REVIEW: 80039 The Heavenly Realms

[Pchan1983]

Here is my review on Monkie Kid 80039 The Heavenly Realms:

THE GOOD:

• It looks amazing! You have to see it yourself to believe it.
• Awesome building experience, there are ways to build stuff really blown me away. (A total show off from the designer in my opinion)
• The action with the clouds open up is truely heavenly!
• A set really brings out the essence of Journey to the West!
• Great minifigures with characters I would never have though Lego would make!
• Great they included the background stories in the instruction.

THE NOT SO GOOD:

• I couldn't find any thing I don't like to be honest.

I was so impressed with this set when I completed this.  It's a truely amazing set and instantly became no.1 set for me in the whole Monkie Kid theme.  Yes, it has surpassed the Flow Fruit Mountain and The Monkey King Mech.  First, this set looks amazing, while primarily it is a front facing set but it was not just a facade, the product images don't do its justice.  You have to witness it yourself to appreciate how great it looks.  Simply it has so much depth you think you are looking a some 3D pop up books.  The use of plastic films for the clouds is just brilliant and. you have to see it in action to get the feeling of something heavenly just happened.  It works so well.  Then the building experience, with other monkey kid sets, you still feel like you are building a retail set but this one has so many interesting techniques that you feel like you building some D2C builds.  The bridge, the action, the peach garden entrance are just some of the highlight and I truely feel the designer is just showing off here.  Most importantly, the set really captures the essence of Journey to the West, the original story that inspired the Monkie Kid theme.  If you take our the Monkie Kid Minifigure, you can just call this a Journey to the West set.  It has so many elements that accurately depict some iconic moments in Journey to the West.  This is so important to be honest, and this time LEGO tries to highlight those inspiration in the instruction booklet,  I really appreciate this decision because for a lot of people that don't know the story would not catch some of the references which make this set so great.  As a minifigure fan, when you hear me say so much about the set more than the minifigures, you know it;s a truely great set.  The minifigures are great too, there are godly characters in chinese folklores that I would never thought Lego would one day produce.  This is a truely great set and I strongly recommend this to everyone.  Unfortunately, in some region like AU/NZ you can only buy this directly from LEGO because the theme didn't sell well.  I just hope LEGO continues to produce a few more Monkie Kid sets like this but it will be extremely difficult to top this.

[neithan]

Here in Germany the MK sets are also sold exclusive via lego.com.

This is why I have to wait for good GWP oder at least double VIP points before buying the sets. When the next good offer waits for me, I have to buy the last sets from 2021 I want/need, then next time the first sets of 2022.

But man, I really have to get the heavenly Realms, this is truly an amazing set - wonder what it looks like next to the flower fruit Mountain. Anyway, thanks for the review (which makes me want it even more...^^).

[Pchan1983]

1 hour ago, neithan said:

Here in Germany the MK sets are also sold exclusive via lego.com.

Oh even not in Lego stores?  

1 hour ago, neithan said:

This is why I have to wait for good GWP oder at least double VIP points before buying the sets.

I did have the same plan but then FOMO got the better of me XD

1 hour ago, neithan said:

wonder what it looks like next to the flower fruit Mountain

may be it's even better to be above the mountain since this is heaven =P

[Lyichir]

Thank you very much for the review! This is the first review I've seen of this set!

I'm very much looking forward to this set... it's so much unlike anything we've gotten in Lego before, and I love the architecture as well as the elaborate cloud platforms it sits on. The "unfolding" feature is also very cool.

[neithan]

9 hours ago, Pchan1983 said:

Oh even not in Lego stores?  

 

Well, that could be an option, I dont really know tbh.

The next store requires 1,5h of driving, so I`m ordering exclusive Sets online.^^

[Triceron]

We used to have MK sets in Lego stores here in Canada.  Last few trips I haven't seen any.  The last I saw was the wave with the Bone Demon mech.

Surprisingly I've seen some MK sets sold at other online retailers, so I'm not sure how exclusive these really are.  I plan to pick this up if it ever goes on sale on Amazon.