We Build the LEGO Trotting Lantern, a 2025 Lunar New Year Celebration

Each year, LEGO introduces themed sets to celebrate the Lunar New Year, capturing the essence of the occasion with intricate designs. In 2021, during the Year of the Ox, LEGO released a Spring Festival set set in a traditional garden. Fast forward to 2024, the Year of the Dragon, and LEGO delighted fans with the Auspicious Dragon set, designed to resemble a bronze statue on a stand.

LEGO Spring Festival Trotting Lantern

0$129.95 at Amazon $129.99 at LEGO Store

As we approach 2025, the Year of the Snake, LEGO is set to release three new sets to mark the occasion. The first set features a Lucky Cat. The second, titled Good Fortune, is a pastiche of Chinese iconography including a decorative fan, a calligraphy pen and scroll, and golden ingots. The third and most luxurious set, which we've had the pleasure of building and photographing for this review, is a replica of a traditional trotting lantern. This set, like all LEGO builds with such focused intent, offers much more than meets the eye.

We Build The LEGO Trotting Lantern

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Let's take a moment to appreciate the exterior of this model, which is detailed to an extravagant level. Every inch of the set is adorned with decorative elements, from the red lanterns hanging from the buttresses to the gold detailing on the walls' borders, and even the walls themselves, which depict an open sky and clouds framed by rocks.

Building the lantern involves a process of layering. You start with the basic core lantern, then add layers of detail, and finally, more intricate details on top of those. This method brings an anticipatory joy, knowing there's always more to add. The now-retired LEGO Carousel was the last set to evoke this sense of delight and anticipation for what decorative element would come next.

Traditional trotting lanterns, dating back to the Han Dynasty, were powered by oil lamps. These lamps projected silhouettes of paper cutouts onto the sides of the lantern, and the heat generated would turn propellers, rotating the silhouettes.

LEGO's designers have incorporated a mechanism to mimic this effect, though in a more limited way. An upright rod activates a light brick, causing the bottom of the lantern to glow with yellow light. This light shines through a clear piece with a black-lined image, projecting it onto the lantern's side. Turning the rod rotates the image around the lantern.

The packaging suggests that you can project the image from the lantern onto a wall or other surface. However, when I attempted this, the image was blurry and hard to discern. It's unclear why LEGO would highlight this feature as a selling point, especially since the original trotting lantern was not designed for this purpose.

The upper tier of the lantern is particularly impressive, opening to reveal three dioramas: a food stall serving dumplings, a decorations stall, and a shadow puppet theater. These hidden dioramas, nestled within the lantern's cylinder like a Polly Pocket, play on the viewer's perception of depth and space. The set includes five minifigures, one wearing a snake costume on his head, along with accessories like a plate of dumplings, a red envelope, a shadow puppet, and sets of chopsticks.

Whether you decide to purchase this set may depend on what aspect appeals to you most. If it's the lit-up, rotating mechanical effect, it might not justify the price due to its limited impact and clarity. However, if you're seeking an aesthetically stunning piece that hides impressive minifigure-scaled scenery within an intricately detailed container, this set is a magnificent celebration of the Lunar New Year. It's rated for ages 9 and up, but the final result suggests an 18+ build.

For more recommendations, explore our picks for the best LEGO sets overall, the best Marvel LEGO sets, and the most expensive LEGO sets.

The LEGO Trotting Lantern, Set #80116, retails for $129.99 and comprises 1295 pieces. It is available now at Amazon and the LEGO Store.