One of the less talked about things that help Lord Shen to be the fascinating and complex antagonist that he is are his facial expressions:
Anytime throughout the movie that Shen shows his face, we are met with an extremely detailed and eye-catching emotion, accentuated by the movie actively refusing to let us see the rest of Shen's design clearly; when you think about it, Shen is very overly designed, with the iron talons, the robe adornments, and his massive tail, yet the one thing that we are constantly paying attention to is his face.
His face is also fairly detailed, mind you, but is not the only part of his body to be like this, yet most of the time, the camera focuses only on that aspect of his appearance, and when Shen is covered in shadow, which happens a lot, the only thing that we can pay attention to is his red eyes, engulfing the rest of his body.
Shen's facial expressions do a really great job at communicating to the audience so much extra depth about his character: they give us a glimpse of his psychology and make us understand the fundamental flaws that define Shen as a person.
His expressiveness is especially noticeable when compared to the other three main villains;
Tai Lung barely emotes, except to show his anger; as a matter of fact, what I've just said is a lie, he actually has a lot of different facial expressions, especially after his escape from jail, but the thing is that we are never meant to focus on them: Tai Lung's martial prowess is the main focus of his character, so every scene he's in capitalises on it, his emotional state comes second, which helps those moments when he's actually super emotive (the fight with Tigress, Shifu's apology, his mental breakdown at the end of the movie) to hit that much harder.
The Chameleon makes a lot of different facial expressions but they don't communicate any more depth about her character; it's hard to say at this point, since I've only seen Kung Fu Panda 4 once, but if I were to take a guess, the intro sequence of the movie were The Chameleon pretends to be Tai Lung is the most depth her character ever gets in the story: she is a massive fangirl.
I'll probably have to rewatch her sequences a couple more times to make sure I'm not getting anything wrong, but as of right now, I am going to take a wild assumption and say that The Chameleon prefers her trasformations over her real self because she doesn't like herself for who she is. This is mostly unrelated to our current discussion, but since an analysis of The Chameleon is extremely far away, I might as well mention this observation now.
Kai's facial expressions give us a lot of insight into his mind, but not as much into his psychology like Shen's face does: in a way, Kai is the most emotive of the Kung Fu Panda villains, since, as we're going to see very soon, Shen keeps a lot of his emotional turmoil for himself, he doesn't want other people to understand what is going on in his mind and how actually scared of everything he is; Tai Lung also practices self-restraint but for different reasons, and The Chameleon is still yet to be fully understood by myself, but Kai is always sincere about his emotional state, he's angry when he's angry, flattered when he's flattered, and he's scared when he's scared. This doesn't mean that Kai doesn't have anymore depth that can be extrapolated from a contradiction between what he says/does and what his face says/does, it just means that Kai is someone who's very clear about his emotions, probably because he lacks the childhood trauma that defies Shen and Tai, and also because he's already dead.
Kai's inner thought process is that of a raging bull: clear as day. He doesn't have any emotional vulnerability to hide because he doesn't feel like anything can hurt him anymore, so he doesn't bother with keeping a facade since he's not afraid of anything.
Speaking of emotional state, it's time we take a look at this schizophrenic turkey's mental health and how the expressions that he makes leak out the true reason behind his seemingly unending hatred of Po.
You may now be thinking "But isn't Lord Shen's hatred of Po kinda obvious? He hates him, because he perceives him as a threat to his plans, and because he's evil and all that jazz" and while you are partially correct for that, I want to expand upon that obvious notion, and reveal why every time Shen interacts with Po he seemingly treats him like his life long arch nemesis:
You see, Lord Shen isn't just simply afraid of Po....
He's fricking paranoid of him.
Do you remember the whole training montage where Po and the Furious Five are travelling through the country to reach Gongmin City while Shen is getting ready to start the invasion?
It's a pretty cool sequence and all, especially from the perspective of the six..... but why is Lord Shen acting like that?
In KFP3, where we get a similar scene with Kai, it makes perfect sense from both the hero and the villain point of view: Kai, at this point, has been established as a massive threat to Po, so Po is keenly aware of the danger that he poses and is training like hell in order to defeat him; while Kai, who has now almost managed to destroy everything that Oogway has created, is impatient of taking out the last remaining pieces of Oogway's legacy, showcased by the angry way in which he punches the obstacles in his path to the village.
