Raya and the Last Dragon
Directed by Don Hall & Carlos López Estrada
Produced by Osnat Shurer & Peter Del Vecho
Written by Qui Nguyen & Adele Lim
Starring
Kelly Marie Tran
Awkwafina
Izaac Wang
Gemma Chan
Daniel Dae Kim
Benedict Wong
Sandra Oh
Thalia Tran
Lucille Soong
Alan Tudyk
Music by James Newton Howard
Cinematography Rob Dressel (layout) & Adolph Lusinsky (lighting)
Edited by Fabienne Rawley & Shannon Stein
Production companies Walt Disney Pictures & Walt Disney Animation Studios
The first thing that struck me as I was watching Raya and the Last Dragon was that it reminded me of the television animated series Avatar. That’s not a bad start, given that Avatar is one of the finest animated series to be found. During the opening exposition about the world of Kumandra and how it came to be divided into warring nations, I even had the prologue from Avatar run through my mind. “And then one day, the Fire Nation attacked.” There were other similarities: Raya (Tran) bore a resemblance to Kitara; she rode a strange beast with unusual abilities like Aang, the personalities and the interplay among them all rang true, and it was a well-done quest adventure. Virana, mother of the main antagonist, even reminded me of a much saner version of Azula.
It is very much its own story, and shows that many great stories have the same ingredients, and the better the ingredients, the better the story.
The second thing you notice is the sheer quality of the animation. Disney has always had a certain reputation there, of course, but they’ve taken their own very high standards and moved it up a step. Backgrounds are so well done you can’t tell if they are computer generated or ‘real’. The hair or fur on the characters is perfect. And while the faces are deliberately cartoonish (animators learned that faces that were too realistic but not realistic enough creeped people out) the expressions are more nuanced, and do a much better job of conveying mood or intent than most animated features can.
There are five nations, each named for a part of a dragon. Raya is part of the Heart nation. There is the Fang tribe, home to the main antagonist, Namaari, and her mother, Queen Virana. The other nations are Tail, Spine, and Talon. While not as diverse as the nations of Avatar (which correlate to Inuit, Tibetan, Chinese and Japanese) reflect a different parts of eastern Asia, including “Brunei, Singapore, Laos, Thailand, Timor-Leste, Cambodia, Vietnam, Myanmar, Malaysia, Indonesia, and the Philippines.” [per Wikipedia].
This world was in peace and harmony, under the benign influence of magical dragons who produced the water for the world. The the fire…excuse me, a pestilence, the Druun (that somewhat resembled the Dementors from Harry Potter) attacked, slaying all but one of the dragons and dividing the peoples. The land of Heart guards the orb that is said to bring the surviving dragon Sisu (Awkwafina, in a stellar performance) out of her prison. But Fang tries to steal the orb, and in the ensuing fight, the orb is shattered into five bits, and each nation ends up with a bit. Without the orb to protect Heart, the Druun attack, turning King Benja (Raya’s father) to stone. Raya then goes on a six year quest with her remaining piece of the orb in search of Sisu, riding a kind of giant rolling armadillo. That’s where the story resumes.
It’s a story with heart, and while it has the silly annoying child and critter sidekicks that tend to infest Disney movies (honestly, can’t they spray for that?) they aren’t as annoying as usual.
Now on Disney+