After the postponement announced back in November 2020, Disney's latest animation film Raya and the Last Dragon will finally get to hit movie theaters and Disney+ app in a few weeks.
Inspired by Southeast Asian cultures and folk tales, Raya and the Last Dragon entails Raya, a girl who's in search of the last dragon in order to reunite the Kingdom of Kumandra.
Prior to the official release, Disney has built up the hype for the film with the revelation of characters and the meaning of their names so that we can get to know them. And to our surprise, some of the names seem to be very similar to the nicknames of Thai people, which are based on Indo-Aryan, Austronesian, Austroasiatic, and Tai Kra-Dai languages such as Raya, Tuktuk, Boon, Tong, and Noi. Hearing these familiar names really gives us a new hope to see more representations of Asian cultures in Hollywood. You can check out all the characters in Raya and the Last Dragon via this link.
Raya and the Last Dragon is directed by Don Hall (Moana, Big Hero 6, Princess and the Frog)—in collaboration with Carlos López Estrada—and scripted by Adele Lim (the writer of Crazy Rich Asians) and Vietnamese award-winning author Qui Nguyen. The film will be in theaters on March 4, 2021. See the trailer below.