But here, while Po is simply preparing himself to fight the next big threat, Shen is going the extra mile of refining his combat prowess for an invasion that is going to be executed through the usage of gunpowder.
... A bit excessive, don't you think? This doesn't really mean much right now, but let's keep this in mind for later.
After defeating the Council of the Masters and dethroning the throne, Shen immediately asks the Soothsayer to tell him his future, but not before ensuring that his weapon is in the right position for him to continue his monologue.
Keep in mind: these two probably haven't met in 30 years, and while the true extent of their relationship is up to the fans head canons, it's pretty easy to assume that these two were probably closer at a certain point in their lives; therefore, if Shen was so eager to know his destiny to the point of not even wanting to gloat at the old goat, he must have been motivated by either one of these reasons:
A; He wanted to get this over quickly so that he could focus on something else, learning about his future and then finally getting rid of the Soothsayer;
B; Shen's brain is entirely concerned with his plans of world dominance, plans that would greatly benefit from the Soothsayer's ability of predicting the future to be completely foolproof.
C; He has been thinking of nothing else for the past 30 years.
While A is quickly disproved by a later scene where Shen let's go of the goat, B is most likely also not the answer, as despite it being the most logical course of action for the young Lord, the same scene that disproves A also denies B: why would Shen let go of his greatest source of intel? Just because he needed a way to make peace with the past? It's still possible that the thought of using the Soothsayer's magical abilities may have crossed Shen's mind, but I doubt it ever was his main concern.
No, Shen immediately started going after the answers that he sought for one and one reason only: it's been tormenting him for decades.
The way Lord Shen rehashes his monologue with his sword before meeting Po is not that of a cold, calculating mastermind making sure everything goes according to plans; it's the way a schizophrenic freak would try his hardest to keep everything under control.
Shen is in constant need of wanting everything to be how he has envisioned it, like that cannon from earlier, because otherwise he starts to crack down under the pressure.
His nervousness becomes even more apparent in the first segment of his developmental footage; even if all of these are cut scenes that were never intended to be in the movie, they reinforce the idea that the writers always intended to portray Shen as anxious in this scene.
And once Lord Shen is finally about to meet Po, he indeed starts to crack down under the pressure; Shen has feared that this day might arrive his entire life, fought so hard for this moment to not come true, and now that it's finally here, he's absolutely terrified.
Notice how Lord Shen immediately reaches for his feather-knife once he hears the big bad fat panda coming closer: even if the whole scene is played for comedic effect, you can't deny the fact that Shen is truly panicking here, the very next shot of his face right before the meeting makes you assume that Shen thinks that he's going to die.
And I believe this exact fear of death, more than anything else, is what drove Shen to commit genocide towards the Pandas, it's the true reason behind any of his actions, made worse by all of the other issues Shen has:
Lord Shen suffers from Thanatophobia.
Thanatophobia is an intense fear of death or the dying process. Another name for this condition is “death anxiety.” Those suffering from this mental health disorder might be anxious about their own death or the death of someone they care about. Psychotherapy can help most people overcome this disorder, but as you can very well imagine, there weren't many therapists in ancient China, so I doubt Shen had any concrete way of overcoming this struggle, especially in his current household, who most likely put high societal pressure on his dilapidated mind.
Here's a link to a site that better talks about this stuff. Of course, if you want to truly verify the validity of my source, I encourage you to seek out a professional, and please don't use what I tell you as proof for any real life debate.
Thanatophobia is an extreme fear of death or the dying process. Psychotherapy is usually an effective treatment for death anxiety.
I personally believe that diagnosing Lord Shen with Thanatophobia is the best way to put the actions of his character into perspective; the visceral way in which Shen talks to Po doesn't make a lot of sense if Shen only sees Po as a threat; no, Po is a constant nightmare looming inside his mind, and has been driving him insane for years, so now Shen wants to even the favour with the panda by slowly breaking his mind apart before he finally manages to kill him.
For Po, his conflict with Shen wasn't personal until he learned of his past, but for Shen, it was personal right from the moment he overheard the prophecy.
Kung fu has been taught for a good while, to a point where almost everyone practice kung fu. Some people started to used kung fu for their own personal gain. Oogway at this time and age start to travel across China letting the universe guide to where ever he needs to go.
