DRAMA GUIDES
Genre guides
Every genre guide — xianxia, palace intrigue, modern-set, and period drama — newest first.
Silk & SchemesAgainst the Current: a disgraced noblewoman takes a dead servant's name
Still airing: a Grand Secretary's granddaughter survives her family's fall by living as a maid in the household of the man who broke their engagement. An early guide to Tencent Video's September 2026 costume drama.
Silk & SchemesThe Legend of Zang Hai: Xiao Zhan's 2025 revenge drama, from the director of Empresses in the Palace
The son of a disgraced court astronomer rebuilds himself under a new name to bring down the men who destroyed his family — a 40-episode court-politics revenge story from Empresses in the Palace director Zheng Xiaolong.
Ink & ImmortalsThe Legend of Shen Li: Zhao Liying's first turn as producer, and a runaway phoenix
A ruler who flees an arranged marriage, falls out of the sky as a phoenix, and lands in the care of the last ancient god — 2024's prime-time xianxia (immortal-fantasy) romance, and Zhao Liying's first credit as supervising producer.
Ink & ImmortalsThe Longest Promise: a faked death, a disciple, and a two-year wait on the shelf
Shot in 2021 and released in July 2023, Xiao Zhan and Ren Min's xianxia (immortal-fantasy) romance is a master-disciple story about a framed crown prince and a princess who is fated to hurt him.
Ink & ImmortalsTill the End of the Moon: a time-travel rescue mission aimed at the man who becomes the Devil God
She travels five hundred years back to stop a prince from becoming the Devil God, and falls for him instead — the 2023 Youku hit that reportedly became the most-watched period drama since 2020.
Ink & ImmortalsLove Between Fairy and Devil: the mid-budget xianxia that went viral on word of mouth
A mid-budget 2022 xianxia that turned into a global short-video phenomenon before most Western viewers had heard of either lead.
Ink & ImmortalsImmortal Samsara: the 2022 hit that rewrote its own novel's ending
A four-leaf lotus spirit, a heavenly lord who loves her against the law, and a two-part release that changed which man she ends up with compared with the source novel.
Ink & ImmortalsThe Untamed: a beginner's map to the drama that broke the internet twice
Before you watch fifty episodes of sword-wielding immortals solving a decade-old murder, here's what a Chinese viewer already knows walking in — and why the show became a global phenomenon anyway.
Silk & SchemesThe Story of Minglan: the zhaidou drama the genre still measures itself against
A concubine's daughter learns to hide how clever she is, then builds a household of her own — the 73-episode Song-dynasty family drama that won a Golden Eagle and defined zhaidou (household-intrigue drama) on television.
Silk & SchemesRuyi's Royal Love in the Palace: the anti-Zhen Huan
Same novelist and marketed as the successor to Empresses in the Palace — but an 87-episode story about a marriage's slow failure, made at a reportedly ¥300 million and pulled from Chinese TV and streaming platforms amid 2019 and 2020 crackdowns on palace dramas.
Ink & ImmortalsAshes of Love: the grape sprite, the loveless elixir, and 15 billion views
A carefree grape sprite is secretly the daughter of two deities, and has been fed an elixir so she can't fall in love. Jiangsu TV's 2018 hit turned that premise into a love triangle among brothers and a court conspiracy.
Silk & SchemesStory of Yanxi Palace: the revenge drama that broke the internet, globally
The 2018 revenge drama that became the most-Googled TV show on Earth that year — despite Google being blocked in the country where it was made.
Ink & ImmortalsEternal Love: the 50-billion-view xianxia romance that came before The Untamed
50 billion views and counting — the xianxia romance that a lot of overseas fans still call their gateway drama, years before The Untamed existed.
Silk & SchemesNirvana in Fire: the political-intrigue drama with no magic and no harem
The political-intrigue drama that shows up on nearly every English-language "best Chinese drama" list — and the one this site's own guides keep getting compared to.
Ink & ImmortalsThe Journey of Flower: the 2015 hit that turned a xianxia novel into a 20-billion-view franchise
Master-disciple forbidden love, a demon god, and a heroine who ends up carrying the world's power in her own body — the 2015 Hunan TV drama that became the first Chinese series past 20 billion online views.
Silk & SchemesEmpresses in the Palace: 76 episodes, and the Netflix cut that isn't really the show
76 episodes of Qing-court survival, and the show most Western streaming services still get wrong — the six-episode Netflix cut is a completely different animal from the original.
