By: Sammy Wang

Kung Fu Panda 4, the fourth installment of the Kung FU Panda movies, was released on March 8, 2024 and is directed by Mike Mitchell. Although Rotten Tomatoes gave it an overall rating of 71%, I believe it should’ve been rated lower.

The thing that bothered me the most in the movie was the antagonist, The Chameleon. It wasn’t her actions or thoughts that bothered me, but her reason for being a villain in the first place: because she was considered too weak and small to learn martial arts.

It literally contradicts the experience of a major side character in the previous movies, Shifu, a red panda. Shifu is smaller than The Chameleon and he was able to master martial arts! What makes this even more ridiculous is one of Shifu’s apprentices, a member of the Furious Five, Master Mantis. Master Mantis is even smaller than Shifu, but he is able to fight just as well as him.

People may argue that The Chameleon just didn’t have the chance to leave Juniper City to seek training elsewhere, but the audience knows nothing about her except for her sob story.

Why didn’t she travel around the world? There were clearly ships that allowed animals on as long as they had the money. And if she didn’t have money, she could have utilized her camouflaging skills to steal an animal’s attributes, for example, a bird, to fly away. We don’t know if she held a high position in the city, and if she did, why couldn’t she just hire someone to teach her?

I’m not saying that she is a horrible character- I enjoyed her personality and ruthlessness- but her backstory and motives should’ve been more developed.

Sources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kung_Fu_Panda_4#Plot
Google search: Kung Fu Panda 4