KUNG FU PANDA 4 | Dragon Warrior Po heads to the big city, and faces a shape-shifting new threat in the kung-fu-fourquel.
@JORDANFARLEY
1 PANDA EXPRESS
‘It’s been a while since the last Kung Fu Panda movie,’ director Mike Mitchell tells Teasers – eight years to be exact. ‘And that’s because we wanted to make the best sequel of all time.’ Now that’s fighting talk. The fourth mainline Kung Fu Panda movie has heavyweight competition if it wants to emerge victorious in the battle for best-sequelevs, not least from Kung Fu Panda 3, which brought the story of dumplingdevouring Dragon Warrior Po to a conclusion of sorts in 2016.
‘When we made 3, we were like, “Wow, we’ve really wrapped it up.” We patted ourselves on the back,’ smiles Mitchell, while talking to TF over Zoom from DreamWorks HQ in LA. ‘But there was such a hunger to see this character again.’
For anyone in need of a recap, KFP3 saw Po (Jack Black) graduate to Grand Master, and bestowed with the Staff of Wisdom after unlocking the door to the Spirit Realm. But what comes next? ‘Po doesn’t want to do anything else. He loves kicking butt and taking names. That’s his thing,’ notes Mitchell. Instead of embracing the natural next step – taking Oogway’s place as the spiritual leader of the Valley of Peace – Po embarks on ‘one last battle’ before evolving into something new.
‘He learns, like we all do, “We’re not giving up anything. We’re just becoming something more than we already are,”’ Mitchell explains. ‘It’s a great lesson for kids and adults. You can’t just [make another movie] because people want it. We really wanted the movie to say something, and to mean something.’
2 FOX FORCE
In his latest quest to kick butt, Po meets travel buddy Zhen (Awkwafina), a Corsac grey fox who eventually becomes a protegé, and potential new Dragon Warrior. Initially, however, they’re less yin and yang than chalk and cheese. ‘She’s a thief and a wanted criminal from the big city,’ Mitchell says. ‘We figured that she would be very fast and wily and, of course, a fox is a very wellknown animal in Chinese culture.’
While Po is typically the joker in the pack, particularly in the company of Shifu (Dustin Hoffman), the freespirited fighter finds himself on the back foot with Zhen. ‘We thought we’d give Po a little bit of frustration. He’s never met someone that’s such a smart alec and so dismissive of kung fu. So there’s still that contrast, but we’ve flipped it a bit.’
3 TAKING SHAPE
In previous films Po has fought fearsome snow leopards, power-hungry peacocks and spirit warrior yaks, but The Chameleon is something very different. ‘He’s never faced a female villain,’ points out Mitchell. As revealed by the film’s recent trailer, Th
