I’m excited LEGO has continued with this special edition theme of sets related to Chinese culture. This is the third one. The first was #80103-1: Dragon Boat Race and the second was #80104-1: Lion Dance. #80105-1: Chinese New Year Temple Fair was released on 15 January 2020 in the US. It contains 1,664 pieces and 14 minifgures. It costs $119.99 in the US which works out to be $0.072 per piece. I found it locally for around $99. Be on the lookout for discounts in your area if you can find them. It’s priced well already, but a $20 discount is even better.
Onto the review…
The box is bright red and picks up the theme with fireworks, a rat for the “Year of the Rat,” a depiction of the set, and then showing all of the minifigures. The back shows the various play features.
The set contains 10 parts bags. They are labeled one through nine with two bags labeled numbered one. There are three instruction booklets that are packaged and in good shape. Most importantly there are no stickers! WOOHOO!
The first two bags include a tree with some decorations to include some banners and a lantern. The tree is a simple build, yet it still fits in well to the overall design.
It also includes the first stand for the fair. This stand is a food stand with some cooking food on a stick, some cookie type items, some chicken legs, and some fun cake type items with faces. There is a red flower bouquet attached to the stand as well. There is a small cooking area with some extra supplies, a knife, and space for the minifigure to work. My favorite part of the stand is the roof. I like how the designers were able to replicate the look of Chinese architecture and that each stand was done in a slightly different way to make a similar styled effect.
This bag includes the first two minifigures to include a stand vendor/cook and then a happy festival attendee.
The second bag includes another stand. This one is a toy stand with a lot of fun details. There are some lollipop looking items, some balloons, and then various toys to include a small airplane, a panda bear, a duck, a rabbit, and a rat.
I included this stand in a picture with the stand from the first set of bags as they are connected by a string with lights, lanterns, and banners.
Additionally, you get two more minifigures. One is a vendor and the other is another male minifigure attending the festival.
The third bag starts the temple build. It begins with the base. I like the base as it includes a great flower design with the 1x1 flower piece and some greenery for leaves in the front. The stairs are a simple yet useful design as they added in studs for minifigures to be fixed to and they added in some design other than increasing the number of plates to climb up. I’m also a fan of the greenish colored pieces under the light gray arches. I’m not sure what they are called, but I like the effect it achieves.
This bag includes a boy minifigure. He has a red scarf and his holding a… um… I’m not sure what it is. Anyone know?
The fourth bag starts the structure of the temple gate. The build is fairly simple, yet full of detail. You can see initially some of the printed tiles that add to the design. Along with the lanterns and the gold colored pieces, it really stands out. The pieces on either side of the door are the brown 2x2x2 “box” pieces used in other sets stacked on top of each other. It’s a great technique to get some texture versus using plain bricks.
This bag includes a female minifigure with a small purse.
The fifth bag starts part of the roof of the temple entrance. The color scheme really pops with the yellow, orange-yellow, gold, and red. I like how it sticks with the Asian roof theme used elsewhere.
You get a girl minifigure with a scarf and holding a lai see or red envelope typically given as a gift with money in it.
Bag six adds part of the roof section with more printed pieces with Chinese calligraphy.
You also get a male minifigure holding a baby bottle (a hint of what is to come).
The seventh bag finishes off the temple with the second layer roof. It is built in the same manner as the first layer and looks equally impressive. My only complaint is that it is just this gate and not an entire building. Perhaps that would be a future challenge… building the full structure.
One note in building the roof slopes is to make sure the orange 1x1… um… I’m not sure what the new pieces are called. “U’s” or tunnel looking pieces? Whatever they are called, you just have to make sure they are in line. If they are not all straight, the build doesn’t look as good. I had to adjust a few as the angle I put them on were slightly off. Not a big deal, just something to pay attention to when building.
The last bag had a male minifigure with a baby bottle. This one has the female minifigure, the baby, and a stroller. The female minifigure has a fun hat on over her hair which is new (I think). The stroller is fine although a bit big. The parents have to put their arms up in order to push the stroller. I may have to look into adjusting this later on.
The eighth bag come with another stand and another tree. The tree is very similar to the last tree. The stand sells some pottery type items and some microfigures in various colors. The set comes with a bunch of extra microfigures too which is a nice bonus.
You get two more minifigures in this bag. An older adult female and then a younger one.
The ninth bag assembles the last stand which is a shadow puppet theater. The highlight of this build is the cool shadow theater pane that is printed and not a sticker. It goes along with the rest of the set which doesn’t have stickers. Yay for the amazing number of printed pieces! This bag also assembles some fire crackers, and some gifts to sell or give away.
You get two more minifigures. An older male to run the puppet show with his microfigures and dragon for the show and then a boy with a lai see envelope. The boy has a fun winter hat which I don’t recall ever seeing before.
The final part of this build is another strand of lights with Chinese lanterns and a banner to connect the stand from bag eight and this bag.
So that does it. Here’s a picture of the full set. It’s not a great angle, but you can see everything you get. There is a lot going on in this set which definitely helps to justify the price. Besides the great price per piece, you get 14 minifigures, the temple entrance area, two trees, and the four stands. To encourage you to spend money, this one goes well with the other two Chinese themed sets. You could easily make a larger themed “China Town” or festival area. I’m thankful to have found this one at $20 off, but probably would have paid full price had I not seen the sale.
Finally, a few pictures a little closer and at different angles. LEGO has said they’ll keep these around for six months or so. We’ll see how long they stay on shelves, but don’t wait too long to buy if you are interested. As of the writing of this post, LEGO is running double VIP points so it might be a good opportunity to scoop this up (along with a few freebies).
I was very positive on this set. What am I missing on the negative side?
Happy building!
