This is the last of the modern HG Wing kits, at least the original five Gundams and many feared this would be a disappointment due to the extendable arm, however they managed to do a good job, though not quite without parts-formation.
The Shenlong Gundam is piloted by Chang Wufei, the highly traditionalist inheritor of a feared and exiled warrior clan.
Aesthetics:
Let's get the worst part out of the way, which are the round stickers for the shoulder 'gems', which look just fine in the product images, but absolutely garbage when you stick them on.
However, you can fix this by avoiding them and using a green metal marker and filling in the circles yourself. Apart from the circles, only eyes for the head and 'dragon' are on the sheet, no color correction.
The kit comes in a saturated ultramarine blue, pure white, brownish red, yellow and grey.
There's an appreciable amount of detail on the plastic to panel line.
Overall, it looks nearly like it should, though the chest tends to not look as prominent (its main visual feature) when it's not puffed up. The 'diamonds' on the side skirts are not color separated and the barrels on the dragon head are white instead of grey.
Mechanics:
As with the others, the butt flap moves and lifts the entire midsection of the model, giving it a decent ab crunch (parts get in the way eventually, otherwise it'd do a full 90).
Another very interesting part is how the chest is constructed, as the red hatch under the main plate will move up/down and inwards/outwards if you bend the upper torse forwards/backwards, so you can "puff up" his chest. In fact if you DON'T do this, the head will sit awkwardly with a long exposed neck and it can't turn properly due to the large 'helmet' piece in the back, so in effect he's meant to have his chin all the way down to his chest when posed - It makes sense that he should look aggressive.
The upper torso also pivots side to side, allowing for more posability.
The main feature of the kit is the folding arm that the dragon head flame thrower sits on.
You have two white lengths that sit inside the shoulder, from which the arm sits at the end of.
When folded, it is friction locked into place. Unfolded you get a 2½ times the length of the arm.
More than that, you get two grey links that can be placed in between the white links, for an impressive length - as tall as the model itself (taller with the fangs).
The top and bottom fangs open and close, you're meant to remove the hand as a partsformation, but you can of course just leave it in there.
The articulation of the arm itself is a little finnicky to put in a decent pose, the various links and parts do get a little in the way of each other. The rest of the model poses as well as the others.
Equipment:
2 holding hands
2 tilted holding hands (from Sandrock)
2 wide spread open hands
2 aforementioned grey links to lengthen the arm with
1 shield equippable on the left arm
1 staff with a beam glaive effect part, the staff (with or without beam) is equippable on the back of the model.
Conclusion:
It was always going to be the hardest model to reproduce and it's taken nearly 30 years to get a proper Shenlong. It's not perfect, but it's a good kit. It's a great HG, no doubt about that.
For me it's a little bittersweet as this marks the final model in my Wing collections. There will be grunts and others, but the main mobile suits are all there now, in modern form.
The Shenlong itself was always one of the less distinct mobile suits.
Not only does it reuse the same main colors (blue, red, yellow, white) but it's also the stereotypical "chinese gundam", only less interesting and less detailed than the design of its spiritual predecessor Dragon Gundam (from G-Gundam).
It's not my favourite, but if it's yours, you are probably happy with this kit, or will be once you get it.
