The art styles used for each villain’s backstory.

I always noticed how each villain’s backstory was shown to us in a different art style. And honestly, each of them pretty much fits them.

Tai Lung’s backstory is shown in the usual 3D animation, but with a golden glow glossed over it to signify how well things had been going for him, until he got rejected. The golden glow disappeared as we get shown a short fragment of him laying waste on the valley (the golden glow does get back when baby Tigress was shown).

Shen’s background was shown in a traditional Chinese puppet show. With characters made out of paper and being controlled by tiny sticks. And then the color schemes, especially the red. And seeing how there was one pig that was doing a puppet show in the movie, I find it very suiting too.

Kai’s backstory was shown in traditional Chinese art. Black ink, water color and the story written in Chinese in some parts (which I think is Middle Chinese). And when it ends, it shifts pretty beautifully back to the others reading the scroll.

And that got me thinking. In what way would the Chameleon’s backstory be shown (if she had a solid and compelling one) I’d like to think it would start off as just simple ink art, but then it’ll become filled with bright colors when she discovers sorcery, until the colors get darker as she descends into darkness herself.