Chinese drama release schedule for 2026 For the English version, we use automatic translation with minor editing. We apologize to our dear readers for any errors.
Qin Tianyu: the mad emperor and a rising star. What dramas can you watch with him, and what can you learn from him?
The overview is turning out to be not short at all.
In October 2025, the drama Fated Hearts (一笑随歌) was a great success. The leading roles were brilliantly played by Li Qin, Chen Zheyuan, and Chen Heyi.
But the public's biggest discovery was actor Qin Tianyu, who played the role of the mad emperor of the Jinxiu state, Xia Jingyang.
Although his role was rather secondary - he was the antagonist's antagonist - the audience really loved his character's story and the actor's heartfelt performance.
The drama's plot in brief: two empires, Susha and Jinxiu, are in a state of perpetual enmity and wage war against each other.
In the decisive battle at Pinglin, the Jinxiu army was on the verge of defeat, but the skilled archer and super-agent Fu Yixiao (Li Qin) wounded the crown prince of the enemy state Susha - Feng Suige (Chen Zheyuan) - thereby turning the tide of battle. Later, Fu Yixiao loses her memory after an assassination attempt and falls into Feng Suige's hands. A complex relationship develops between them, political intrigues rage, and the whirlwind of events leads to tragic endings and a complete reshaping of the external and internal state of both empires.
Chen Heyi plays the evil prince Xia Jinshi, who opposes his equally evil brother, Emperor Xia Jingyang. And the confrontation between the two brothers ultimately destroys Jinxiu completely. But before that, Xia Jinshi, without love, marries Feng Suige's gentle sister, Princess Feng Xiyang, and torments her in every possible way. Her husband's cold cruelty pushes Feng Xiyang into the arms of Xia Jingyang.
And it was precisely the pair Xiyang - Xia Jingyang that, somewhere around the middle of the 38-episode drama, attracted keen public interest and began to compete on equal terms with the main couple, Fu Yixiao and Feng Suige.
The main factor in the success of this secondary couple was undoubtedly the acting temperament of Qin Tianyu, for whom Xia Meng served as a worthy partner. Both actors, by the way, are graduates of the Beijing Film Academy. Before this drama, they did not have an extensive résumé of leading roles, but had significant experience in supporting ones. In Fated Hearts, they were given a good tragic story of enmity and love, which both handled brilliantly.
Qin Tianyu surprised the public so much that the internet and social media exploded with searches for information about him. He acted so openly and "broadly," as if he were at the center of a vortex that he himself created around him. At the same time, he only appeared briefly in episode 10; his main episodes began from episode 20, and in episode 37 his character was killed.
At the core of the character was the task of portraying a jaded, cruel, half-mad emperor who disregards everything and kills people simply out of boredom.
But Qin Tianyu went further in his approach to the character. As classical acting school teaches us, he sought and found in his character what made him more diverse, complex, and contradictory. Therefore, the emperor exuded vibes of several Dostoevsky characters at once, starting with Parfyon Rogozhin, combined with the intonations of the Heathcliff-Earnshaw family from Brontë's Wuthering Heights, and even the Joker (it’s no coincidence that the emperor died in the finale with that Joker-like smile formed from the blood smeared across his face).
This created a favorable distinction between the image of Xia Jingyang and the other main male characters of the drama. And those were played by recognized experienced stars and super-handsome men, Chen Zheyuan and Chen Heyi. One cannot fail to note the worthy confrontation and acting competition within the drama's male cast, which often compensated for the script's drawn-out moments.
The final scene of the emperor and the princess rose from melodrama to true tragedy. The scene of the emperor's murder became simultaneously a declaration of love - expressed not in words, but only through a glance and a touch - and a scene of infinitely sad farewell forever.
For this work, in November 2025, Qin Tianyu was awarded the Wenrong Award for the Most Promising Actor of the Year.
If you haven't watched Fated Hearts yet, it's time to watch it - you'll enjoy it.
The premiere of the 22-episode drama took place in December 2024 on Tencent Video. It is a youth campus drama about adolescence, love, filmmaking, and university life.
Qin Tianyu plays the lead role of student Li Yanhao, who is not particularly successful in his studies and constantly finds himself in all sorts of trouble. After interfering with a film shoot, mistaking it for a real gang attack on a girl, he becomes a university "star". The video of the misunderstanding is posted online, and he gets labeled a "pervert". Now everyone ignores him except his closest friend. Alas, he also thinks he is in love with the unattainable chairperson of the student council. This greatly upsets his female friend Li Jiatong (played by Dai Yaqi), who is in love with him. To impress the object of his adoration, Li Yanhao decides to take part in a student film festival, leaving his friends to figure out how to raise money and make a movie.
This is a charming romantic comedy with very endearing characters and a world you want to be a part of, even though the drama's plot is smooth and lacks any sharply romantic or thrilling twists.
Qin Tianyu plays a shy, modest young man who has to become the group's leader. The role is conceived as the complete opposite of the flamboyant, extreme character of Emperor Xia Jingyang. The actor performs with care, delicately placing emphasis on key moments in each scene and tactfully conveying the character's feelings and behavior. He has created an absolutely realistic portrayal of a modern student, vaguely reminiscent of Shurik from Soviet cinema, but without the eccentricity of Gaidai's direction.
