YMMV / Kung Fu Panda 4

• Alternative Character Interpretation:
  • Did Kai choose to bow out gracefully and return the Spirit World because he respects Po now, or out of Pragmatic Villainy because he lost all of his stolen chi when Po defeated him at the end of the previous film and thus stands no chance against him now?
  • The Chameleon's a Manipulative Bitch, and unlike with the previous main antagonists, her backstory isn't shown in flashbacks, so it's left up to interpretation whatever she's truthful (if biased) about her Freudian Excuse, or just using words as a tool against Po.
• Anti-Climax Boss: The Chameleon comes off as this. Despite being hyped up as Po's deadliest foe and having defeated many of his previous villains, Po doesn't really struggle against her as much as he did with Tai Lung, Shen, or Kai. As soon as he hands Zhen his Staff, she quickly takes down the Chameleon with one Chi move Po taught her earlier, and when Chameleon tries one last attempt at a sneak attack, Po himself quickly defeats her, and returns the other Masters' kung fu to them, in one move of his own.
• Applicability: The Chameleon's character motivations and powers can be interpreted to the rise, and discussion, of AI created art, and the ethics and quality of using said AI tools instead of traditional artists in the past few years. The Chameleon was rejected from learning Kung Fu, but still does not seek to train herself in order to become a Kung Fu master through years of practice and discipline. Instead she simply wants to take in the strength and powers of other masters that have come before her without earning it. Furthermore, the forms of the masters which she takes, while mostly accurate, still have noticeable imperfections that distinguish her apart from the masters themselves, which is also a common factor of finding strange flaws that AI art may render such as giving hands too many fingers. The fact that the animators actually used AI art as reference when designing the Chameleon's deformed and twisted transformations, such as her One-Winged Angel form in the climax, only strengthens the parallel.
• Ass Pull: Kai showing up alive and well (technically speaking) after being summoned from the Spirit World by the Chameleon to steal his kung-fu. He had previously been rendered Deader than Dead by Po overstuffing him with his chi, making it so that he couldn't come back in any way, shape, or form. There's no reason given as to how his spirit was able to be brought back.
• Awesome Music: The end credits have a roaring rendition of Britney Spears' "... Baby One More Time", performed by Tenacious D. It drives home its awesomeness thanks to its energetic rock instrumentals and Jack Black's vocals.
• Captain Obvious Reveal: Zhen working under the Chameleon the whole time. It may not have been too noticeable if she hadn't mentioned "someone" took her in off the streets and conveniently didn't specify who. From this, many audience members were already able to put two and two together.
• Catharsis Factor: Considering how smug and vile the Chameleon proves herself to be throughout the film, it can be pretty satisfying to see her get beaten down by Zhen, knocked out by Po, and Dragged Off to Hell by Tai Lung himself.
• Epileptic Trees: Tai Lung being Back from the Dead as shown by the trailer and having a prominent appearance in the poster has led to speculation about what his role would have in the movie. Popular theories involve him getting a Heel–Face Turn, becoming the Token Evil Teammate because of an Enemy Mine situation or becoming the next Dragon Warrior after his Character Development in this movie.
• Evil Is Cool: While not as much as previous villains, the Chameleon still gets some of this thanks to Viola Davis' sinister, yet charismatic performance and frightening shapeshifting powers.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • Remember that World of Warcraft released an expansion that added the Pandaren race a year after the second movie? Zhen's design appears to be a nod to the Vulpera added a couple of years after Kung Fu Panda 3 hit theaters.
  • Awkwafina's role in Raya and the Last Dragon has her voicing a character who's very trusting of other people to a fault, and said character happens to be a dragon. Comes this movie, she's voicing a character who's a thief conning a Dragon Warrior.
  • Following Kung Fu Panda 3, Mr Ping's voice actor, James Hong, already in his eighties, joked that Dreamworks better get a move on making the next movie. When Kung Fu Panda 4 was released, just short of a decade later, Hong was not only still around to reprise Ping and market the movie, but his character was among only a handful of the original characters not reduced to a silent cameo.
