Review: 40540 Lion Dance Guy
Posted by Huw,
Six years after its introduction the BrickHeadz theme is still going strong and four additions to the range of blocky characters are being released in January, including 40540 Lion Dance Guy.
It's the fourth one that celebrates Chinese New Year, following on from 40354 Dragon Dance Guy, 40436 Lucky Cat, and last year's 40466 Chinese New Year Pandas.
It contains more pieces than any other single BrickHeadz set, so it's packed with elaborate details.
As the set name suggests it's a BrickHeadz figure in a lion dance suit, and much of the detail is on the suit.
The sides and back are decorated with 53 red 1x1 corner tiles which produce an attractive pattern, and account for over 20% of the set's 239 pieces.
The lion's head includes bananas, Unikitty tails, googly eyes in gold sockets, a crown and red nostrils, and it looks spectacular.
At around 10cm high, it's taller figure than most BrickHeadz.
As with previous seasonal BrickHeadz it comes with a display stand which unusually is fairly minimal, probably on account of the number of pieces in the figure itself.
Overall it's an attractive and desirable addition to the BrickHeadz range, and something of bargain priced at just £10/$10/€10. It'll be available at LEGO.com from 1st January.
It's interesting to compare it with one of first and most boring of the blocky characters, 41585 Batman, to see how far the theme has progressed in the intervening years.
It complements the equally elaborate 40354 Dragon Dance Guy well.
Here it is with all the CNY BrickHeadz, 40354 Dragon Dance Guy, 40436 Lucky Cat, and last year's 40466 Chinese New Year Pandas:
Thanks to LEGO for providing this set for review. All opinions expressed are my own.
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18 comments on this article
Thisi s a nice one! I'm not an avid Brickheadz collector, but these festive ones always find their way into my collection.
I have a few BrickHeadz but am not at all a collector of them, so my knowledge of them is limited mostly to these great reviews. From my perspective it appears that more elaborate or costumed figures come out the best in these sets
Yikes... when are they finally going to stop this ugly theme...
Six years of Brickheadz already? Wow.
Not my thing, but still looks cool!
Looks like a fun build, and the lion headpiece is a dramatic improvement over the dragon headpiece which would also look great in an update with the googly eyes. Does anyone know if the googly eyes appear anywhere else or are they unique to this set, as I am just used to all those printed 'dot' circular tiles?
Few pieces away from Winnie the Pooh.
Love those googly eyes. Can the moth fully close?
@TheOtherMike said:
"Love those googly eyes. Can the moth fully close?"
Yes
Another fantastic addition to the theme, this and the Ahsoka Tano seem to be some of the best of the new additions. I’ve also noticed more advanced and MOC like techniques being used, like the inversion on Bellatrix and sideways building on Ahsoka.
That looks quite marvellous.
I am so pleased Lego are still producing Brickheadz. Especially so since they seem to get better and better.
Nice to see parts and styling cues carried over from 80104 but pity the printed teeth tiles haven’t come back.
How does the mouth work? Is there a function like the Nutcracker?
I love the theme but NGL, this looks like a decent parts pack if it weren't for the number of curved tiles that are already overrepresented in any Dots collection. But then, I'm not very fond of Brickheads (nor Funko Pop).
@SonofLight said:
"How does the mouth work? Is there a function like the Nutcracker? "
No it's just a hinge.
SIX YEARS?!? Where has the time gone
The lion suit looks like it’s trying to peer down into its mouth and see what it just ate.
@mafon2 said:
"Few pieces away from Winnie the Pooh."
Hahaha oh wow that's a very funny coincidence in this context... it'll be banned in China if people catch on.