Villains like the Wu Sisters start to create a name for themselves and causing trouble in China. Oogway got involve with taking the sisters down. The sisters were then separated into three prisons.
A few years later he met young Master Rhino, Ox, and Croc in Secret of the Masters.
Oogway met a young red panda named Shifu as a student from a kung fu training academy. Took Shifu in as his student in the Jade Palace. Due to a vision of seeing Shifu training the Dragon Warrior.
When Master Shifu was ready to take care of the palace by himself, Oogway went back to traveling across China.
I don't think Tai Lung ever had that much interaction with Oogway. Since his only issues with Oogway was that he didn't choose Tai Lung to be the Dragon Scroll. So I'm going to assume that their relationship is very distant. Like you see a family member once a year distant.
While Oogway was traveling, Shifu adopted a snow leopard cub. Oogway would see this only when he returns to the Jade Palace, and was told that Shifu was training him to be the Dragon Warrior.
At first glance Oogway didn't see the Chi of the Dragon Warrior, but Shifu suggested that it might be because the boy just wasn't ready yet. Oogway was convince that this might be the case and went back to his travels.
When Oogway returned while Tai Lung was at his prime, he sees that the boy grown up very different than when he was a cub, but there was no Dragon Warrior Chi there. Instead he saw that a darkness had grown inside of him.
Oogway must tell Shifu that Tai Lung wasn't the Dragon Warrior, even though the aftermath might be unpleasant. Believing it was better to tell them soon than let the darkness grow further in Tai Lung.
Oogway was telling Shifu why Tai Lung wasn't the Dragon Warrior when a messenger told the masters that Tai Lung was rampaging in the valley and was heading for the Jade Palace moments before Tai Lung came in to take the Dragon Scroll by force.
Oogway used a move that would help immobilize Tai Lung for a good while. He took Tai Lung to Chorh-Gom Prison while Shifu handle the mess in the Valley of Peace.
Oogway tried to talking to Tai Lung into sense in order to give the man one last chance of redemption before being locked up in prison. Tai Lung refuse to see what he had done was wrong and claim that it was his destiny to be the Dragon Warrior and have the Dragon Scroll.
After with what happen to Tai Lung, Oogway started to travel less and be more involve in the Jade Palace both out of guilt and age.
He tried to help guide both Shifu and Tigress while being there in the Jade Palace. Though he'll pull some mean tricks on Shifu whenever he is too harsh on Tigress.
In one of his travels, he heard stories about a monkey pulling pranks on a village. Oogway decide to get involve and help the village out with this prankster. This will be last trip away from the Jade Palace.
When Oogway stopped traveling and rested in the Jade Palace for good, he notice how Tigress became more reserved. He thought to give her advice and advise Shifu to not be so strict with training.
After the Furious Five defeated Boar, Oogway let Shifu to train the Five on his own. Trusting that his friend can handle thing on his own from now on.
Years later Oogway had a vision that Tai Lung will return. Even though it may pain Shifu, Oogway needed to tell him very soon because he knows that he would not be there to stop Tai Lung. They needed the Dragon Warrior to stop him.
While the Five was showing their skills in the tournament, Oogway was actively trying to sense the Dragon Warrior's Chi. So when Po was almost to gate's, Oogway sensed his Chi but didn't really see him.
Oogway had his eyes closed the entire time when choosing the Dragon Warrior, letting Po's Chi guide Oogway to where he will be.
Oogway was just as surprise as everyone that it was a panda who was the Dragon Warrior, but soon found it fitting since it was the pandas who healed him.
I do believe at this point, Oogway's age had finally got to him. We constantly see Oogway shaking and licking his lips, it comes off as him barely holding onto life. Especially when you compare his animation in the third film (yet again he was also dead so...).
Despite having a vision of Tai Lung's return, he was still surprise to hear of his escape.
Oogway had no control over when he will die. The petals were already moving on their own before Oogway had said "my time has come."
Oogway sensed that he will die soon, but was content with his fate and gives Shifu his last advice before passing.
Well that's all I have for now. Granted though the only thing I'm stuck on is wether Oogway had the visions of Tai Lung's return as well as Kai, or just saw the vision of Kai's defeat once he met Po.
I was thinking I bring them to a new festiaval “The Blooming spring Festival”
whos your favorite??
for me its Rhino! he looks like one of the hanfu boys
