Tripwire Reviews Lego 30454 Marvel’s Shang-Chi and the Great Protector Polybag

Welcome to the first of three Lego reviews here at Tripwire.  This polybag was a free gift with a £40 Lego spend at the official Lego store.  This free gift sold out internationally within days, so it’s only available on the secondary market currently.  From experience I imagine it will pop up again at some point.

As you can see by the main picture I spent the family savings on the two What If sets, which I’ll post reviews of in the coming days.  For now let’s focus on Shang-Chi and his little Dragon friend.

Polybags are an interesting thing to review.  You have to manage expectation vs value, and it always annoys me when reviewers are overly harsh.  So I’m going to judge this against other polybags, not larger sets. Though I will mention the whole range from time to time.

This comes with a Shang-Chi minifigure, with a staff and the pieces to build a scaled-down Great Protector.  As of writing the movie isn’t out, but judging from trailers the Great Protector is MASSIVE.

Starting with our eponymous hero this is a fairly simple figure.  He has a double sided head, black hair, a unique character torso and regular black legs.  This is my first Shang Chi minifigure so it’s cool to finally have the character.  It still amazes me that breadth of characters we’ve had in Lego, and it’s fantastic to have an Asian lead Lego figure.

My one issue with Shang-Chi (which is across the whole Shang-Chi Lego range, so I’m not a hypocrite) are the legs.  They’re just plain black.  I’d have liked printing, I realise this adds cost but it would have elevated the figure from good to great. Had this just been the polybag figure, I’d have not moaned but they’ve missed a trick.  They could have printed his sneakers or anything.

Complaining aside, I’ve worked out that (if he’s not attached to a brick) you can use the staff to help pose Shang-Chi in a kung fu kick! I am looking forward to having him hang out at my Avengers tower, or visiting my huge Daily Bugle (which I’ve already made but will probably do a review on.)

Now to Falkor, sorry the Great Protector.  As I said before this is a scaled-down version of the main set, down to the “water” stand he’s floating on.  Now I’ve built a lot of Polybags and this one is easily one of my favourites.

As expected it’s a simple build, but the efficiency and streamlined design are just sublime.  With very few pieces you’ve got an obvious dragon with great play features.  The set also comes with a rarity for a prolific (three decade plus) purchaser of Lego; a new piece.  This 1×2 L-shapes plate used for Shang-Chi to ride the dragon (I imagine they want to avoid him chasing the dragon) is the first time I’ve ever had a plate like this.  It’s pretty cool and judging by the packet it’s only there for when you want our Kung Fu hero to hitch a lift.

Other highlights are the clever designs for the limbs and his little dragon beard.  This set is fantastic and the Great Protector is immensely poseable.  Even if he’s not screen accurate this would look great on a shelf, or even better to play with.  As always with Lego you get a few extra pieces for your collection, and given this is a free (or cheap) set it’s always a welcome feature.

Polybags are often an inexpensive way to fill your collection, or in the case of Captain Marvel, a way to get unique figures.

I’d advise you to seek out this set. It’s annoying that it’s out of stock online, some physical Lego stores may still have stock.  Bricklink or Ebay are also a good place to look, I’d recommend the former over the latter.  Otherwise Lego have made two other great looking full sized sets, which are both around the £30 mark.