Throw in a fluid foot-chase through Talon and a booby-trapped gauntlet-run in Tail (complete with explosive-farting beetles), and Raya is a rare family film with genuine action-blockbuster chops. Veteran Disney director Don Hall ( Big Hero 6) and Blindspotting’s Carlos López Estrada deliver impressively impactful fight sequences that hit harder than typical Disney fare - using crash-zooms and speed-ramping to accentuate the fighting techniques of Raya and her nemesis Namaari ( Gemma Chan) while invoking the cinematic language of Asian action cinema. The complex mythology does make Kumandra feel properly epic, and every stop on Raya’s journey - the desert wasteland of Tail, the lantern-lit market-town of Talon, the dense, foggy forest of Spine - has a distinct, gorgeously realised identity. But the screenplay - from Crazy Rich Asians co-screenwriter Adele Lim and Vietnamese-American writer Qui Nguyen - is pacy and propulsive, punctuating the necessary narrative groundwork with bursts of action and excitement. It’s a lot of lore, and the opening act of Raya has plenty to unfurl – there’s a prologue to a prelude, exposition to dispense about dragon magic and the five factions of Kumandra (Tail, Talon, Spine, Fang, and Raya’s homeland of Heart), and a MacGuffin-driven mission to establish, along with the introduction of Awkwafina’s anxious water dragon Sisu. So, its about time I really enjoyed this movie.
Us Again, is a delicious, dancing ode to love.A rare family film with genuine action-blockbuster chops. The last new Disney princess movie was Moana, and that was all the way back in 2016. Raya and the Last Dragon is a joyous addition to the Disney library, Zach Parrish’s short film, Find film screening times, film runtimes, film synopsis, cast and director and. The humour whether it is the 10-year-old boatman and entrepreneur Boun (Izaac Wang), the wicked little con baby Little Noi (Thalia Tran) is fun as is Tuk Tuk (Alan Tudyk) the armadillo, Raya’s ride. Book tickets to watch Raya and the Last Dragon at your nearest Vue Cinema. The voice work from Kelly Marie Tran (Raya) and Awkwafina (Sisu) to Gemma Chan (Namaari), Daniel Dae Kim (Benja) and Sandra Oh (Virana) is excellent. Raya and the Last Dragon draws inspiration from Laos, Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, Myanmar, Malaysia, Indonesia, and the Philippines. The movie moved so fast, I honestly thought it was playing on 2x speed. The first and most inescapable problem was the pacing. However, all of these good points could not make up for the bad ones. Watch the official trailer & clip compilation for Raya and the Last Dragon, an animation movie starring Kelly Marie Tran and Awkwafina. The dragon looks more like a unicorn than the fire-breathing scaly creatures we are used to seeing. The fictional world of Kumandra was vibrant, colorful, and interesting. Walt Disney Animation Studios Raya and the Last Dragon travels to the fantasy world of Kumandra, where humans and dragons lived together in harmony long ago. Six years later, Raya is bitter and suspicious (she trusted Namaari) and trying to find Sisu, the last dragon, the one who created the orb, in the hope of putting it back together, defeating the Druun and getting her father back. In the ensuing melee, the orb is shattered, the Druun return and to Raya’s horror, her father is turned to stone. The leaders of the other tribes distrust him and Chief Virana from Fang with her daughter Namaari try to steal the orb. Benga invites the other tribes to a feast to show his good intentions. The ruler of Heart, Benga, believes in unity and tries to teach his dragon-obsessed daughter Raya the same. In the following 500 years the land was split into five tribes - Fang, Heart, Tail, Spine and Talon, who fought each other for control of the magic orb. The Druun were sent back but at a terrible cost - the dragons were gone too.Īlso Read | Get ‘First Day First Show’, our weekly newsletter from the world of cinema, in your inbox. The dragons fought back and made a final stand by pouring all their power into a magic gem. The movie is so jolly, colourful and upbeat that even the bad things do not get you down as you are convinced that this is just a little road bump and things will be fine.ĭragons and humans co-existed in the magic land of Kumandra till 500 years ago, evil spirits called Druun began attacking the land and turning everyone into stone. Raya and the Last Dragon one cannot think the world is filled with gloom, doom, masks and a wicked virus.