Sai Tai Sui (賽太歲; literally "Equivalent to Tai Sui") is a demon king and a minor antagonist in the 16th-century Chinese classic novel Journey to the West by the late Wu Cheng'en, and its multiple adaptations. He is actually the Golden Haired Hou (金毛犼), the steed of the Bodhisattva Guanyin. As a demon king, he is based on Qilin Mountain (麒麟山) in the Kingdom of Zhuzi (朱紫國).
In the 1986 series, he was portrayed by Wang Ren.
Personality[]
As expected for a demon king like him, Sai Tai Sui is very brutal and cruel. He has no qualms threatening the Kingdom of Zhuzi and kidnapping its women, the Lady of Jinsheng Palace included. Worse yet, he treats his woman servants like slaves and even eats them just to satisfy his sexual pleasure that the Lady has denied him. That being said, he does have a honorable side, treating his minions well and even considering promoting his messenger (who, unbeknownst to him at the time, is actually Wukong in disguise) when the latter says that he has made the Lady happier. Plus although he wants to rape the Lady, he also has a genuine love for her, in the same veins that the Yellow Robe Demon genuinely loves Baihuaxiu. Unfortunately, like the Yellow Robe Demon, it's clear that had Sai Tai Sui known of the Lady's aid for Wukong, he would beat her for "betraying him".
It's later revealed that his entire endeavor of kidnapping the Lady as his wife is all part of an elaborated plan to complete the King's curse and thus free the latter. This makes Sai Tai Sui kind of an Anti-Villain, as ultimately his actions are for good intentions despite their atrocious nature.
Biography[]
Past[]
During his youth, the king of the Kingdom of Zhuzi (then only a prince) had a hobby of hunting. One day, he accidently killed one of the newly born children of the Peacock Mahamayuri. Later on, Mahamayuri said that to pay for this, the prince will suffer a lovesick for 3 years. At the time, the Golden Haired Hou, who the Bodhisattva Guanyin was riding, went across the scene and managed to hear this.
Journey to the West[]
Years later, when the prince had grown up and became the king of the kingdom, the Golden Haired Hou took advantage of the child who guards him sleeping, escaped to the mortal realm, became the demon king Sai Tai Sui, and kidnapped the Lady of Jinsheng Palace (金聖宮娘娘), one of the king’s favourite concubines, and forced her to marry him. Without the lady, the king got sick for three years. Unknown to Sai Tai Sui, the Immortal Ziyang (紫陽真人) has secretly cast a protective shield on the lady, thus anyone who touches her will feel like being pricked by thorns, therefore for three years Sai Tui Sui was unable to touch her.
When Xuanzang's party arrived at the Kingdom of Zhuzi, Sun Wukong managed to cure the king. Right after that, Sai Tai Sui ordered one of his minions to threaten the kingdom once again, but the minion was defeated by Wukong. Angered, Sai Tai Sui ordered his messenger to tell the king that he's waging a war with the kingdom. Wukong killed the messenger and disguised as him, then met the Lady of Jinsheng Palace and told her the truth. With the help of the lady, Wukong managed to take the three magic bells, but after he accidently causing noise by using it, Sai Tai Sui managed to take them back. Wukong resorted to the lady's help for a second time, disguised as one of the demon king's female servant and used tricks to steal the bells from Sai Tai Sui and replaced them with fake ones. The monkey then uses the bells against the demon, caused the fire to surround Sai Tai Sui. However, when he was having no way to escape death, the Bodhisattva Guanyin arrived to subdue him and took the Golden Haired Hou back to Heaven with her.
Powers and Abilities[]
Sai Tai Sui is armed with a Broad Axe (宣花鉞斧), which he used in hand-to-hand combat. He also has a set of three magic bells made by Taishang Laojun, known as the Purple-Gold Bells (紫金鈴), which can conjure fire, smoke and dust storms when rung. This is actually his collar.
Gallery[]
Trivia[]
- While most demons when reverting back into their true form in the 1986 series were usually portrayed by stock footage of their real life counterparts edited into the shot (e.g. the Yellow Toothed Elephant Demon), Sai Tai Sui’s true form was instead portrayed by two people in a lion dance costume. Most likely, it was because his true form is not a real life animal, hence there was no stock footage available for the editors to use for the shot.