• Heartwarming in Hindsight: The film's co-directors clashed with the writers to humanize Zhen and added a more developed remorse scene with Po to demonstrate their bond. This draws amusing parallels between the two Dragon Warriors, as Jack Black similarly pushed for a more likable characterisation for Po in the first film.
• Ho Yay: Mr. Ping and Li Shan are noticeably much closer, so much so that they get an entire b-plot of their own revolving around their mutual concern for their son.
• Informed Wrongness: Po's decision not to appoint a new Dragon Warrior after witnessing five new warriors demonstrate their martial arts, and instead choosing himself, may seem selfish at first glance. However, there are merits to this outcome. While the martial artists were impressive and strong, that's not the reason Oogway chose Po, similar to why he didn't choose the Furious Five. Becoming the Dragon Warrior requires heart and a willingness to learn, along with belief in oneself—qualities that Po observed were lacking in the warriors, unlike what he saw in Zhen. On the other hand, Shifu could just have been trying to get him to get a move on, since his annoyance afterwards had less to do with Po apparently making a mockery out of it, more to do with the fact that he's not even really considering the idea.
• Just Here for Godzilla:
  • Despite certain concerns (see Tainted by the Preview below), Tai Lung's return has been one of or possibly the most positively received thing about the trailer and the film in general, as has been Ian McShane's return to voicing him.
  • In a similar vein, many people argue that, out of every actor who has voiced Tai Lung in the many dubbed versions of the first film, Blas Garcia from the Latin American version may arguably be the greatest, due to how much emotion he puts into the role, especially during the confrontation with Shifu. As such, many Latin American fans as well as many who have come to see the Latin American version despite Spanish not being their native language, were thrilled when the trailer showed that, even though he had retired from voice acting, Blas returned to voice Tai Lung.
• Love to Hate: The Chameleon wants to Take Over the World, is a Bad Boss, psychologically abusive towards Zhen, and firmly believes that Virtue Is Weakness, but her seriousness and lack of humor make her perhaps the most creepy Big Bad yet. In the end, she gets her comeuppance from all the spirit warriors that she wronged.
• Magnificent Bitch: Zhen is a wily thief who proves herself to be far more cunning and complex than the majority of Po's allies. Introduced trying to steal Po's staff from the Jade Palace, Zhen quickly twists things in her favor even after she's been arrested by offering Po advice and assistance in tracking down the villainous Chameleon. Though playing as Po's partner through their journey, Zhen reveals it was a ploy to lure him into the Chameleon's clutches and steal his staff, as Zhen is the Chameleon's top student. However, as Zhen comes to terms with her genuine kinship with Po and tires of her abuse at the Chameleon's hands, she betrays her master and amasses an army of fellow thieves to lay siege to the Chameleon's lair, giving Po the ability to escape near-death. Zhen then works with Po to defeat the Chameleon once and for all, and earns herself the title of the new Dragon Warrior.
• Memetic Loser: The Chameleon quickly started to receive this after the movie premiered, with many mocking how the narrative seems to treat her as Po's greatest foe yet, only for her to go down quite anticlimactically compared to Po's other enemies, her utilization of The Worf Effect to steal the kung-fu of "the real Kung-Fu Panda villains", the fact that she's not given any real nuanced motives for her actions besides being short, and coming off as incredibly lazy since she was a Rich Bitch who had all the wealth and resources to hire a kung fu instructor from at least some part of China but couldn't be bothered to even do that. Her pathetically begging Zhen to save her as she's taken into the Spirit Realm by Tai Lung doesn't exactly help.
• Older Than They Think: The film features several plot elements that were previously used in the three television series, most notably Kung Fu Panda: Legends of Awesomeness:
  • The core plot involves a sorceress-type villain who plans to use her powers as revenge for being outcast by society, and invoking an Enemy Mine situation between Po and various criminals and past villains who are in equal danger by her plans, a premise not too distant from the series finale "Emperor's Rule".
  • At one point, The Chameleon shifts into a duplicate of Po. Upon seeing this, Po then prepares to quite literally face himself. Po actually faced off against an evil version of himself in the Legends of Awesomeness series. In the episode "Bad Po", Po looks into a mystic Yin and Yang mirror that splits him into a good Po and an evil Po. The difference here is that The Chameleon only adopts Po's appearance instead of splitting his personality in half and is not an identical copy of the panda either due to having subtle reptilian features.
