Every year, LEGO celebrates the Lunar New Year with themed sets that capture the essence of the occasion. In 2021, the Year of the Ox, LEGO released a set depicting a Spring Festival in a traditional garden. Fast forward to 2024, the Year of the Dragon, and LEGO delighted fans with the LEGO Auspicious Dragon, designed to mimic 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 honor this zodiac sign. The first is a Lucky Cat, followed by Good Fortune, a pastiche of Chinese iconography featuring a decorative fan, calligraphy pen and scroll, and golden ingots. The highlight, however, is the third set, the LEGO Trotting Lantern, which we had the pleasure of building and photographing for this review. This set is a meticulously crafted replica of a traditional trotting lantern, embodying far more detail and depth than initially 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 extravagantly detailed. Every inch of this 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 showcase an open sky and clouds framed by rocks.

Building the lantern involves a fascinating process of layering. You start with constructing the basic core lantern, then add layers of intricate details, and finally, top it off with even more decorative elements. This method brings an anticipatory joy, reminiscent of the now-retired LEGO Carousel, which similarly delighted with its elaborate decorative elements.

Traditional trotting lanterns, dating back to the Han Dynasty, used oil lamps to project silhouettes of paper cutouts and rotate them with heat-generated propellers. LEGO has cleverly designed a mechanism to mimic this effect, though in a limited way. An upright rod activates a light brick, illuminating the bottom of the lantern 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, my experience showed that the projection was blurry and hard to discern. It's puzzling why LEGO would promote this as a feature, especially since the original trotting lanterns were not designed for this purpose.

What truly stands out is the upper tier of the lantern, which opens to reveal three hidden dioramas: a food stall serving dumplings, a decorations stall, and a shadow puppet theater. These dioramas are cleverly concealed, adding a layer of surprise and delight. The set includes five minifigures, one wearing a snake costume, and accessories like a plate of dumplings, a red envelope, a shadow puppet, and chopsticks.

Your decision to purchase this set might hinge on the feature you're most interested in. If it's the lit-up, rotating mechanical effect, it may not meet your expectations due to its limited impact and clarity. However, if you're after an aesthetically stunning set that hides intricate minifigure-scaled scenery within an even more detailed container, this LEGO Trotting Lantern is a perfect celebration of the Lunar New Year. It's rated for ages 9 and up, but its complexity suggests an 18+ build experience.

For more LEGO inspiration, 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, is priced at $129.99 and comprises 1295 pieces. It is available now at Amazon and the LEGO Store.