Po is one of us.
Mike Mitchell, director of Kung Fu Panda 4, is convinced of this, the new chapter of the Dreamworks animated saga arriving in Italy for Universal Pictures from March 21st, with a preview on Sunday 17th. "Aren't we all afraid of change?", he asks Mitchell at a press conference in Los Angeles.
"We left the protagonist Po satisfied: he was the Kung Fu Panda, the Dragon Warrior - explains the director, who was executive producer in the third film of the series, in 2016 -.
We thought a lot about how to make him evolve and we decided to take everything away from him what he had wanted and fought for. In this way, the film addresses a theme that we all recognize ourselves in: the anxiety of changing. Children can be afraid when they go from elementary school to middle school, for example.
But the same thing happens to us adults, when we start a new job or move. Po teaches us that change is great.
If you choose to move forward, you leave no one or anything of who you are behind. In fact, most of the time you transform into something better ".
This is what happens in the film, which in ten days grossed 69 million dollars in theaters in the USA and Canada (to which must be added 30.5 million earned abroad).
Master Shifu orders Po to abandon the role of dragon warrior and become a spiritual guide.
He must hang up his kung fu belt, choose a successor and be his mentor.
This assignment brings on his path the fox Zhen, a shrewd petty thief who is the perfect comic-dramatic sidekick to the naive protagonist hero, and forces him to leave the Valley of Peace to get lost in Juniper City.
"What is this place?", Po asks scared. "The worst criminals live there", replies Zhen (in English voiced by Awkwafina) in the tone of someone who knows a lot.
While she escapes from the police, with breakneck chases across rooftops and markets, the two face a new and powerful adversary, the sorceress Chameleon (originally voiced by Viola Davis), a lizard capable of transforming into any creature.
"We kept the main characters, so as not to disappoint the fans - explains Mitchell - but we added a co-protagonist who distorts Po's perspective, teaches him not to judge by appearance, and a villain never seen before: a woman who has overcome the complexes due to its small size and tyrannizes over the city. Then there is a place never seen before, a sprawling metropolis full of animals in which we set many action scenes."
The good-natured and pure spirit of Po remains unchanged, here poised between action and spirituality: "Don't make me choose between the two souls. It's an equal match - responds to ANSA Jack Black, who gives the most famous Panda in animation voice and physicality -. I'm fascinated by meditating on the big questions of the universe and the mystery of life. But how much fun do I have in fight scenes! I'm a huge fan of martial arts."
"For us Po is Jack, but it's intoxicating to see that it works perfectly even dubbed", he tells ANSA Mitchell in reference to the Italian interpreter of the saga, Fabio Volo.
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