Angelina Jolie

After nearly three months in Namibia, where she gave birth to daughter Shiloh Nouvel, Angelina Jolie is headed into the jungle — an animated one at least.

The actress has signed on to voice a character in ‘Kung Fu Panda’, a new animated film from DreamWorks Animation that sees the 31-year-old reunite with the company behind ‘Shark Tale’.

But that’s not the only reunion: she joins Jack Black, who played a timid shark opposite her seductress fish in the 2004 animated film.

This time around, Jolie is set to play Tigress, a master of the martial arts who trains Po the Panda (voiced by Black) how to become a kung fu fighter.

Although he’s a kung fu nut, Po is just a waiter in a noodle restaurant — and an incredibly lazy one at that. So he’s not exactly in fighting shape, which is a problem when a prophecy names him as the “Chosen One”, set to protect his community from powerful enemies, according to a press release from DreamWorks, the company behind the ‘Shrek’ films, ‘Madagascar’ and ‘Over The Hedge’.

Jolie’s character is one of the “furious five” martial artists given the task of training Po, according to Empire magazine. She is joined by martial arts legend Jackie Chan, ‘Charlie’s Angel’ Lucy Lui and multiple Oscar winner Dustin Hoffman as Master Monkey, Master Viper and Shifu respectively.

Ian McShane is to voice the evil nemesis Tai Lung, a snow leopard, in the CG animated film directed by John Stevenson and Mark Osbourne.

The screenplay for ‘Kung Fu Panda’, which is due in cinemas in May 2008, is by Rob Schrab and Dan Harmon.

Jolie will next be seen opposite Matt Damon in ‘The Good Shepherd’, a CIA thriller directed by and starring Robert De Niro. It opens in the US on December 22. Almost a year later will see the release of ‘Beowulf’ directed by Robert ‘Forrest Gump’ Zemeckis and featuring similar motion-capture technology to that used in his ‘Polar Express’.