The ‘Kung Fu Panda 4’ Creative Team Gives Us a Sneak Peek at Po’s Ultimate Challenge

This article was written for the April '24 issue of Animation Magazine (No. 339).

With this month’s entry into the beloved franchise with Kung Fu Panda 4, the team at DreamWorks Animation paralleled the historical development of kung fu by assembling a roster of veteran animators to mentor several rising stars in the studio’s distinctive style. “A lot of these guys I’ve known for years and years and years. They worked on Shrek with me; they worked on Trolls,” says Kung Fu Panda 4’s director Mike Mitchell. “I say this with all honesty: I think DreamWorks has the best animators all around.”

‘Even since the last [Kung Fu Panda], there has been so much that’s evolved in animation — mostly, animation cameras. To use the updated cameras like GoPros that haven’t been incorporated yet in the Kung Fu Panda franchise was very exciting.’

— Director Mike Mitchell

Kung Fu Panda 4 follows the continuing adventures of Po (Jack Black), who has evolved from an aspiring martial artist to the legendary position of Dragon Warrior across the preceding trilogy of films. In a beautiful display of art mirroring life, co-director Stephanie Ma Stine, an avid fan of the series, has also found herself amid a professional ascension, with Kung Fu Panda 4 serving as her directorial debut. Like Po’s development as a martial artist, Stine battled insecurity while rising through the ranks in her animation career. “I actually never thought that I would be directing because I grew up with a really awful stutter,” says Stine. “Filmmaking is all about communication and it’s all about talking out loud for hours on end. And so, I was like, ‘At this moment in my life, I’m not cut out for it.’”

Whereas Po’s teammates in the Furious Five, a pack of anthropomorphic animal martial artists, aided him in his journey, Stine relied on her collaborators, including production designer Paul Duncan and head of character animation Sean Sexton, to assist her along the path. With a wealth of experience and a desire to innovate among the quartet, Sexton, Duncan, Stine and Mitchell began to embark on the creative high-wire act of taking the iconic Kung Fu Panda franchise in a fresh yet familiar direction. “We don’t want to do exactly what we’ve done with previous films. It’s like, ‘How has Po grown?’” says Sexton. “What is his arc? How can we move him forward in the franchise?”

The Path of the Panda

To make good on their intention to shake up the intellectual property, the creative team behind Kung Fu Panda 4 decided to have the series’ protagonist, Po, relinquish his position as the Dragon Warrior, a title he’s owned since the first film. As a fan of the series, Stine shared the audience’s potential apprehension over the film’s bold decision. “I think I can see from a lot of the audience’s reaction online already that people are just like, ‘Oh, my gosh, Po can’t let go of the Dragon Warrior title. That’s his destiny,’” says Stine. “I think we’re all a little bit scared and nervous about that, but I think for Po, it’s the most difficult for him. But along this journey, he comes to realize there are more important things.”

With the countless hours the creative team poured into obsessing over Kung Fu Panda 4’s theme, the departure from the franchise’s familiar framework strategically avoids the pitfalls of feeling gimmicky. “Themes are really important to us, because I think it makes a difference in watching something. You really want it to be about something,” says Mitchell. “We really explored that when you make a big change, you don’t lose who you are. You still remain who you are, [and] you become something more.”

‘Po’s whole journey is about accepting change and realizing that it’s not only not a scary thing but quite fulfilling if you embrace it. I feel like I was going on a similar journey as him.’

— Co-director Stephanie Ma Stine

 

“In every single meeting that we go to — whether it’s storyboards, editing, layout, lighting, animation or anything — everything hangs from the theme,” says Stine. “So, everything that Po faces is actually catered around him needing to learn that change is good.”

One of the unexpected changes that Kung Fu Panda 4’s production staff grappled with was the simultaneous Writers Guild and Screen Actors Guild strikes of 2023. With a truncated production schedule, Mitchell took the opportunity to expand the role of animators significantly. “A lot of our storytelling, I pushed it to animation, and these guys stepped up,” says Mitchell. “And all of them really got into the storytelling [and] got into the camera. Like, we were working out most of the film in the animation, which I think makes it a more creative film.”

