Set Review ➟ 80057 LEGO^® Monkie Kid™ Nezha’s Ring of Fire Mech

There’s a whole lot of something going on with this model, and then there’s some more, which poses the question of where to begin. This has to be the busiest mech model certainly in the Monkie Kid Line, and probably in the whole LEGO line. It’s busy with things to do and busy with things to look at, and mercifully not so busy with parts wanting to fall off.

Gotta start somewhere, so let’s go with the stickers and the sheet plastic. There is a modest, by Monkie Kid standards, single sheet of stickers. Both stickers and sheet plastic have a prevalent motif of fire because this is a Nezha set and Nezha is the "Ring of Fire” guy who is not Johnny Cash.

The sheet plastic is once again loose in the box and suffers from significant scuffing.

The next most obvious thing to do, to my mind, is compare this set to set 80012’s Monkey King Warrior Mech. Nezha’s set is comprised of the mech plus a few minifigures where the Warrior also had a few minifigures, a building, a small mech, and some other small builds. Nezha’s mech is slightly smaller although no less gaudy than Warrior mech. This mech has been given attributes attributable to Nezha in folklore—wind fire wheels and a fire-tipped spear.

An aside: Warrior mech has presided over a small street scene on a shelf since his assembly in 2021. You know—he has pretty much just stood there and collected dust in the way that large mech models presiding over small street scenes do. I was quite surprised when I took him down for photos. His circular ratchet joints are all loosey goosey and I had a time of it getting him to stand in position for the photo. Parts fell off. While he still looks great once the dust comes off, the action positions he was once capable of holding he can hold no more. Conversely his ball-joint connections seem to have stiffened and those are audibly creaking loudly, protesting being moved at all. I distinctly remember, and commenting on, the wrists coming off the arms with some ease and frequency when doing the initial review of the set. Well, no more. Today when Warrior Mech is picked up a lot of his parts…well…they sort of sag and droop limply. It should be interesting to revisit RoF Mech in three years and see if it suffers the same afflictions.

I would rate Nezha’s Ring of Fire Mech as playable where old Warrior Mech is definitely not. RoF Mech is just enough smaller and less heavy. RoF Mech is fairly easy to grab, even with the sheet plastic, where the presence of the sheet plastic on Warrior Mech is definitely a hindrance grabbing the legs. RoF Mech has parts that are intended to attach and detach as part of the play experience. Plus RoF Mech has six stud shooters because two or three or four or five simply isn’t enough stud shooters.

In addition to the torso cavity cockpit for the mech driver…

…and the usual assortment of joints: neck, shoulder, elbow, wrist, knee hip, ankle…

…RoF Mech has giant Wind Fire Wheels on heels.

Attached at the shoulders and on the mech’s back are components which can be detached and recombined to create a flying drone-type vehicle. We’ll get back to that in a bit.

The back of the model is extremely busy looking and does not have the various tile and other “finish” bricks seen on some of the other models. Here the backside is plain old brick and plate undersides—of just about every color brick in the model—on full view. The sheet plastic does cover up some of the exposure at the shoulders, but the sheet plastic is also unornamented on its back side and due to its shiny surface it picks up lots of highlights and reflections. Add to that the flame contour of the plastic is anything but visually quiet.

The addition of the drone ship to the model’s back doesn’t seem to calm down the effect much if at all. Taking the drone wings from the shoulders and adding them to the drone on the back makes it even more chaotic.

The vehicle is very much drone-inspired with its four horizontally oriented propellers at the periphery. Moving parts on the drone include the canopy, the propellers, and the housings.

While the propeller housing can pivot within the outer ring if it pivots too far in one direction or the other the propellors will bump into the arm or the ring. This is one of those design decisions that leaves me questioning: is this a case of we did it because we could versus we did it because we should? Here the former took precedence over the latter.

