On March 8th, 2024, DreamWorks released the fourth movie of the Kung Fu Panda franchise. The three previous movies were already hits from the previous awards it's received, Kung Fu Panda 4 was highly anticipated by fans throughout social media, such as Instagram, YouTube, and other platforms.  It was a solid movie for many reasons.

The movie followed Po the Panda, who is a Dragon Warrior. When he is chosen to become the Spiritual Leader of the Valley of Peace he has to find a student to become the new Dragon Warrior. However, a shape shifting chameleon, known as “The Chameleon,” is set out to get Po’s Staff of Wisdom. The Staff of Wisdom allows her to collect all of Po’s previous enemies' kung fu skills. A fox named Zhen helps Po to find The Chameleon on a fun adventure and takes her down  “kung fu” style. 

First let’s start with the things I liked about this movie. I really enjoyed all of the appreciation towards Chinese culture. From the food, to the animals, to the locations- everything  is presented amazingly. They have done this in the previous movies, as well. Another thing I admired in this movie was the scenery. The settings were beautiful and so was the animation style. Something I realized about these movies are the messages given throughout the films. In previous films, the central theme focused on determination and self-belief. However, in this movie,  the message was that “it’s never too late to do the right thing,” which I loved a lot. In my opinion, the movie, overall, was also great;it had a very enjoyable plot and there were no boring parts.

Now let’s cover some of the things I did not enjoy about this movie. This was a very short movie, coming in at an hour and thirty-four minutes-long, including credits. The movie felt as if it was a long episode special from a TV series. If it was longer, then there would have been more time for character development and adding more parts which I feel would have made the movie better. For example, explaining The Chameleon’s origin story could have impacted her character development and helped on why she was evil. I wish they showed why she became evil a little more instead of just stating that she became evil.

Overall, I would rate this movie three stars out of five. While it was an amazing movie, it cannot compareto the original three. The first three were very original and have completely different villains who are better in my opinion. While it is unknown I would prefer this is the last movie of the franchise as I feel they are running out of ideas. However, I definitely recommend watching this movie!