Monkie Kid

The Flaming Foundry

A rolling demon fortress with seven figures and one glorious glowing furnace.

Brick Rated Score

3.6/5

Set 80016 · 2020

Pieces1,429

Minifigs7

Year2020

Set number80016

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The verdict

This one is pure play energy, a big mobile foundry that rolls on a bull-faced dump truck and lights up inside like a real forge.

The seven figures are the real draw, headlined by Princess Iron Fan, Red Son and a chunky brick-built Demon Bull King. You have to forgive it a fair bit of repetitive symmetry and a dark, boxy back half, but if the Monkie Kid world already has you, it delivers hours of villain-lair drama.

Best for: Monkie Kid fans and kids who want a big villain playset to actually play with

The full review

What it is

The Flaming Foundry is one of those LEGO® sets that makes way more sense the second it starts moving. It is the Demon Bull family's mobile forge, a hulking fortress on wheels where they cook up mechs and mischief, and the whole thing rolls around on a detachable bull-faced dump truck. At 1,429 pieces it lands in that lovely middle range where you get a proper afternoon of building without needing a whole weekend. What sells it is the play. There is a furnace with a light brick that glows orange when you press it, a working crane, swinging robotic arms, adjustable turrets, an armory, a little prison, and a six-stud rapid shooter. This set wants to be knocked over and rebuilt and played with, and honestly, good for it.

The catch

The build itself gets repetitive, and that is the complaint that comes up most. Because the foundry is largely symmetrical, you build one side and then do the exact same thing again on the other, which drains some of the joy out of the middle stretch. The color story is narrow too, mostly black, dark grey and red with pops of trans-orange, so it can feel a bit gloomy in the hand. And while the front is genuinely menacing with that bull face locked over the wheels, the back and sides read as a big dark box without much to look at. This is a playset first and a display piece a distant second, so if you want something that looks great from every angle on a shelf, this is not that. It retired in December 2021, so you are now paying aftermarket prices, and it tends to sit above its original 139.99 dollar tag.

Who it's for

Here is where I land. If you love the Monkie Kid world, or you want a big villain base a kid can actually wreck and rebuild, it is an easy yes. The seven-figure lineup alone carries a lot of the value, and the light-up furnace is the kind of feature that makes younger builders gasp. If you are a pure display collector chasing clean lines and clever engineering, though, I would steer you elsewhere, because the symmetry and the dark palette will test your patience. Community scores land it in solid-but-flawed territory, and that feels right to me. It is a very good playset with real caveats, not a jaw-dropper, and if the theme grabs you it more than earns its keep.

The parts story

What the build is actually like, and the pieces worth knowing about.

The build breaks into the truck base, the foundry body, and the details, and it front-loads a lot of Technic-ish framework to make the whole thing roll and hold together. The truck section is quick and satisfying. The foundry body is where the symmetry kicks in, so you build a wall, some machinery, a turret, and then repeat it on the mirror side, which is where a few builders start to drift. The good news is the fun clusters near the end. The lava accents built up around the light brick are the standout stretch, fiddly in the best way, and the miniature brick-built Demon Bull King is a genuinely charming little side build that breaks up the routine.

On the pieces, the headline is the LEGO light brick tucked into the furnace, which is always a nice thing to find in a box. You get a healthy pile of trans-orange elements for the lava and glow effects, plenty of black and dark grey structural parts, and a good spread of clips, bars, and the Monkie Kid staff and weapon pieces across the figures. The real value story here is the figure count against the price. Seven minifigures plus a brick-built boss in a 1,429-piece set was a strong deal at 139.99 dollars, and Princess Iron Fan and Red Son in particular are figures collectors still hunt down. If you part it out, the character elements and the light brick are what hold their worth.

Fun facts

01Monkie Kid launched in May 2020 as LEGO's first original theme built around Journey to the West and the Monkey King legend, complete with its own animated TV series.
02The Demon Bull King is Princess Iron Fan's husband and Red Son's father, and in the story he was trapped inside a mountain for 500 years before his family freed him.
03The furnace uses a real LEGO light brick, so the forge actually glows orange at the press of a button rather than just being printed or trans-colored.
04The whole foundry rides on a detachable dump truck, so the villains' base is technically a vehicle that can roll away from a fight.