I find films opening with voice-overs that extrapolate settings and backstories a bit of an overkill, but sometimes they’re a necessary evil. Case in point: Raya and the Last Dragon, the new animated film playing now on Disney+ and cinemas worldwide, which has a lot of history to shove out of the way before the story and the action actually starts.

In the fantasy land of Kumandra, dragons and humans lived happy lives until Druun — manifestations of man’s distrust taking the form of smoke-monsters crackling with purple energy — started turning living beings into stone. According to historical texts — i.e. scrolls with big drawings and symbols, but no words — Sisu (Awkwafina), the last of the dragons, channeled her magic into a crystal that destroyed the Druun.

The crystal, pulsating with magical energies that made nearby water flow backwards, gave the tribes of Kumandra a reason to take their knives out against each other; they thought that the crystal, protected by a benevolent tribe, would give them power and prosperity.

It did no such thing, but that didn’t stop the war from dividing the land into five kingdoms — Fang, Heart, Spine, Talon and Tail — each named after a part of the dragon’s body.

The underlying story of an underdog proving its worth in the excellent animated Raya and the Last Dragon is a classic Disney trope

The backstory leads us to two time jumps: the first is six years before the present, where Heart’s chieftain’s daughter Raya (Kelly Marie Tran, Star Wars: The Last Jedi and The Rise of Skywalker), trains as a guardian of the stone. Believing the stories of the savagery of the four kingdoms, Raya is flummoxed when her dad tells her that he has invited them to a diplomatic lunch. Peace begins by trust, he tells her which, by the way, is the message of the film.

Taking dad’s advice, Raya, a self-proclaimed dragon nerd, befriends Fang’s princess Namaari (Gemma Chan), also a dragon nerd, whom she takes to the secret, sacred shrine of the crystal.

It’s a carefully planned ruse anyone can see coming a mile away. Namaari tries to steal the crystal, breaking it into five pieces and unknowingly freeing the incarcerated Druun, who begin turning everyone back into stone.

Six years later, when the flashbacks and narration from Raya finally stops, we see her travelling the land on her token Disney cute-critter — a giant mutation between a pill-bug and an armadillo named Tuk Tuk (Alan Tudyk) — trying to find the legendary last dragon Sisu, who some believe was carried away by the rivers after she vanquished the Druun. Raya, impressed by the fables, thinks she can revive Sisu — and she does (otherwise, the title wouldn’t make much sense).

Sisu, who looks like a mix of a furry lizard and a deformed My Little Pony, is not the brightest bulb in the dragon community — in fact, even she is baffled when her brothers and sisters sacrificed themselves to make sure she could use their combined magic to turn the tide around 500 years ago.

This underlying story of an underdog proving its worth is a classic Disney trope — not that I’m complaining. Actually, there’s not much to complain about in Raya and the Last Dragon. The film is artfully designed, its visuals perfectly rendered, and its message (i.e. peace and love begins with trust), aptly delivered. It takes one a while to dig out its few, minor shortfalls.

First of all, this is an all-women marathon, and men are deemed irrelevant in the grand scheme of things. Other than Raya’s father (Daniel Dae Kim), late in the movie we meet the 10-year-old boy Boun (Izaac Wang), who owns a boat that doubles as a shrimp restaurant (Druun are repelled by water, so a houseboat makes sense). Even later, the group finds Tong (Benedict Wong, Doctor Strange) a hefty warrior from the Spine kingdom.

Even as supporting characters, they are relegated to the end of the line; a con-baby girl Noi (Thalia Tran) and her team of pilfering baboon-like creatures have somewhat better screen-time and scenes. I guess it’s the trend, but this inequality of the sexes is on the fast track of becoming a done-to-death USP for feature films.

Since the story doesn’t demand a romantic subplot, I was caught off-guard when I read opinions interpreting the rivalry-cum-friendship between Raya and Namaari as sexual tension (a review pointed out in the New York Times); it certainly wasn’t showcased as such by the filmmakers. However, the conversation of appending sexual inclusivity in animated films is slowly tainting the innocence of the medium — especially when it isn’t explicitly in the screenplay, and especially when the film includes another form of inclusivity: the setting and ethnicity of the story.

While the land of Kumandra is one of fantasy, if it were real life, geographically the story would be set in South-East Asian countries (think Cambodia or Malaysia). These countries wouldn’t normally get the limelight 10 years back.

But as they say, if the shoe (in this case, the story) fits…at times you don’t need Caucasian skin tones sullying stories. Moana and Coco, for instance, didn’t need them. Raya and the Last Dragon, definitely doesn’t.

This is a well-told story that relies on basic, but excellently utilised, clichés that imparts lessons of tolerance, peace and forgiveness. You buy the ticket (or pay the Premier Access fee at Disney+) for the magic, but stay for the emotional journey. That’s money well spent. Highly recommended.

Written by Qui Nguyen and Adele Lim, Directed by Don Hall (Big Hero Six) and Carlos López Estrada (Blindspotting, Summertime), Raya and the Last Dragon is rated PG.

Published in Dawn, ICON, March 21st, 2021