When Raya and the Last Dragon begins, Raya’s father, Chief Benja (Daniel Dae Kim), is hoping to heal the rifts between the five warring lands that Kumandra has split into by inviting the leadership for a sit-down. When the Druun were first defeated, 500 years ago, their victims transformed back - except for the dragons, the source of all of Kumandra’s enchantments, who remained frozen. The Druun are part virus, part monster, formless forces that transform everyone they come into contact with to stone. The angel on her shoulder urging her toward forgiveness is Sisu (Awkwafina), the last dragon, and the one who, the story goes, saved the world from being destroyed by the Druun by creating the gem that Raya and her family have been guarding. Trust, the movie suggests, is an act of grace, something that involves relinquishing the memories of past harm, and something that must be given if it is expected from others. Raya has to travel to different lands collecting magical objects and evading dangers that range from grandmotherly mob bosses to bugs with exploding farts - but her real battle involves learning to let go of her rage after having been betrayed. All parallels to pleas for bipartisanship aside, there’s a genuine emotional heft to the conflict at its center. Raya (Kelly Marie Tran) isn’t just the future leader of her land, she’s also a fierce martial artist who’s been training to inherit the role of protector of the gem containing the last of the era’s magic. Raya and the Last Dragon, which was directed by Don Hall (of Big Hero 6 and Moana) and Carlos López Estrada ( Blindspotting), and written by Qui Nguyen and Adele Lim, is a slick production, as much an action movie as a fantasy adventure.
Who could ever relate? Thank God there’s a cute baby to focus on. It’s a movie that takes place in a landscape ravaged by a plague, and one in which, we’re told, the only chance at a future appears to depend on its characters figuring out how to overcome the tribalism that’s splintered their nation. But however intentional the timing, Raya and the Last Dragon is on a level all its own - a dystopian saga that feels disorientingly primed for a release at the tail end of the pandemic, under a president who ran under messages of healing and unity. Zootopia was an unmistakable if imperfect allegory about racism the Frozen sequel pitted its royal sisters against their own kingdom’s colonialist legacy.
Raya (voiced by Kelly Marie Tran) in Disney’s Raya and the Last Dragon Photo: Courtesy of Disney+Īs Disney enters its ninth decade of animated features, the company’s been making gestures toward sociopolitical relevance in addition to repositioning its princesses as independent heroines and opening its animated universes up to be more inclusive.
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