    • Similarly, a villain copying Po's likeness has been done before in the form of Master Ding (albeit through ghostly possession, rather than mimicking).
  • Zhen's character arc as a criminal lackey who serves under an evil matriarchal mother figure and pretends to befriend Po to steal an artifact from the Jade Palace for her boss, only to become a Guilt-Ridden Accomplice and Heel–Face Turn when their bond becomes real, bears several similarities to Song's arc in the Legends of Awesomeness episode "Ladies of the Shade".
  • Han, the leader of the Den of Thieves, wasn't the first pangolin character to appear in the KFP franchise, leading a band of thieves. In Legends of Awesomeness, there was another villainous pangolin named Sanzu who was the leader of a crew of child thieves. While it's difficult to say whether the people who worked on Kung Fu Panda 4 even watched Legends of Awesomeness, one has to seriously wonder if Sanzu was the inspiration for Han, particularly since Sanzu was never that well-remembered or memorable of a One-Shot Character and when people do recall the one time villains from the show, they're more likely to fondly remember villains like Mugan or Kim the Invincible than Sanzu.
  • The main concept of The Dragon Knight features Po having to join forces with wanted criminals to save the day, much like how he does here with Zhen.
  • The idea of Po no longer being Dragon Warrior has been done before. In "Challenge Day" of Legends of Awesomeness, Shifu already brought up the possibility of Po no longer having the title of Dragon Warrior, though during that time he was only playing a prank on Po due to Po's complacent attitude. Whereas in this movie, Shifu is completely serious about Po relinquishing the title so he can go on to become a real spiritual leader. It also happened again in Dragon Knight where the plot is kicked off by Po losing his Dragon Master title (in the Alternate Continuity that being his "upgraded" title) and spending most of the series without it and much like the movie, he doesn't take it lightly the idea of having to lose his title.
  • The concept of bringing Tai Lung "back" has also been done once in Legends of Awesomeness during "Master and the Panda". The only difference is that back then, Po used a shift stone to briefly impersonate Tai Lung to bring Tai Lung's nephew Peng back to his senses whereas in this movie, Tai Lung is brought back for real.
  • This is not the first time Po's main opponent is a female reptile, having fought Shi Long a female komodo dragon in The Paws of Destiny
• Protection from Editors: According to an interview with co-director Stephanie Ma Stine posted on the r/kungfupanda subreddit, director Mike Mitchell was given complete creative control over the film's story (with the sole major stipulation is that the movie could not run over ninety minutes), which led to many of the more controversial and underdeveloped plot elements. This includes Zhen and the Chameleon's undercooked backstories, where they originally had none at all; Kai and Lord Shen having no lines due to being last-minute additions; Shifu not being present during the climax (even the DreamWorks executives loved the idea, but it got axed for reasons unknown); an overall insistence on a more comedic tone over the dramedy approach of the first two films.
• Questionable Casting: The decision to have Awkwafina voice the movie's starring Deuteragonist raised eyebrows among her detractors, not only due to the perceived lack of emotion on her deliveries but also because they're starting to get sick of her being cast in almost every single major side-character role in the early 2020s animated films.
• Salvaged Story: The majority of Kung Fu Panda projects, since the third film, have often been criticised for excluding and not even mentioning the Furious Five. Many fans accuse Dreamworks of trying to downplay and erase the characters, and the important roles they once played in the franchise. While the Five still don't factor into the story, this film finally provides actual explanations for their absence and gives them non-speaking cameos in the final scene. The film's directors expressing hope for them to have more prominent roles again in the future.
• She Really Can Act: While Awkwafina is a versatile actress, she is mostly known for doing comic relief roles in animated works. While Zhen similarly brings a lot of sass to the film, the scenes of her dealing with the repurcussions of betraying Po to the Chameleon showcase a rather serious and emotional performance.
