NOW SISU THAT WALK
PRODUCER OSNAT SHURER AND WRITER ADELE LIM EXPLAIN WHY RAYA AND THE LAST DRAGON IS UNLIKE ANY DISNEY FILM YOU’VE SEEN
WORDS: DARREN SCOTT
ISTOCK.COM
DISNEY HAS DABBLED WITH DARK before – Return To Oz, anyone? – but Raya And The Last Dragon might be the first time that Walt Disney Animation Studios has killed off most of the population and travelled to a post-apocalyptic future to tell a story.
Set in the fictional world of Kumandra – with five interjoining lands shaped like a dragon – humans and dragons lived in harmony until an ancient evil threatened all life and the dragons sacrificed themselves to defeat it and save humanity. It’s 500 years later when the evil returns to take down the fractured survivors, and Raya (Kelly Marie Tran), Guardian of the Dragon Gem, blames herself for the cataclysmic events. She sets off on a quest to find the last dragon and restore peace…
For the first Walt Disney Animation Studios film to have a Southeastern Asia–inspired setting, filmmakers made research trips throughout Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, Malaysia and Singapore to experience the cultures. The result is a world the viewer will want to be part of as Raya assembles a crew to save Kumandra.
There’s a list of Disney contributors as long as a forked tongue who are involved with this film, all having worked on some of the greatest modern offerings from the studio. SFX caught up with two of them, producer Osnat Shurer and writer Adele Lim.
What was your journey to Raya’s quest?