Orphaned heroes have become an exhausted trope in Disney princess backstories, but Tran’s passionate performance helps the film explore grief as an active part of the narrative. An early scene where Raya breaks down after searching years for Sisu is especially moving, contextualizing her arc with a relatable feeling of guilt. īut while the film isn’t afraid to cement the gravity of its narrative, it balances such darkness with humor and heart.Īt the movie’s emotional center is Tran, who impressively breathes strength, charisma and vulnerability into Raya’s character.

The image of loved ones frozen in stone across the land is a haunting one, and the subtext of the disease-like Druun feels all too timely. Unlike movies where the amorphous, world-ending threat poses no tangible stakes, the film portrays an environmentalist consequence to humanity’s discord. Six years later, it’s up to Raya to awaken the last dragon of legend Sisu (Awkwafina) and journey across the land to reassemble what was broken. While Benja tries to extend peace toward their adversaries, Raya is deceived by Namaari (Gemma Chan), her warrior princess rival from tribe Fang – unleashing the Druun once again when the orb is accidentally fractured. But when a plague-like spirit called the Druun began turning people to stone, the dragons altruistically channeled their remaining magic into an orb that the five warring tribes soon fought over.įive centuries later, Raya (Kelly Marie Tran) and her father chief Benja (Daniel Dae Kim) of the Heart tribe become guardians of the dragon orb. And although the film is not without its flaws, it is another step in the right direction that joyously brings the first Southeast Asian Disney princess to life.Īn opening based on Indonesian puppet theater effectively immerses viewers into the film’s inspired lore, recounting how dragons once brought bountiful prosperity to Kumandra. In its past globally centered narratives, Disney has struggled to sensitively mesh its magical brand of family-friendly whimsy with cultural nuance and accuracy.

Released on March 5 in theaters and Disney+ Premier Access, “Raya and the Last Dragon” is the studio’s latest 3D-animated outing, telling a wholly original story set in Kumandra – a fantasy world inspired by several Southeast Asian cultures.

One live-action remake after another, Disney finally returns to its roots. 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.This post was updated March 7 at 4:22 p.m. 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. A rare family film with genuine action-blockbuster chops.

Raya the last dragon movie