• So Okay, It's Average: General reception to the movie is that it has more than a few moments of genuine heart and effective humour, but its plot feels repetitive and lackluster, the new characters are underdeveloped, and it doesn't do enough to justify its existence, rendering the final product too flawed to be exceptional, and it's regarded as a significant step down from the previous three movies by many. Notably, it's the only film in the series to not have a "Certified Fresh" on Rotten Tomatoes, and to have a "mixed to average" score on Metacritic.
• Spiritual Successor: Some fans have debated that the film treads into territory truer to the Legends of Awesomeness TV series than the previous films, despite strictly following the canon of the latter. This is due to the Denser and Wackier nature, the focus on a comedic lower-tier Rogues Gallery, and multiple plot points and concepts being very similar to ones used in episodes of the show (see Older Than They Think above). Amusingly Zhen's characterisation also bares a resemblance to the scrappier personality the series gave Po, essentially making his film counterpart and Zhen a Decomposite Character.
• Tainted by the Preview:
  • The Furious Five being Sir Not-Appearing-in-This-Trailer quickly gained polarized opinions in the fanbase, causing a lot of fans to be worried they would suffer from being Out of Focus once again or, in the worst case scenario, be discarded from the story entirely with the Time Skip as an excuse for it^note This is considering they did not appear in the recent two shows. The Word of God statement that they will be in some capacity in the movie did little to calm these worries.
  • Zhen's design has gained mixed reactions, as a lot of fans feel her design is generic and much too close to the animation style of Disney movies like Zootopia, or even Illumination's Sing movies, and hardly resembles foxes shown in previous KFP material.
  • A small gag in the trailer involving Po trying to get inner peace through meditation and failing led to some concerns about Po getting Aesop Amnesia, since he had already achieved inner peace in the second movie. However, others have countered by pointing out that the form of inner peace found in 2 was more about coming to terms with trauma and loss, rather than the more spiritual aspect that this movie seems to be showing him exploring.
  • After the trailer, with The Chameleon easily stealing Tai Lung's kung fu and dealing him a powerful blow with it, many fans have displayed concerns of Tai Lung returning only to suffer The Worf Effect and that his role in the movie could be minor due to this.
  • A smaller example, but some fans have lamented about the art style/CGI for its lack of progression from older movies of the franchise, especially compared to other films like The Bad Guys (2022) and Puss in Boots: The Last Wish, both utilizing stylized animation.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character:
  • Despite his return being heavily hyped up before release, Tai Lung does not appear in person until the third act (with his appearance before that point being the Chameleon in diguise) and spends most of his on screen time being locked up after his sole on screen fight with the Chameleon. Many were hoping for an Enemy Mine situation where Tai Lung and Po would have to team up to face her, or the two traveling with each other to gain mutual respect, (possibly with Tai Lung having learned about Po's own struggles). Instead, Po and Tai Lung only interact very briefly, and while Tai Lung does bow out gracefully at the climax, it seems lackluster compared to what could have been.
  • Shen and Kai only have brief cameos and are The Voiceless. Neither directly interact with Po or Tai Lung onscreen, or a reaction to their current situation or any development while they were in the spirit world.
  • Master Oogway is only mentioned, and is surprisingly NOT one of the warriors summoned by The Chameleon, (at least onscreen). No reason is given, though speculation is that he was either too far ascended to be summoned, or that the Chameleon was too wary, believing that she wouldn't be able to defeat him.
  • Other than Tai Lung, Shen and Kai, the figures that the Chameleon summons from the Spirit Realm consist entirely of random new characters that have never appeared before, and others that have previously died in the franchise - such as Commander Vachir from the first film, the Wolf Boss from the second, or even the various masters that Kai captured in the third - are not shown to be among them. Even with the various spin-off shows being declared non-canon, the various villains from those could have been given quick cameos as a nod to the expanded Kung Fu Panda universe.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: Shifu is never shown reacting to the news of Tai Lung's apparent resurrection, nor does Tai Lung ever mention Shifu, and due to him staying back at the Jade Palace during the main adventure, Shifu never gets to interact with Tai Lung when the latter does get brought back from the Spirit Realm. Had the two been given scenes together, the film may have been some long-awaited closure and reconciliation between father and son, which could have given a far more emotional impact to Tai Lung's newfound respect for Po at the end of the film.

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