Richard Ong

While wholeheartedly I appreciate Disney in giving SE Asians, including me, a Filipino, such an amazing representation, from the character design to the settings, which is SO BEAUTIFULLY My only issue is how direct and "preachy" they convey the theme of trust, like althoughout the movie they always talk about betrayal and hesitation... which ties into the overall theme of trust, which honestly took a lot of the joy and subtlety Disney animations do a lot and actually makes some scenes just tiring (for a lack of better terms) to watch. Overall, solid 4/5... yall can watch other reviews down here, they mostly echo why I love the movie a lot. just wish Disney allow same-sex display of affection for once in their movie cuz Namaari and Raya do make a beautiful enemies to lovers arc

There's too many things wrong about this movie: 1) The context of its release (Lead actress supporting police brutality, filmed near Uighur concentration camps) 2)Horrible movie decisions (no mushu, Li Shang, music, cricket, grandma) 3)Heavily WHITE crew 4)False women empowerment theme 5) atrocious pacing and dialogue 6) HORRIBLE character design and development 7) dizzy cinematography 8) holistically disconnected from anything, from the chinese context to the emotions of the audience 9) STILL some misuse of Chinese culture (why do we have a shapeshifting witch again?) Honestly what made this 100x worse was it was a live-action version to an ASTOUNDING ANIMATED MOVIE.... so like having to be just as good, maybe even one-up the masterpiece that is the 1998 animated CLASSIC is difficult.. and it shows. also lol those movie reviews above the audience reviews are so different, like did we watch the same movie?