Spring Festival sets are here to celebrate the Dragon!
In the past LEGO have made many Chinese New Year (CNY) sets. To my recollection, I think this is the first time that they have called it the Spring Festival. Anyways, there are two new sets to take a look at today and sink our teeth into. A Dragon, and Dragon Dinner! Let’s get to it!
LEGO Spring Festival Auspicious Dragon – 80112
LEGO’s Auspicious Dragon is certainly dressed to impress. With a very clear definitive tan colouration across the body with elements of gold, red and azure popping it to life. Although I already had my suspicions, the dragon’s body has little to no movement at all. The head can ever-so-slightly move, and the arms go up and down, but the body is very well locked in place.
Not only does the set focus on the dragon, but gives a very grandiose base for it to stand atop of. Using the Monkie Kid cloud elements recoloured in Flamish-Yellow and Orange, as well as white Unikitty tails to make various cloud and water effects.
Yes, I might be wrong in my theory here, but the base of the dragon looks to be set upon water. I bring this up as a few people I have spoke to think it is in the air, and the white is cloud. Let me know what you think here.
Element Of Golden Scales
As for the main bulk of the Dragon, there is a very clear new printed element of Golden scales. You get 26 of them, alongside some new eye printing too. Everything else on the dragon is all brick built with pre-existing colours and elements. Other than his whiskers in a dark blue colour and some less than common azure elements.
Overall with this guy, I do like the set, but once the Dragon is taken away from his very fancy box packaging. The Tan colour doesn’t look as nice as I would have like it to.
I understand limitations by LEGO themselves. But this feels a shimmer short of being a gold dragon. There are gold elements across his head, tails and claws, but not much else. The small skittering of gold through the body just doesn’t still out enough and they look oddly weighted towards the ends than the middle.
LEGO Spring Festival Family Reunion Celebration – 80013
The Spring Festival Family Reunion set isn’t like previous Chinese-New-Year themed sets. As rather than building another type of home or façade, LEGO have opted for a full blown restaurant. This immediate caught my interest knowing that there are plenty of AFOLs that might be interested in this set for its ability to work in cityscapes. But with all reviews, we have to take a deep dive and see for ourselves.
The set itself feels a little modular-esque, with the committal to lots of the same parts to pull off an effect. We see throughout the set lots of Dark Green ingots for the roof tiles, which I believe is a first. Many sticker elements to lean into the oriental theme. As well as a bright pop of colour with the red/gold/azure colour palette. Oh, and lots of frogs here too!
The Street, Kitchen and Entry
Breaking the set up to its three distinct layers. Our lowest floor comprises of the entry foyer, kitchen and small street terrace with a small florist on the side.
The main counter has an easy to access option to remove the back wall to allow figures to get in and be posed. Whereas the main foyer is very open by comparison. Although one might be quick to look over it, the golden elements that are used for the windows and decorative walls are actually all new elements! The other elements we are used to seeing with these types of sets are more square. So this is a new mould!
Also, around this later we can also see some sticker elements that reference other CNY sets. With a Dragon and two tourists taking a selfie in front of what looks to be the Story of Nian.
Dining Room And Restroom
The upstairs dining room makes really great use of those new fence elements by turning them on their side. In this area we have the entryway from downstairs, a small bathroom and a karaoke machine! Although quick to overlook, I believe I spy some titular characters from Monkie Kid on the screen, Mei and MK. The Dining space has space for 6 diners, all on swivel chairs to help squeeze them all in.
I do love the use of various plant elements and ice-cream to represent dumplings and other snacks. But what really impresses is the new food prints of noodles in the bowl. Yum Yum!
I do think the chopsticks sitting upright on the table is a bit jarring, but I understand why LEGO did what they did.
Rooftop
The rooftop of the set is also dressed to impress with a small quaint dinner for two. Using many of the same techniques as the floor below. However now with a big dish of food in the middle to take portions from.
There isn’t anything too crazy up here, but I’m glad this spot wasn’t overlooked. The only real issue I might have here is the azure plant elements, as I’m exactly sure what these are supposed to represent.
Minifigures
The figures of this set are certainly abundant, with all manners of ages being represented here.
There are some stand out parts here, such as the chef and waiter torsos with back printing and the fun coloured Classic Space graffiti jacket. The Golden Dragon head mould looks right out of a CMF and looks amazing. But I’m a little less impressed by the outfit. I’m not sure what exactly the jacket is supposed to represent, and doesn’t make the figure feel as ‘whole’.
For anyone with an abundance of city figures, these faces and hair combos might not look all that new. But for anyone with a smaller and more humble collection, there are some great hair/face parts here to nab. Examples include the vomit face, black pigtail hairpiece, and all the faces with glasses.
Verdict
Overall, these two sets I feel like are going to be a bit more popular than previous CNY sets. As the restaurant can easily be adapted into a modular building and the Dragon is great display piece.
I feel like any person with a decent collection or willpower can make tweaks to fix the common elements in the sets. They aren’t glaring issues, but they are things that AFOLs can take into their own hand if they wish.
The price tag on the Dragon comparative to the restaurant makes one of these better price wise than the other. Regardless, if you want to invest in these for your LEGO collection I would still recommend them.
Both sets are available from LEGO.com and LEGO Stores from 1st Janurary 2024.
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