Ever since Disney overhauled its princess archetype in 2010’s Tangled with an agency-seizing Rapunzel, the evolution of its revolutionary heroines has continued — from Frozen’s convention-bucking royal sisters Elsa and Anna, to seafaring voyager Moana. Its latest progression is Raya — an all-out warrior, traversing a post-apocalyptic fantasy kingdom in an action-packed adventure replete with tomb-raiding set-pieces and bruising brawls.
She’s also the studio’s first Southeast Asian protagonist in a tale inspired by the cultures and mythology of Southeast Asian countries, transposed to the fictional realm of Kumandra — once-prosperous and populated by humans and dragons, before swirling purple evil entity the Druun turned the mythical beasts to stone. Kumandra divided into warring factions, and centuries later a power-grab gone wrong brings the Druun back, plunging the kingdom into further ruin. Enter Raya (Kelly Marie Tran) — a lone wolf with a swooshing cape and a sling-bladed whip sword, on a quest to reunite the broken shards of the Dragon Gem (a stone holding the last vestiges of dragon magic), defeat the Druun, and restore Kumandra’s people, her father Benja (Daniel Dae Kim) included.
A rare family film with genuine action-blockbuster chops.
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. 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. 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.
Most distinctive, though, is the action. 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. 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.
It’s not all refreshing. Some beats feel derivative (a moment of water-magic in a shipwreck is a near-direct Frozen II re-tread, while Moana’s DNA looms large overall), and there’s a sense that Awkwafina — comedic dynamite in Crazy Rich Asians and Jumanji: The Next Level — should get more zingers.
But it’s frequently breathtaking, from the photoreal water effects to Sisu’s shimmering, purple-pink mane. And with its cleanly delivered thread about creating unity and learning to trust one another again, Raya is perfectly timed for the Biden-Harris era. If there’s a hero we need right now, it’s one who kicks ass with kindness.
