Kung Fu Panda 4 is set to release on March 8, 2024, 8 years after the previous film. To recap, Kung Fu Panda 3 brings back an ancient spirit warrior – Kai, who was banished into the realm of the dead by Master Oogway.
Kai’s coming becomes a reason for Po to rediscover himself, become the panda he was meant to be, and fulfill a 500-year-old prophecy. This film also marked Po as the true successor of Oogway, and he brought the Staff of Wisdom into the mortal world.
It felt like a wrap-up of the animated franchise – the citizens of Peace Valley mastering Chi and probably living happily ever after.
The official trailer for Kung Fu Panda 4 is out, and I would like to know if this will be the series’ last film. Let’s see. Here goes the guesswork:
Death of Po
Kung Fu Panda 4 has a necromancer – a Chameleon who can open portals to conjure dead villains and soak their powers. She is also a shapeshifter and takes the looks of animals she devours, dead or alive. The trailer shows the return of Tai Lung and a Tai Lung with scales.
The exciting bit is that she also takes up Po’s energy and becomes him while he is set to fight her. So, either Po dies and comes back to life – a feat already achieved by him in Kung Fu Panda 3 or there’s death of something in him in a metaphorical sense.
Pandas don’t live long like tortoises.
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“Shifu taught you well, but he didn’t teach you everything.”
Remember the first time when the Furious Five take on Tai Lung?
One against five, and he manages to paralyze Shifu’s disciples with a nerve attack. Master Oogway, the then spiritual leader of the Valley of Peace, unlocks it and reminds the Furious Five that Tai Lung could have easily killed them.
Oogway was the last standing warrior who sent Tai Lung to jail. Years later, he prophesizes Lung’s return and chooses an unlikely Dragon Warrior to Skadoosh him.
The Kung Fu Panda 4 trailer hints at a similar theme.
Tai Lung has returned, and it will take a spiritual master, not a Dragon Warrior, to stop him. Po must shed his current identity and become the next spiritual master, an intriguing evolution I look forward to. And I wonder if he will choose Zhen, a wanted criminal, as the next unlikely Dragon Warrior.
Year of the Dragon Warrior
“Being a Dragon Warrior is who I am.”
Po’s constantly evolving identity is consistent across all films. From being awkwardly announced as the Dragon Warrior to uncovering his past to taking Kai into the realm of the dead, Po achieved near-impossible tasks and more than Oogway had hoped for him. Loving Kung Fu and being a Dragon Warrior is all he knows.
I strongly suspect that coinciding with the Chinese Year of the Dragon, the beloved Dragon Warrior may learn the spiritual lesson of letting go – his identity and maybe the mortal realm.
2024 may be marked as the Year of the Dragon Warrior and closure for the franchise.
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Final Thoughts
Kung Fu Panda movies have given us some of the finest villains in the animated industry. While Tai Lung was a lost kitten turned brute evil, Shen held a position of power with a dictatorial nature. Kai was literally an out-of-the-world villain who sent Po to the realm of death.
It will be intriguing to see what the shapeshifting Chameleon, the first female villain in the series, has to offer, and how our beloved Panda responds to it.
Skadoosh!
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