screentime it might’ve helped her character develop, and allow the audience to connect with her on a deeper level. But she never really had that emotional value, that I do think they should’ve kept over from the original movies. And certainly, the ingredients were there. That plot twist, where it’s revealed that she took in Zhen on her own, was pretty heartbreaking. And thinking about it on a deeper level, when Ke Huy Quan’s character, Han, is with Zhen bowing down to the Chameleon, it’s pretty heartbreaking when Zhen leaves him for the Chameleon. And you often see how hurt he was throughout the film. Now another part that I didn’t like about the Chameleon, is when she started to sort of touch the other movies. So, she brings back every single kung fu master from the spirit realm, including Po’s past villains, and the reason she brought them back was because she was slim and tiny. That just feels lazy. That’s the only part of the film that felt like a lazy excuse, to make a quick buck off of people’s nostalgia. And when she started to bring Tai Lung back, then Kai, then Shen, it just started to feel a bit disrespectful. Shen and Kai didn’t even talk, and Tai Lung didn’t really feel like himself. When I thought about it, I think it goes deeper to then Tai Lung not feeling like himself, I think there’s a whole other story that we missed. I think while he was in the spirit realm, he was able to learn, and appreciate Po as the Dragon Warrior. So it honestly had the chance to have a full circle moment, but it was like now you see me, now you don’t. Whenever Po saved everybody, everyone including the villains bowed down to him in respect, and I was basically like where did all of this come from. It was just unexpected, odd, maybe even a little disrespectful to the past. What I think would’ve worked, is have the other villains have some sort of speaking role. I would’ve even maybe consulted the original creators of these villains on what to do with the characters. I think it also would’ve been better if the audience was filled in more on what happened, and why Tai Lung and the rest of the villains had a change of heart.
Review Recap
That is going to wrap it up for my review of Kung Fu Panda 4. I thought it was a very fun addition, I liked how they’re starting to branch off with certain characters. My enjoyment was just sadly brought down by the fact that it lacked emotion, and depth. With that being said I will give this movie a Silent but Deadly on the stinky review scale, with my final score being, 7/10. Thank you lots for reading my review of Kung Fu Panda 4. Make sure you visit more of The Big Stinker Blog for weekly reviews on other movie, and to get the latest movie, television, and gaming news.