Despite the theme’s limited availability, LEGO® Monkie Kid has rapidly become the go-to theme for wacky minifigures and impressive builds. It provides everything from small vehicles to big mechs but one of my favourite Monkie Kid offerings are those sets based on a location. Flower Fruit Mountain and The City of Lanterns were amazing sets but do they have some competition from the set I’m taking a look at today? The Heavenly Realms is the largest Monkie Kid set yet and recreates an amazing celestial palace in the clouds. Let’s hop on our magic cloud and take a trip to The Heavenly Realms.
Product Details
Get children excited about 3 classic Monkey King tales with this brick-built LEGO® Monkie Kid™ recreation of The Heavenly Realms (80039). This popular buildable toy for ages 10 and up features the magnificent palace and its surroundings, including an ornate entrance gate, a garden with a peach tree and a furnace. Push the entrance gate to part the clouds and open up the model for easy play with the garden and furnace.
Bring stories to life
The set has a LEGO figure of the Celestial dog, plus 8 minifigures, including 3 versions of Monkey King to play out each story, and transparent stands for Warrior Monkey King and Erlang to recreate their midair battle. Find step-by-step instructions in the box and check out the LEGO Building Instructions app for digital viewing tools.
- Set Name: The Heavenly Realms
- Set Number: 80039
- Pieces: 2243
- RRP: £159.99/$169.99/169.99€
- Number of Bags: Bags x 17
- Stickers: Sheets x 2 + Foil Clouds
- Minifigures: Monkie Kid, Monkey King, Warden Monkey King, Warrior Monkey King, Heaven Fairy, Taishang Laojun, Nezha & Erlang, plus the Celestial dog
- Instructions: Booklet x 2 + LEGO Builder App + Instructions Plus
- Availability: LEGO Online, Plus LEGO Stores & Amazon in limited regions
The Monkie Kid sets take their inspiration from the ancient Chinese fable, Journey to the West. This follows the story of Sun Wukong or the Monkey King. This mischievous monkey was born from a stone egg, on top of a mountain and ever since became a thorn in the side of the gods. Eventually, the Monkey King joins the gods in the Heavenly Realms. There he is forced to work in stables in servitude to the gods. But the cheeky chimp steals a magical peach and soon gains the power of immortality. As punishment for this crime, the Monkey King is locked in the Furnace but emerges as powerful as ever. This event-filled journey of the Monkey King is told across this impressive-looking set.
With the set being quite big, it has two hefty instruction booklets and as an added bonus, one of them had a few pages dedicated to the story behind the set and a little behind the scene information about its creation. This sort of bonus material is often only associated with certain kinds of sets so to have it in this set added something unique to the build experience. Along with the instructions, there are also two small sticker sheets. Stickers are one of the only unfortunate downsides of the Monkie Kid sets. Plus there’s a very unique sheet of shiny pop-out clouds.
The Heavenly Realms are split into three sections, which are all connected together. These are all built upon the 16×16 board plate introduced with the LEGO Art range. These rigid base plates are great to build on and also help with the working aspect of the set. With the three sections combined, they can be opened out by pushing the central walkway in. It’s an interesting feature but one which will only work on a flat and shiny surface. Trying it on a carpeted surface will result in the stairs to the temple simply disconnecting.
The first area built of the Heavenly Realms is the courtyard featuring the magical tree growing sacred fruit. The tree is an interesting construction, although the instructions make it tricky to see exactly how the branches are connected. They need to be placed nicely for they will get in the way of the surrounding areas of the build. This courtyard area also features a fun nod to a much-loved classic LEGO creature. You’ll notice a little warning sign showing an old-school LEGO monkey. It may be a sticker but it made me smile and remember some of my first LEGO sets.
The second area is also built upon a single board plate. It sits slightly higher than the courtyard. This area features a fancy-looking pot, which is actually a furnace. It has a door so it can be opened to bundle the Monkey King in there as punishment for stealing a peach. Although the focus is the furnace pot, there’s a tiny section behind it which features a few ancient scrolls. I like these tiny little details as they add to the story of the set.
Both of the sections act as foregrounds to the heavenly place. Leading up to it is a long set of stairs. This is guarded by a small archway, which mirrors the fancy architecture of the palace. Along with acting as an entrance to the palace it also doubles up as the mechanism to split open the set. Those two smaller sections, which sit on either side of the stairway, are connected to it and the platform. Pulling the stairs outwards, causes the two small platforms to spring open.
The largest part of the set is the Celestial Palace. This is described as a green crystalline palace covered in jewels. In LEGO form it’s a largely white structure topped with sand-green sloped roofs commonly found on temples in Asian countries. These are tinged with flashes of baby blue elements and gold pieces. This combination of colours works beautifully, not only offering an ornate feel associated with a place but also tied to its cloudy location.
The building may lack any sort of play features but it makes up for it in detail. On the surface, it may seem fairly tame but there’s so much detail worked into the palace. The two windows are particularly nice and connected in an unusual way. In fact, this is where the build does get a little tricky. Making sure various pillars and walls are aligned so you can correctly add the roof can be a little fiddly. This is also the case with a couple of Technic branches connected to the front of the platform. But their purpose adds an impressive and unique detail to the set. Each platform is decorated with those shiny clouds. They are held in place with Technic stud pins and clear shaft studs. They really give the set a unique appearance and almost the feeling of a painting.
The set features 8 characters including Monkie Kid, who in all honesty seems a little out of place in this set. Odd I know as his name is the basis of the theme. But this set tells the story of the Monkey King and I would assume it takes place before Monkey King and MK meet. This version of Monkie King is the same as the one featured in the City of Lantern set. Every other minifigure is unique to this set. That includes three different versions of the Monkey King. One who worked in the courtyard, one who was put into the furnace and his final warrior form.
The rest of the characters are a little more obscure. Taishang Laojun is a guardian god of the Heavenly Realms, who puts the Monkey King in the furnace as punishment. General Nezha is featured in his younger form after being featured in a set of his own earlier this year. Erlang is the warrior who faces off against Sun Wukong and is joined by his Celestial dog. Now, this may seem like a rather plain dog, but this one has unique print detail. Finally, there is the seemingly random Heaven Fairy. She doesn’t seem to represent a particular character from the Journey to the West fable but at least adds a female character to the set. Each of these characters has alternate faces and unique hairpieces. They also have traditional-looking outfits, along with using various material pieces for capes and cloaks.
Review Round-up
This may not have the array of visual excitement as the City of Lanterns or the unique configuration of the Flower Fruit Mountain sets but it’s still a fantastic-looking location. It’s also one which continues to tell the story of the Journey to the West in interesting ways. The layering of elements, use of colour and those unique foil clouds give the set its own visual identity. It’s also a great showcase of how LEGO sets can benefit from not being tied to a license. Having sets based on iconic movies and TV shows is great but there is an equally important place in the LEGO ecosystem for sets based on original ideas. They offer a great level of freedom for designers and offer more for your money. Although this is inspired by a centuries-old tale, it’s not limited in the same way as a Star Wars or Marvel set would be. The characters featured in the set aren’t as fun as some of the other Monkie Kid sets but they tie nicely into the story being told by the set.
For
+ Great & Unique Minifigures
+ Unique configuration
+ Fun details
Against
– Limited availability
– Gets a little fiddly towards the end of the build
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This set was requested by BricksFanzand provided by the LEGO Group for review purposes. The thoughts within this review are that of BricksFanz and do not reflect those of the LEGO Group. Providing a set for free does not guarantee a favourable opinion of the set.
