TL;DR:
- Original Price: $74.99
- Pieces: 605
- Minifigure(s): Mei Power-up, Mr. Tang Power-up, Yellow-Tusk Elephant, Ink General
- Sticker Sheet: Yes
- Pros: Intricate detailing on figures & dragon, interesting pieces
- Cons: Limited poseability of dragon
Assembly:
Bag #1 - Mei Power-up, Mr. Tang Power-up, Torso front half
Bag #2 - Torso back half
Bag #3 - Yellow-Tusk Elephant, Ink General, Torso details, Neck
Bag #4 - Head
Bag #5 - Legs
Bag #6 - Tail, Details
Leftover Pieces
- Interesting Steps:
- In step 18, as throughout the build, there is SNOT everywhere. This is common for such sculptural builds, and it's interesting to see how in just this section alone we have snot coming down from above, up from below, and sideways as well. It's a great way to lock things together.
- Step 52 shows how the white mudgard arch fits perfectly over the dark turquoise 2x2 slopes. I didn't realize until this point that the curves were designed to be the same.
- Step 119 has us rotate the pearl gold mechanical arm on the angled 1x1 with bar pieces, which is a nice detail framing the bright light orange chestpiece (which is almost, but not quite gold).
- Similarly to step 52 above, step 125 shows how the white 1x2 wing end fits perfectly over the white 2x2 slope with curved sides.
- I like the use in step 135 of whips as whiskers for the lung dragon's head.
- Interesting Techniques:
- Step 77 shows the use of 4x4 quarter circles (one on either side) to lock the upper and lower neck pieces together, which otherwise would only be held on by the two studs of the inverted 2x2 slope (because the 2x4 dark tan tile butts up against the two sideways white 1x3 inverted arches), which is a neat solution to the thorny problem resulting from the in-all-directions design.
- Step 246 combines the large sword, cloud, and flame pieces, which makes for a nice ornate staggered effect, and the stacked pearl gold radar dishes (2x2 on 4x4) evoke the swirls in both the large sword and cloud elements.
- Interesting Pieces:
- I love getting sets with the Monkie Kid Weapon Pack, because you only need a few of the pieces for any particular build, leaving the rest as wonderfully-detailed extras for minifigure tools or architectural detailing.
- The 1x2 printed tiles for eyes are really neat looking, it would have been nice to have extras of such an intricate design.
- It's neat that we get click-hinges both vertical and horizontal in this set.
- The large swords with swirls in both pearl gold and trans-bright green are really beautiful designs.
- Pain Points:
- Step 209: assembling so many claws is definitely a pain.
- The use of 1x2 hinge brick top plates as the heels for the hind feet means that there isn't corresponding hinge brick bottom halves, so that's two hinge bricks that won't ever be...hinged.
- The inflexible neck that results from the angles involved, means that the head can't really be posed at all. I could see using an additional male-to-female tow ball / Mixel joint piece to give extra flexibility to the neck, with additional bright green pieces to add to the mane-like appearance.
- Conversely, the too-flexible tail also prevents posing. This floppy back-and-forth movement would have been cool if it were attached to a mechanized creature that walked on its own...without having to have each leg posed by hand for each step.
It's rather sad to see just how short the lifespan of the overall-excellent Monkie Kid sets is. This was released in 2023 and retired in December of 2024—18 months. According to Brickeconomy, this is long even for these sets, with Monkie Kid sets averaging 11 months (which means some didn't even last that long), compared to the up to 4 years I've seen mentioned for other sets. I'm sure part of this is due to the fact that the Monkie Kid show isn't available in its entirety anywhere, with many of the specials (namely, the first episode of each season) not available on any service. This is a real shame, because the show is amazing, both in its handling and retelling of the ancient novel and in its own visual and narrative uniqueness.
With regard to this set specifically, it was a fun build with a lot of interesting techniques used to layer lime and white slopes to make it look like scales, and to give the dragon a sinuous form. Click hinges and Mixel joints make the legs poseable, but the head, neck, and tail aren't, as described above. The minifigs that come with the set are good, especially since this is the cheapest way to obtain Yellow Tusk Elephant in a set (his own mech being a close second). There are a lot of stickers, but they really add to the details and fit well with the various colors; for example: on the cheek pieces, where the front part of the sticker is white to match the jaw, and the back is lime to match the mane.
There are a lot of SNOT pieces, and a lot of "finishing" pieces (slopes and curves and tiles of various sorts), and in white, lime, dark turquoise and pearl gold colors. If the dragon itself was more poseable, I could see it easily being easier to play with; as it is, it's either a "pose once and leave it" display model or else a source for raw materials for other builds (for example, I could see building a house with a lime-colored tile roof, given all of those pieces that come in this set).
Score (out of 5 🧱):
- Price: 🧱🧱🧱
- Process: 🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱
- Presentation: 🧱🧱🧱🧱
- Play: 🧱🧱
- Pieces: 🧱🧱🧱
- Total: 🧱🧱🧱
Lego Instructions: here
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