The feet of the mech are interesting in that they are longer than the legs are tall. From the toe the back of the wheel the feet measure about 18cm while from sole to hip the legs measure about 15cm. With legs straight and directly under the body the mech can be pushed along gliding smoothly due to the wheels, and it is quite satisfying to do so. The ankles offer some side-to-side cant but very little in terms of front-to-back. The wheel heels are not easily detachable.

The legs offer a fairly substantial range of movement. In terms of cant, there are only two positions available: straight down and one click to the outside. The hips offer 180 degrees of rotation, one click shy of 90 degrees to the front and one click past 90 degrees to the rear. The knees offer eight positions, one click forward and 90 degrees to the rear.

With the available range of movement for the legs, one would think the model would be able to set into many poses, and to some degree that is true, but many of these poses just end up looking awkward. Due to the weight and length of the feet combined with minimal ankle positioning, leg positions that are typically dramatic for a mech end up with the model rocking back onto the heels. Note some of those positions are not achievable if the model has the drone attached to the back.

I guess I should keep an open mind about this. If you want the mech to be posed dramatically, it will (and sometimes barely) be able to be set into positions where it looks like it is dramatically stumbling or dramatically about to fall over backwards…because it is. Achieving dramatic powerful agressive in-charge ready-to-battle stances not so much. Also of note is that the figure can sit on its wheels. What better way to relax after a hard day of mech-ing?

Using a typical one foot forward firm on the ground with the back toe being a counter point for balance does not work with this model. The model is too top heavy on the back side and too bottom heavy with the wheels on the back side. The feet are really engineered for the model to be standing up and gliding on the wheels. There are no rubber bits on the bottom of the feet for friction…which is what you’d want for poses…but not what you’d want for smooth gliding on wheels.

Connected in between the pair of rotation joints that make up the knees are some knee pad type of things that tend to want to fall forward. The more you play with the model the less the pads want to stay in the up position. Not that it is bad or unintentional, but the falling forward does tend to make the sheet plastic tail want to move to the inside of the leg, on one side or the other, if the model is not standing straight.

The top half of the body, in contrast to the bottom half, seems to be very stable and willing to be put into almost any position, with or without the drone attached, as long as the legs are squarely beneath.

Shoulders rotate a full 360 degrees and offer up to four positions of cant depending on rotation. There are some clips in the armpits that don’t seem to have any purpose other than decoration or perhaps symmetry with the outside of the arm where they hold a spoiler bar.

The elbows can bend one click past 180 degrees.

Wrists are able to rotate 360 degrees and the fingers are movable. A palm pin facilitates holding the flaming spear.

The head is connected with a ball-and-socket and offers 360 degrees of rotation and varying degree of cant depending on rotation.

The set contains six minifigures: Monkie Kid, Monkey King, Mei, Nezha, Nine-Headed Demon, and the 100-Eyed Demon. Monkie Kid has the same parts minus shoulder pads as in set 80051 plus his helmet has a new print. Monkey King’s hair piece, tail, and scarf have appeared many times previously, his head appeared in set 80050, and his torso and legs have new prints. Mei previously appeared in set 80053 with shoulder pads and without roller skates. Nezha has new head, torso, and leg prints. Nine-Headed Demon and 100-Eyed Demon also appear in set 80056 Nine Headed Beast and set 80055 Monkey Kid Team Power Truck respectively.

Summary

Aesthetically, the look of the mech is very, very busy and often can be chaotic. Contrary to the usual state of affairs regarding larger mechs, Nezha’s Ring of Fire Mech is more suited for play and less suited for dramatic hero posing as the figure’s standing balance tends to be precarious if the legs are not in the same position. The build has some interesting moments and there is a nice selection of minifigures. Upon reflection I surprisingly felt that I enjoyed finding out what wacky positions the mech could get into more than just running through what can be considered the usual mech poses…which I suppose contributes to and affirms the set’s play value.

Disclaimer

Thanks to LEGO for kindly providing the set for review.

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