The Legend of Zang Hai: Xiao Zhan's 2025 revenge drama, from the director of Empresses in the Palace

2025 · Youku, CCTV-8 · Xiao Zhan (肖战), Zhang Jingyi (张婧仪)

Why this one

The most useful fact about The Legend of Zang Hai (藏海传) is who is behind the camera. Zheng Xiaolong (郑晓龙), who is credited as executive director, is the director associated with Empresses in the Palace (甄嬛传), and here he applies a very different sensibility to the same broad territory of court politics. Where that show is about a woman climbing the palace hierarchy, this one is about a man dismantling a political machine from the inside.

The series premiered on May 18, 2025, on Youku and CCTV-8, with Disney+ and Viu carrying it internationally and TVB airing it in Hong Kong from August 4. It runs 40 episodes. Chinese press reported that it reached the top of platform charts on arrival, and Chinese-language coverage described it as setting new mainland viewership records; those are press reports, and the numbers behind them come from platforms rather than independent auditors.

The setup

The protagonist is born Kuai Zhinu, the son of a court official who served in the Qintian Jian (钦天监), the imperial bureau responsible for astronomy, the calendar, and the reading of omens. When his father falls, the boy survives by taking a false identity: he becomes Zang Hai (藏海), a name that means, roughly, to conceal in the sea. Over the course of the drama he moves through a series of official positions, gathering influence and information, with the goal of taking revenge on the people who destroyed his family.

Note — Why the Qintian Jian matters: In imperial China, astronomy was not a neutral science. An official who could declare an eclipse an omen, or a calendar auspicious or not, held real political leverage, and the bureau's rulings could be used for or against the throne. A story that begins with the fall of a court astronomer is starting from an institution where knowledge and political danger were tightly bound together, which is a good foundation for a revenge plot built on information rather than swords.

It is a revenge structure that will be familiar to anyone who has seen Nirvana in Fire (also covered on this site): a wronged family, a hidden identity, and a long game played inside the court. The difference is in what the disguise does: the series is as interested in the person who has to live inside a false name for years as in the plan that name serves.

Cast and crew worth knowing

• Xiao Zhan (肖战) as Kuai Zhinu / Zang Hai. He is also the subject of other coverage on this site.

• Zhang Jingyi (张婧仪) as Xiang Antu (香暗荼), Zhou Qi (周奇) as Zhuang Zhixing (庄之行), Huang Jue (黄觉) as Zhuang Luyin (庄芦隐), and Yu Nan as Xiang Yusuti (香玉肃提).

• Directed by Zheng Xiaolong (executive director) and Cao Yiwen, from a screenplay by Zhao Liuyi, adapted from a novel by Nanpai Sanshu (南派三叔).

• 40 episodes.

Where to watch

• Disney+ (outside mainland China)

• Viu

• Youku, region-restricted

Its echo outside China

The show's international release pattern is worth noting: Disney+ was announced as a simultaneous premiere alongside CCTV-8 and Youku, rather than months later. That is a change from the era in which overseas fans waited for fan subtitles, and it means the international conversation about a big-budget costume drama can now happen in the same weeks as the domestic one.