The Art of Combat

Despite taking divergent routes into the animation industry, the early days of Paul Duncan’s and Sean Sexton’s careers at DreamWorks share a handful of similarities, as both men arrived during the studio’s era of 2D animation. Even with countless films under their belts, including previous entries into the Kung Fu Panda series, both men speak about Kung Fu Panda 4 as if it were their first film. “There is a legacy to Kung Fu Panda, and to break the mold too much would be a disservice to what’s come before,” says Duncan. “So, for me and [co-director] Mike Mitchell, it was always, ‘Let’s stylize parts of the movie that we want to enhance the story.’ We won’t just check that box for the sake of checking the box.”

Seeking to inject new life into the series, Sexton and Duncan found themselves looking at myriad sources for Kung Fu Panda 4’s villain, a shape-shifting chameleon sorceress, voiced by Viola Davis. “The Chameleon was a character that could have the potential to be one of the strongest in the franchise,” says Sexton. “[It’s] a character that could transform into any creature [or] any other master, and trying to technically figure that out was difficult. And also, just artistically, ‘How do we pull this off? How do we make this look interesting?’”

“Paul [Duncan] was great for coming up with ideas of how this would work,” says Sexton. “We literally looked at any movie with any kind of transformation and tried to make something unique but also relatable and cool.”

To solve the Chameleon conundrum, Duncan found an answer within an unexpected and controversial source. “We looked at a lot of AI for that and a lot of the effects. We sort of left the broken bits in because it felt disjointed. It’s almost like it’s uncomfortable for her to change.”

Besides exploring AI, Sexton decided to revisit an often-overlooked gem within his DreamWorks filmography. “We even went back and looked at some of the stuff we did in 2D on Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas as kind of an inspiration,” says Sexton. “Eris was a character that was voiced by Michelle Pfeiffer, [and] she was a character that could transform and turn into different things.”

Duncan was equally influenced by the past, finding inspiration in the very culture that spawned kung fu. “We looked at a lot of the Taotie design from ancient China,” says Duncan. “It’s associated with greed and ancient demons. You basically have all these Taotie masks, and I was like, ‘This is perfect because she changes all the time, and we rarely get to know her because she’s got this mask on.’”

Delivering a Knockout

Although a film like Kung Fu Panda 4 allows its production staff to stretch the perimeters of its creative license, Mitchell and Stine were intent on grounding the movie’s combat in realism. “We hired some live-action stunt performers from the Marvel films,” says Mitchell. “It was really fun for our animators to take a look at what a bunch of our stunt people did and then know that we could take it even further with animation.”

“Even since the last [Kung Fu Panda], there has been so much that’s evolved in animation — mostly, in my opinion, animation cameras,” says Mitchell. “To use the updated cameras like GoPros and stuff like that that we’ve seen in live-action films that haven’t been incorporated yet in the Kung Fu Panda franchise was very exciting.”

‘We even went back and looked at some of the stuff we did in 2D on Sinbad: [Legend of the Seven Seas] as kind of an inspiration.’

— Head of character animation Sean Sexton

 

For Stine, the new cameras presented a unique opportunity to return to her roots. “I actually have a master’s degree in cinematography from the American Film Institute, so I used to work in live action as a camera person,” says Stine. “I’ve always had a love of lenses and types of cameras and what you can do with the camera, and how that ties into knowing what the character is thinking and feeling.”

Navigating the film’s action-packed visuals may have been a walk in the park for Stine, but the director also credits Kung Fu Panda 4 for strengthening her literal and creative voice by helping her finally conquer her persistent stutter. “I think this particular journey of working on Kung Fu Panda 4, especially, has really helped me with my confidence,” says Stine. “Po’s whole journey is about accepting change and realizing that it’s not only not a scary thing but quite fulfilling if you embrace it. I feel like I was going on a similar journey as him.”

DreamWorks’ Kung Fu Panda 4 opens in theaters nationwide on March 8.