VERDICT: Brisk, exciting, and genuinely funny, ‘Kung Fu Panda 4’ is the highlight of this long-running franchise, furthering the hero’s journey to enlightenment, working wonders with its ensemble cast, and embracing the philosophical spirit of kung fu.
Reviewed by William Bibbiani
The Kung Fu Panda movies aren’t all classics, but they are all remarkable. They’ve not only resisted the urge to deluge audiences with immediately-dated pop culture references — the bane of 2000s animated movies, popularized by another DreamWorks blockbuster, Shrek — but even though every film does feature a panda fighting bad guys with kung fu, they’ve also resisted the urge to repeat the same story over and over again. Po, the titular panda voiced by Jack Black, doesn’t relearn old lessons. He continues to evolve as a character and this film series is better for it.
Before “kung fu” became synonymous with martial arts, the term referred to effort and discipline, the achievement of expertise by doing hard work and genuinely earning it. It’s not supposed to be a superpower, it’s supposed to be a path of continuous self-improvement. Kung Fu Panda 4 literalizes this distinction. Po, who earned the title of “Dragon Warrior” in the previous film, is now on a path to becoming a spiritual leader instead of just a butt-kicker. Meanwhile, the villain has a scheme to steal martial arts skills with her superpowers, bypassing the wisdom she could have gained from learning kung fu the old-fashioned way.
That villain is Chameleon, voiced by Viola Davis. She can shapeshift into anyone and is particularly fond of impersonating villains from earlier Kung Fu Panda films. (The only voice-
actor who comes back for these cameos is Ian McShane, which suggests either a lack of interest or a lack of budget or both.) To stop her, Po has to journey to Juniper City, a gigantic metropolis full of anthropomorphic animals. Along the way, his naive and good-hearted nature clashes with a streetwise fox, who gradually learns the value of friendship while they team up to stop the mysterious bad guy.
With apologies to Groucho Marx, pardon me while I have a strange interlude: Hey, makers of Kung Fu Panda 4? We saw Zootopia too. It was a big deal. You’re not fooling anyone. Anyway, that fox’s name is Zhen, and she’s voiced by Awkwafina, who is an excellent actor when she has a role with depth in it. Zhen qualifies, with a satisfying character arc explored with oodles of personality. Like all the best Kung Fu Panda characters, Zhen is created through a skillful combination of animal physicality and human spirit. Her swift and cunning martial arts style contrasts strikingly with Po’s gigantic frame and heavier kung fu attacks.
Po’s story is intercut with a subplot about his two fathers, Mr. Ping (James Hong) and Li Shan (Bryan Cranston), who are worried that their son is in over his head and follow him to Juniper City to help out. As a plot point, this road trip makes no sense, since Po is one of the greatest martial artists in the world and fights bad guys every day, while they only have good intentions and delicious recipes to contribute. But there’s more to movies than plot, and the effort Kung Fu Panda 4 makes to celebrate households with two dads is sweet, amusing, and welcome.
The Kung Fu Panda movies have always taken pains to craft fight sequences with speed, excitement, clarity, and humor, and the fourth film continues that tradition. There are fights inside a tavern perched atop a cliff that combines classic Shaw Brothers action with the visual gags of Charlie Chaplin’s The Gold Rush, to delightful effect. What’s more, Kung Fu Panda 4 is consistently and truly funny. There’s a bit during a chase sequence where a gang of anthropomorphic bulls slows down to walk carefully through a china shop, and that’s a joke even Chuck Jones would have been proud of.
There’s an argument to be made, and I’m willing to make it, that Kung Fu Panda 4 is the best film in this series. It’s bright, it’s spry, it’s wise, and it feels effortlessly entertaining, the kind of compliment that can, ironically, only be given to filmmakers who exert massive amounts of effort. In a tight 94 minutes, this action comedy about a dumpling-devouring hero hits every target it’s trying to hit and sends you home before your parking validation expires. That’s the very model of a modern major panda movie: it eats, shoots, and leaves.
