"Kung Fu Panda 4" News and Discussion Thread (Spoilers)

[RoyalRubble]

New trailer released.

 

[Frontier]

New trailer released.

Random Dune reference is random .

Her shifting into Po's different villains is pretty cool .

 

[Dr.Pepper]

So has anybody actually seen this yet? I just got through seeing it with a friend. I was shocked by how good it was. I was expecting it to be something I’d watch once to say I did, and then mostly forget about it (like the third Panda movie), but this was a good one. My friend admits that she walked in expecting to hate it but was blown away.

 

[Pooky]

Deadline Article on the impressive and (at least to me) surprising Box Office Haul for this movie.

 

[Frontier]

Deadline Article on the impressive and (at least to me) surprising Box Office Haul for this movie.

Here comes Kung Fu Panda 5 .

 

[harry580]

I seen kung fu panda 4 and I love it

 

[RainbowCupcake]

I originally planned to see this in theaters, but I decided to save the money and wait for it to come to streaming. I finally watched it tonight, and I was pleasantly surprised. I was bracing myself for disappointment, but this was NOT as bad as people claim it is. In fact, I'd go as far as to say that this was better than Kung Fu Panda 3. Granted, it's been a while since I watched the third instalment, but I remember it feeling very awkward. Kung Fu Panda 4, while not an incredibly inventive story, flowed nicely and introduced some interesting, well-developed new characters. As tired as I am of Awkwafina being in every single animated movie since 2016, she had a great performance as Zhen. I saw the twist of her working for the Chameleon coming from a mile away, but I don't hate this trope, so it didn't bother me. Speaking of which, I enjoyed this new villain. Firstly, we finally get a female antagonist in a Kung Fu Panda film, yay! Secondly, I thought her backstory was interesting: she's too small to fight well, so she turned to sorcery to work her way up to stealing the other villains' powers from the Spirit Realm. Not a terrible idea for a villain; I liked her much better than General Kai (sorry J.K. Simmons). Viola Davis gave a chilling performance.

From the reviews I've read, audiences seemed to hate Kung Fu Panda 4 because it has lost the "charm" of the franchise. In my opinion, that charm was lost in the third film, as I alluded to above. And I would also argue that this film isn't void of any DreamWorks magic. The fight scenes were incredible. The set design in Juniper City was breathtaking (I especially loved the graphics of the different animal characters on the signs. Whoever designed those is very talented). I chuckled mildly a couple of times, but even the first two films weren't laugh-out-loud hilarious. The Kung Fu Panda movies have always focused very heavily on character development and world-building, and this film did those things just as fine as the other three. Certainly not as in-depth as 1 and 2, but not poorly, either.

Another complaint was that some of the franchise's previous characters took a backseat. I was a bit bummed to see the Furious Five make merely cameo appearances at the beginning and end of the film, but the more I thought about it, the more I wondered what purpose they would have in the story anyway. The writers probably would have just given them a random side plot, which would have brought down the storyline. Instead of focusing on older characters, Kung Fu Panda 4 wanted to explore the relationship between Po and Zhen (as well as his two dads), which I didn't hate. I've also heard people whine about the old villains coming back and "not really doing anything," but that wasn't the point. The story wasn't that the old villains would come back and fight Po, it was that the Chameleon would summon them back, steal their powers, and render them useless. Heck, I'm glad that Tai Lung had a minor role! It was a nice throwback to the first film.

Overall, I actually quite liked Kung Fu Panda 4. It didn't need to be made, but I'm not mad it did get made. I wouldn't be against a Kung Fu Panda 5 focusing on Zhen and her new adventures as Dragon Warrior.

Final Score: 7/10

 

[aegisrawks]

I cant say I am a fan of sidelining the Furious Five YET AGAIN but this is nothing new to the franchise so it would be unfair of me to dislike this entry because that's a thing even the high tier movies do.