The famed Hollywood animation studio has for the first time attempted to look at stories outside Europe and China. With Raya and the Last Dragon, Disney has sought to include a South-East Asian representative to its ensemble of princesses. This is also Disney’s first independent project in quite a while, the last critically acclaimed one being Moana.
The Medley In Raya And The Last Dragon
Raya, played by Kelly Marie Tran, takes us on a journey across different countries of South-East Asia rather than focusing on one. The dragons in the film are quite opposite to the fiery ones that we have seen featured so far. Raya’s dragon breathes water for example, and her vapors heal and shield the world from the plague called Druun.
The story goes that the dragons had left a mystical and powerful gem for the protection of mankind. However, as with all such things in history, mankind soon started fighting over it resulting in it being split into five. Each of the five pieces came to be in the possession of the five nations. Raya must now embark on a quest to recover them or find another way to stop the Druun from consuming all.
In Raya and the Last Dragon, Raya is seen as the daughter of a single father. Her mother had mysteriously disappeared. On the quest, she experiences betrayal from her childhood friend Naamari, played by Genma Chan. She also wants to save the world, however, their methods are the opposite of each other. This leads both of them to consider the other as the villain.
Raya and the Last Dragon promises to be a refreshing production from Disney as they attempt to depict something new. However, some critics have found it to be a mere medley of all the nations in the vast South-East Asian region. Be that as it may, at the very least, it is not a re-imagining of an old classic.
