One year into the COVID-19 pandemic, anti-Asian hate crimes continue to rise. “Raya and the Last Dragon,” released on March 5th, inspires possibilities of hope against the devastating hate crimes against Asian American communities nationally. This Southeast Asian inspired film tells the story of how trust can save humanity and the importance of bridging communities together during times of hardship. Still under “stay at home” orders, the animation was made available on Disney+ with a premium access fee of $29.99 on top of the $6.99 monthly subscription, similar to Disney’s recent releases, “Mulan” (2020) and “Soul” (2020).
For decades, Asian representation in the media has always been lacking due to marginalization or misportrayal by stereotyping. Since Asia holds diverse cultures that go beyond just Chinese, Korean, and Japanese, Southeast Asian traits were highlighted in the fantasy world of Kumandra, from the film. The detailed curation of this movie, through symbols, food, and clothes and cultural behavior in Kumandra, allowed some viewers to feel a cultural connection to the film. A Vietnamese high school teenager, who watched the film the weekend it came out said “this is the most close representation that I have felt.”
This animation brings awareness of the ethnic backgrounds that come from the 11 countries of Southeast Asia. Kumandra being a fictional setting allowed Disney to create a melting plot scenario that covers the multifarious sectors of each religion, habitual, and history from those 11 places. In order to curate such a production that shows a mix of Southeast Asian cultures’ foods, clothing design, rituals, and arts, the filmmakers made research trips through the region, including countries: Laos, Singapore, Cambodia, Vietnam, Thailand, and Indonesia. They went to understand the similarities and difference between the cultures in the region, which was similar to what Disney did when developing “Moana” (2016). Head of story Fawn Veerasunthorn, born and raised in Thailand, embarked on the Southeast Asia trip with her team, and she commented that “it was a way to get everyone on the same page.”
The titular heroine Raya is on a courageous journey to find Sisu, the last dragon, to come protect and reunite her land caused by the monster Druun that returned now after 500 years ago. Dragons are commonly depicted worldwide in different forms, the fire-breathing European dragon having been more common in Western media. In contrast, this film highlights how Asian dragons bring water, life, and harmony. The Southeast Asian water Naga deity is a serpentine-like dragon that protects the land similar to Sisu. Director Don Hall points out that, “Sisu is a water being, and water became a recurring motif and a huge visual thematic in the film.”
Adele Lim, a Malaysian native of Chinese descent known for her work on “Crazy Rich Asians’,’ is the writer-producer for this animation. She brought her own inspiration from her Asian heritage to create the story and screenplay of this movie. Lim mentioned how “In Southeast Asia, there’s a great tradition of female leaders, military leaders and warriors…In Malaysia, we have the warrior Tun Fatimah, and we have stories of Naga Tasik Chini, which is the dragon of Chini Lake. The Nagas and strong females are present within a lot of the cultures in Southeast Asia, so we knew those were threads that would really resonate within the film.”
Co-screenwriter Qui Nguyen, a Vietnamense American, also cared a lot about the elements of the martial arts scenes along with the character animation team, and fight reference choreographer Maggie MacDonald. They wanted to portray the different techniques of Southeast Asian fighting styles, so they added these complexities to the combat scenes in which the weapons came from each distinct region.
Vietnamese-American Kelly Marie Tran, who plays Raya, said “It is so exciting to be the first Southeast Asian Disney Princess. It is a big deal. It feels like a really big honor and a big responsibility at the same time, and I just want to do it justice.” Other Asian cast members for character included Izaac Wang (voice of Boun), Gemma Chan (voice of Namaari), Daniel Dae Kim (voice of Benja), Benedict Wong (voice of Tong), and Thalia Tran (voice of Little Noi), Sandra Oh (voice of Virana), and Lucille Soong (voice of Dang Hu).
A criticism that has been brought up is that the cast is rather more East Asian than Southeast Asian. Adele Lim comments, “Any time that there is a prominent Asian-forward movie or we have Asian leads, you know, that one project has to kind of take on the burden because there’s just not enough of them. Particularly for “Raya,” we just feel so lucky that we have the actors that we have, who have just connected so deeply and so meaningfully to their parts.”
Bringing Asian representation to a global scale, Sandra Oh adds that “I am glad to be a part of the screen where you can see the people who have made it and it is very exciting…especially for the much younger generation to get their voices heard.”
Even through this pandemic, Disney overcame the challenge in producing this film remotely, connecting the works from their teams working from over 400 homes. They believed in the importance of bringing Asian voices to the media, especially as Anti-Asian racism and hate crimes have recently become a focus in the media due to the pandemic.
With the theme about such an important topic of trust, the movie serves to be “Art [that] is here to pose questions and to potentially suggest possibilities,” said Oh. Nguyen comments how “In the last 365 days, where there has been a lot of negative imagery and words said about Asians and it is hard to not appreciate that this movie is coming out and giving it a counterpart that you know gives it a positive spin or not just a positive spin, but just celebrating Asian American skin, and Asian American lives, Asian American people.”
