As we usher in the year of the Pig, the Danish brick maker danced for the good fortune and released Asia exclusive build-able dragon as LEGO 80102 set. Again, Danish designed and China cloned it. LEPIN, Panlos, Lele and Sembo/Sheng Yuan wasted no time in selling their respective bootleg sets. Those who lived outside Asia had to pay skyrocket prices on ebay to get their hands on this set. For this review, we were looking at Sembo aka Sheng Yuan SY1261 which was a clone of LEGO 80102. The photos were courtesy of CK.

The box view of SY1261 Dragon Dance.

Typical design of China clone set in which the box is big with a handle at the side. The box printing was similar to the original with the logo swapped to Sembo. It had a inner box with numbering bags of parts and instruction manual.

There were five numbers bags and one bag with common parts. The bags with brown and black parts without any numbers were for step 1.

Let’s start building. Inner mechanism were built to facilitate moving motion of the dragon and the minifigures.

SY1261 Dragon Dance completed. Some China netizen commented that the dragon looked like a cooked prawn. One thing we like the best was the dragon head, with ingenious use of frog and scorpion as horn. The scales were printed parts. In fact no stickers were used for the set.

Showcasing the Minifigures

There were five minifigures which four were exclusive to this set. The piggy mascot returned without a tail. In its previous incarnation, he was LEGO Collectable Minifigures 71007 Series 12 Piggy Guy who had a tail.





The four dragon dancers came with two identical head pieces. Do noted that the LEGO version were dual injection molds while SY ones were just colored. The body printing was top notch as one could expect of Sembo. All four were wearing the same costume.

The one on the right had “shock” expression.

Multiple Angle Viewing of the Dragon

This is a close to perfect replica of the original. Sembo post a serious challenge to LEPIN.

Close up look at the details. Very nice gold printing on the dragon ball.

The LEGO designer is clever to use frog and scorpion as dragon’s antler. The dragon looks peaceful, unlike the fearsome look of those from Ninjago.

No complain on the printed scales.

Too bad we couldn’t post video here. It would be fun seeing the piggy and the dancers doing the Mario Dance.

Below is SY1260 Chinese New Year’s Eve Dinner and SY1261 Dragon Dance sets side by side. Check out the review on the SY1260 Chinese New Year’s Eve Dinner. You may click this link to order either SY1260 or SY1261.

FYI, because the sellers on Aliexpress group multiple selection in the listing, when you order SY1261 Dragon Dance set from Aliexpress, you have to select either SY1261 Dragon Dance or SY1260 New Year’s Eve Dinner under the “Color”.

Alternatively you may consider LEPIN 46002 Dragon Dance instead. At this point of writing we don’t have details on LEPIN’s Dragon Dance.

