How ‘Kung Fu Panda: The Dragon Knight’ Expands a Nearly 15-Year Franchise
Voice actors Jack Black, Rita Ora and James Hong, alongside art director Ellen Jin and EPs Peter Hastings and Shaunt Nigoghossian, on Po's latest journey as a celebration of where 'Kung Fu Panda' has been and where it's going.
BY ABBEY WHITE
JULY 31, 2022 3:00PM
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Jack Black as Po and Rita Ora as Wandering Blade in Kung Fu Panda: The Dragon Knight. Cr. COURTESY OF NETFLIX © 2022 COURTESY OF NETFLIX
Kung Fu Panda: The Dragon Knight is the latest entry in one of DreamWorks Animation’s more fruitful universes. The third TV series in the franchise born from 2008’s animated feature film Kung Fu Panda (followed by big-screen sequels in 2011 and 2016), it marks nearly 15 years of storytelling around Po, a giant, energetic and endearing — if imperfect — panda who becomes a master of Kung Fu after being prophesied as the Dragon Warrior.
Arriving on Netflix this July with the weight of more than a decade worth of adventures proceeding it, The Dragon Knight manages to set itself a part in Po’s ever-growing story, taking Kung Fu Panda in new directions.
Executive producer Peter Hastings tells The Hollywood Reporter that the concept for the series began “with the idea of a road trip,” specifically a buddy road comedy that “naturally takes you all over in pursuit of their goal, which is to try and catch bad guys.”
Voice of Po and star Jack Black notes that the EP “had a cool vision for what an epic journey this would be” — one that still manages to be full of “all the magic stuff that made the first movie so great: it’s Kung Fu, it’s comedy, it’s adventure and in the end, it’s got some cool messages for the kids.”
While it keeps many of the elements viewers loved about previous installments, Hastings notes that the show gets to go narratively and visually to places the franchise has never been.
“Just within the realm of TV animation, the picture that we’re delivering and coming up with and designing looks fantastic,” Hasting shares. “Then also related to storytelling, we’re doing basically a single story through the first 11 episodes — a serialized thing which hasn’t been done with the Kung Fu Panda television stuff before.”
A story that sees Po lose a title he’s spent literal years with, The Dragon Knight puts him on a journey that tests not just his own understanding of himself, but see him teamed up with and “challenged by somebody who doesn’t get him.”
“Part of this was my desire to knock him down and to put him in a bit of a hole where he feels like he’s lost this important thing,” the Dragon Knight EP explains. “But in the journey, of course, it’s about realizing that it’s not the title and it’s not what other people call you and that everything he thought made him the Dragon Warrior and the Dragon Master he still has.”
Hastings adds that being able to take a darker, more mature tone with the show versus past chapters also marks how the series is expanding the franchise. “To not be afraid and be approved to be able to go into some emotional places and some dark backstories — what motivates these things and bring the emotional life — that’s been really fun.”
The Hollywood Reporter spoke to Black, along with his fellow voices actors James Hong and Rita Ora, Hastings and fellow EP Shaunt Nigoghossian, as well as art director Ellen Jin about how Po’s latest journey is a celebration of where Kung Fu Panda has been and where it’s going.
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James Hong as Mr. Ping and Jack Black as Po in Kung Fu Panda: The Dragon Knight. COURTESY OF NETFLIX
I. REUNITING JACK BLACK AND JAMES HONG
The Dragon Knight might be the newest chapter in the franchise, but it’s also one full of familiar voices. The Netflix series marks the return of Jack Black as the voice of Po, after Mick Wingert took over the role for the prior TV shows. Hastings tells THR getting Black back was the result of the pandemic shutdown in Hollywood.
“The starter for it is the idea that Jack is probably not that busy right now because nobody was, except for animation,” he explains. “Then there are also people involved with the movies who are also working at Netflix, and so we had connections in that manner.”
Hastings, who also served as the series’ voice director, says Black really responded to the show’s storytelling, “which is more mature than where a lot of this stuff has been,” and is more in line with what the first movie’s “really great emotional stories” were.
“A typical actor says their lines and they give you the opportunity to do a little acting or something but with Jack, you have to do 90 poses for one line. It’s fun and it’s challenging,” Nigoghossian adds. “He tells you when to go wide because he’s doing something with his body. He really is great at getting emotion, too, so sometimes I’m going to turn the lights down here, put a shaft of light right on his sad head.”
For Black, his return to the franchise was an exciting venture into new creative territory as his first TV animation stint in the Kung Fu Panda universe. That he said, presented a different kind of experience than working in film. One where he didn’t feel like he was just slightly tweaking the same material for an extended period of time.
“It’s so much more fun to go in every week or every couple of weeks and work on a new episode. Because with a movie, you’ll work on the same story — the same one-and-a-half-hour story — for two years. You’ll just drill down and you’ll like tweak a line or a word is different, and it can kind of drive you insane,” he explains. “With a series, you’re coming in and you don’t have time for that crap. You’re moving on to the next episode. What’s happening next? When you start the thing, you have an idea of the broad strokes of the whole arc of the series, but you don’t really know what’s coming. You’re watching it unfold every week. It’s a really, really lovely job. I had so much fun over the last couple of years doing it.”
Black wasn’t the only returning cast member for this go-around. For James Hong, who has also been with the franchise since the first film voicing the character of Mr. Ping, the latest TV installment marks an impressive personal milestone.
“I’ve never done the same character for 15 years,” Hong tells THR, adding that he’s likely voiced upwards of 10 different roles across the franchise. “In that respect, growing up with Mr. Ping and Kung Fu Panda has opened my eyes. In the beginning, we didn’t know where this thing was going. We just did our bit, right? We did our best, and then we just kind of put it aside. But who would dream that in 15 years, here’s Jack and I coming back? We have grown up ourselves.”
Nigoghossian says Hong’s creative improvisation is particularly impressive, with the actor doing “things that just no one would ever think to come up with.”
“James Hong has done every single version of Kung Fu Panda. He’s remained fantastic to work with. He’s 93 years old, and he’s been nothing but enthusiastic and fun on this on this whole show,” Hastings adds.
