The Dragon King is the main antagonist of the 2023 animated Netflix film, The Monkey King, a loose adaptation of the Sun Wukong prologue from Journey to the West.

He is a megalomaniac, bigoted and ambitious god with plans to flood the surface world so he can be rid of all the "land-walkers" and reign supreme on Earth. When the Monkey King steals his "stick" which he needs to achieve his goals he proceeds to actively antagonize him so he can recover his tool and fulfill his plans, becoming Monkey King's arch-nemesis.

He was voiced by Bowen Yang.

Personality[]

The Dragon King is a vain, arrogant, overconfident and pompous jerk who flaunts his power towards his subjects at all turns and will even kill and eat those who step out of line or mildly displease him. He despises when someone else is the center of attention and will do anything to be praised, though whenever he "helps" mortals he's only doing so with the end purpose of furthering his goals, planning to completely wipe them out in his endgame.

He also acts cowardly to a degree and lazy in actions, sending his minions to do all the work and trying to get the Jade Emperor to retrieve his stolen stick from the Monkey King when it was first taken from him.

Biography[]

Past[]

The Dragon King was born as a God of the Seas but was troubled by a skin disorder that left his skin flaky and prone to falling off when out of the water for too long. He received mockery and scorn from humans for this and it drove him mad with desiring revenge on those who've wronged him.

Despite this, he would pose as a benevolent aid to humanity, helping humans with droughts in exchange for tribute.

Losing Stick[]

To flood the surface world he created a machine that would rise the sea levels, using a giant enlarging staff dubbed "Stick" to activate it. However, the Monkey King (who was looking for a weapon to defeat the Demon King of Confusion with) would come to his temple and steal the Stick while he was distracted. When a minion of his praised the Monkey King he ate him in frustration. The Dragon King tried to contact the Jade Emperor for help Bu was dismissed.

Attempting to get Stick back[]

After the Monkey King vanquished 100 demons, finishing with the Red Girl on a small village, the Dragon King came to try and extinguish the demon's flames and berate the Monkey King for stealing his tool, all so his minions could steal it from under his nose, but he failed and was forced to retreat. He then made a deal with Lin so she'd get close to the Monkey King and steal the Stick back in exchange for the Dragon King bringing water to her village that was going through a drought, as the Dragon King couldn't follow the Monkey King inland due to his skin condition.

When Monkey King became immortal by scribbling out his name from the Scroll of Life and Death, the Dragon King grew desperate to stop him and set up a poisoned peach in a tree field full of supposedly mystical fruit that granted immortality (there is such a field but he instructed Lin to misdirect Monkey into a dud). His minions tried to trick the Monkey King into eating the poisoned peaches but ended up eating them in their attempts to play off the part of bees, and even when Monkey ate them all they did was make him dizzy and loopy, when the Monkey King rencountered the Dragon King he didn't fully recognize him and fed him a few of the poisoned peaches making him loopy as well and unwittingly sending him and his minions floating down in the King's tub and into a river where they got washed away.

Taking the World by Storm[]

Lin would eventually succeed, albeit greatly remorseful, in getting the Stick and having it sent to the Dragon King. But as he'd planned he "granted" his end of the deal by kick starting his plan to flood the surface world announcing it with his personal song "Take the World by Storm", growing to giant size by absorbing large amounts of water and planning to wipe out the land-dwellers by drowning all lands under the sea. Luckily, the Monkey King came back to save the humans and Lin and fought the Dragon King though without his Stick and the Dragon King's power raised he was incapable of overcoming the sheer bulk of his foe, until Lin tricked the Dragon King into blasting Monkey with lighting to claim that it was the Monkey's "weakness", after Monkey was blasted into the water he got Stick back stopping the flood and then used it to twist the Dragon King's inflated limbs and body, then smacking him with the Stick to "pop" him like a balloon and bring him back to his normal size. The now powerless Dragon King tried to plea for his life but the Monkey King just stomped on him, reducing him to a small lizard and forcing him to flee into the waters, with his minions following suit and later abandoning his side to become sellers.

Trivia[]

• While Ao Guang had previously served as an antagonist in the story of Nezha as well as against the 8 Immortal Gods, this version is one of the few incarnations of Ao Guang in any media to be truly villainous, rather than antagonistic towards others for slighting him.
• The Dragon King it's very similar to Hades from Hercules, since they are both evil gods who wants to take over the world, but to do so they would need to get rid of an annoying hero(Monkey King/Hercules) and so he asks his two incompetent minions (Benbo and Babbo/Pain and Panic) with poisoning the hero.

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