Kung Fu Panda 4 Trailer: New Villain, New Allies, Whole New Era of Awesomeness
Kung Fu Panda is a very successful and popular animated feature franchise created by Ethan Reiff and Cyrus Voris and produced by DreamWorks Animation. The franchise, which started in 2008 with Kung Fu Panda, was followed by sequels in 2011 and 2016, respectively.
The story is set in a fantasy wuxia genre version of ancient China and follows the giant panda Po Ping, voiced by actor Jack Black and Mick Wingert. Po Ping is chosen as the prophesied Dragon Warrior and becomes the master of Kung Fu after proving himself worthy of fulfilling his destiny. The much-awaited trailer for the fourth installment is here. Let’s break it down.
Kung Fu Panda 4 features Ke Huy Quan, Viola Davis, and Awkwafina
Universal Pictures recently released the highly awaited trailer for the fourth part of the successful and popular animated franchise Kung Fu Panda. The titular character Po Ping is voiced by actor Jack Black and in addition to the adventure for Po, the fourth installment adds actors Ke Huy Quan, Viola Davis, and Awkwafina.
Jack Black took to social media to welcome the new members to the team. Viola Davis will be voicing the character of The Chameleon who the actress says is a shape-shifter and the main villain of the movie. Actress Awkwafina will be voicing a Fox character named Zhen. Zhen will join forces with Po while Ke Huy Quan will voice the character of Han, the leader of Den of Thieves.
Angelina Jolie who voices Tigress, and Jackie Chan who voices Master Monkey are returning to voice their fan-favorite characters on-screen. It can be seen in the trailer that Po has been invited to be a spiritual leader of Valley of Peace. However, Po must first find a new hero to replace him as the Dragon Warrior.
The Chameleon is not going to make things easy for Po as she has her eyes on Po’s Staff of Wisdom, which would give her the power to re-summon all of the villains whom Po vanquished. Po reaches out to Zhen for help and in their journey, he will discover that heroes can be found in the most unexpected places.
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Kung Fu Panda 4 will bring back the franchise’s signature sense of humor
Fans are excited for the movie along with being excited for how the franchise’s signature sense of humor can be seen in the trailer assuring them that it’s going to be back. Zhen, who is Po’s newest ally gets under his skin but knows that her skills are needed to help the Dragon Warriors on his journey. The odd duo can be expected to feature in a range of comic scenes in the upcoming movie.
The franchise celebrated its fifteenth anniversary this year and the fourth installment is going to feature a song from Tenacious D. It is a band consisting of Jack Black and Kyle Grass who spoke to THR about the song and said,
“We’ve been working on a couple of things. I got a new Kung Fu Panda coming out next year and they asked if we would do a song for the credits.”
Tenacious D’s song Peaches from The Super Mario Bros. had been a massive success and they shared that the music wasn’t initially planned for the game. However, due to a late idea, Bowser ended up getting a song. Black recalled that directors Aaron Horvath and Michael Jelenic sent them a 20-second nugget of a song.
The artist further added that he alongside John Spiker fleshed it out, and made an actual song out of the initial version. The artist initially was confident that it wouldn’t be used due to it being a bit too emotional. However, Peaches immediately impressed the developers and the song became an instant hit.
Kung Fu Panda 4 releases on March 8, 2024.
