Following Lego’s Chinese New Year’s Eve Dinner and Dragon Dance sets earlier this year, the latest edition features elements of the Dragon Boat Festival, a.k.a. Duan Wu Jie, the Dragon Boat Race set.
This festival is a traditional summer solstice holiday that takes place on the fifth day of the fifth month in the Lunar calendar, which typically occurs around the end of May to mid-June.
Now, the biggest part about this festival is the sticky rice dumplings wrapped in lotus leaves, otherwise known as zongzi, and the 2,000-year-old Chinese tradition, dragon boat races.
These two elements are, of course, perfectly incorporated into the Dragon Boat Race set.
The box is designed rather similarly to the Chinese New Year sets. Notice the gold seal at the top right corner with the words ‘Duan Wu’ and symbolising that it is part of the Chinese Festival Special Edition series.
Now, this set comes with only 471 pieces but boasts an impressive 15 minifigures, which include two helmsmen, six paddlers, two drummers, two spectators, a young boy, a judge, and a stall keeper.
The members of the dragon boat teams make up two separate teams in red and green. Each minifigure comes with different expressions, some with two-sided heads. This allows more room for role play and storytelling.
On that note, the dragon boat team members in this set have new torsos and legs, and the prints at the top of the legs to indicate the rest of their race outfits are also a nice touch.
Both teams have outfit designs that are unique to their team colour.
Apart from the minifigures, this special set has other elements of the festival, like a food stall, a podium stage and none other than the centerpieces, the dragon boats.
Each boat has a dragon head with an opening mouth, a posable tail and small wheels underneath for you to race them on a flat surface.
But if you must know, the dragon boats don’t float on water. So, stay dry!
Then, comes the viewing dock, which connects the rice dumpling stall and podium stage, as well as the spectators.
The stall is one of our favourite things about this set because of the attention to detail. It comes with a pot, rice bucket, food sign, six cooked rice dumplings, and two uncooked ones. Of course, parts of these elements are portrayed by stickers.
Then, the judging platform at the stage that is connected has a race official standing as the judge and a trophy for the winner of the race.
Look below the stage and you will see a pond, indicated by blue and transparent pieces, as well as lily pads and a frog!
Overall, the Dragon Boat Race set is an easy build since both of the dragon boats have identical designs. We took about three hours to complete this set in total, plus a coffee break in between.
We appreciate the effort that the designer has put into this limited edition set because it certainly captures the essence of the Duan Wu Festival. The overall variety of colours also brings more life to any Lego-fan’s existing collection.
So, grab a set for yourself and your loved ones, and start making some fun stories with all the minifigures!
The Lego Dragon Boat Race set is now available at all Lego stores and toy stores nationwide.
In case you missed it, watch this little short film we made with the Chinese New Year’s Eve Dinner set earlier this year: