Simulacra: Bootleg BIONICLES - Xiang Yu, I presume?

Pretty sure that this guy is this character from Dynasty Warriors.

Pretty sure.

But whether he is or not, he's pretty cool.

As far as the overall build, I have to say this is amongst the most sturdy bootlegs I have. Likely this is because his build is a variation on the same basic skeleton of every CCBS figure. It's a design that works, so why mess with it, a la my last two reviews. He is, of course, not quite LEGO quality, so there are some shaky bits. The axle on one of the red shoulder guards (more on them in a moment) is loose in even official parts, a problem that is unfortunately not quite solvable (though now that I think about it, perhaps plumber's tape). There's also a kind of odd addition to the leg that doesn't quite work, though I think I've figured it out in rebuilding the figure.

And speaking of rebuilding, let's look at some of the features of this guy. First, I realized, as I was dismantling Mr. Yu, that I've never actually shown the basic torso structure of all of these models.

At first I wasn't a fan of the little addition at the bottom. Why not simply use the larger CCBS torso? But then I noticed that all of the characters now have this extra spot for armouring, and it's a spot that really suits the East Asian style of armouring that we see throughout that region's martial history. So that's one of the cool things about these original builds coming from China - the designers, building on the very basic structure of one of these figures, have rethought the basic build through a different cultural lens. Armouring of CCBS figures follows a very European tradition of armouring. This small addition to the torso allows another culture to be expressed in the build.

The leg, once again, is a bit weird. The double ball joints at the bottom there are meant to hold some large armour, but the positioning of the front ball doesn't allow any natural ankle flexibility. In rebuilding it, I instead but the front armour on the main ball, and raised the back armour up a bit. The difference is negligible. That aside, the legs function very well, though the dual friction piece to accommodate the leg armour is a bit weird.

And here's the pieces that are cool and new to this set:

Aside from the hands (of course), and the new prints on the armour (of course), and the new face (of course), the neatest bit of this set is the red Hero Factory Brain Attack mask that serves as shoulder armour. These, I think, are only officially available in gold, so that's neat. The Black sword is also great, and I should mention that the sword build for this figure is pretty cool. I've already copied it a few times for my own builds. The red triple axle piece is cool, but not particularly well-molded.

Overall, a decent model. Not quite as much new stuff, but a much more satisfying build, in that when I finished him, out of the bad, he actually stood up properly and didn't have bits falling off of him.

We'll hit up Lu Bu next.