Threads of Destiny
(锦绣宅心)
This is a costume mini-drama (26 episodes, 15 minutes each) that aired in August 2025 on Tencent Video.
The series has all the flaws typical of mini-dramas: a stretched plot, underdeveloped or unexplained character motivations, a lack of nuance in scene execution, and so on.
The story revolves around the daughters of the Jiang family. For reasons unknown, they are reborn right in the first episode and swap fates. Jiang Xueying (played by Zhu Lilan), the main heroine and older sister, marries Prince Liu Junxin. She has to navigate the schemes and intrigues of her younger sister and other rivals. In the end, together with her husband, she uncovers a sinister conspiracy.
Qin Tianyu plays the lead role of Prince Liu Junxin. Despite the drama being weak, there is still something worth watching here. Qin Tianyu quite often demonstrated the ability to simultaneously convey two or more opposing drives of a character - a skill that every actor should aspire to. This ability would later be evident in the serious development of his portrayal of Emperor Xia Jingyang. Several scenes in Threads of Destiny are worth watching. For example, in one plot point, one of the heroine's rivals fumigates the prince with an aphrodisiac. Breaking free from her clutches, the prince runs to his wife - with whom he is in a "it's complicated" situation at the time - and asks her for the antidote. A similar scene, already archetypal for Chinese dramas, exists in The Prisoner of Beauty; one can compare them if desired.
Qin Tianyu, with technical precision, clearly acted out how the character is torn between two opposing desires: the desire to grab his wife in his arms and the desire to shake off this humiliating intoxication of the potion. Moreover, a shade of shame for such humiliation of his own will was added over the entire action very appropriately.
The difficulty of this short scene lay not only in the battle of opposing desires - which is hard to portray in itself - but also in the fact that one of the desires is not rational but physiological, meaning it is, in theory, uncontrollable. Qin Tianyu changed the expression in his eyes so that you could see reason leaving them and then returning. It was impressive. And a scene that was intended for the traditional buildup of eroticism in a mini-drama turned into a fine piece of acting. Thanks should also go to the cinematographer, editor, and director, who developed this scene carefully rather than casually.
(But in parentheses, let us note that the mini-drama tradition of aphrodisiac scenes is, of course, something... impressive :))
This 23-episode mini-drama has just aired on Tencent (premiere: February 25, 2026), so it is not yet possible to give any assessment - one must watch it first.
According to the drama's plot, a modern girl, Song Zhiyun (played by Hu Yiyao), inhabits the body of Liu Ruyan, a courtesan from ancient times, and finds herself drawn into a murder case. She is forced to join forces with a young master, Gu Chenye (Qin Tianyu), to get to the truth. Gradually, from using each other and playing a game of "pure desire," they move toward a close relationship and love.
Judging by the trailer, Qin Tianyu plays a fatal, ruggedly handsome man with a complicated attitude toward the heroine.
Of course, it will be interesting to see whether this drama also includes the aphrodisiac scene typical of mini-dramas - it would be intriguing to compare it with Threads of Destiny. :)
So far, Qin Tianyu has not had many leading roles, but he has delivered excellent, solid performances as supporting characters.
This is a 40-episode drama about university students and winter sports (speed skating, hockey) and all kinds of difficulties they face in sports, studies, and personal life. The lead roles are played by Zhang Xincheng and Wu Qian.
This is the first portrayal of a sunny, easygoing "page-like" student - a type that could be seen in Qin Tianyu several more times (Go Into Your Heart, Genius Comes First). In this drama, he is paired with the best friend of the main heroine, played by He Xuanlin. Together with her, they later formed a couple in Go Into Your Heart, and appeared together inThe Starry Love, though not as a couple there.
Qin Tianyu's character is a medical student who falls in love with a girl from the veterinary department, who is fascinated by penguins, worms, snakes, and ecology. As the ideal boyfriend, he indulges his girlfriend in everything, even imitating a sloth and playing with a snake.
This role, full of childlike spontaneity and openness, later proved very helpful in building contradictory and complex characters - such as the mad emperor from Fated Hearts. If you look closely at the latter, Qin Tianyu quite often, sometimes in the most intense moments, let that sunny and naive student out, which created good contrast and depth in the character.
The drama depicts a traditional Chinese school for training weiqi players and a series of tournaments. Sheng Jingchu (Niu Junfeng) is a young, talented Go player. A child prodigy since childhood, he never loses a match. By chance, he meets an intern reporter, Cheng Liao (Li Landi). She is mistaken for his girlfriend, which immediately creates a sensation.
Qin Tianyu continues his portrayal of the "sunny student". He plays Cao Xihe, a friend of the main protagonist and one of the 8-dan weiqi players at the same club. He is in love with a girl, Ding Lan (played by He Xuanlin), who also holds a high dan in Go, but as he sees it, she constantly stands him up when it comes to personal relationships. To impress and win her over, Xihe tries to act out various characters. The screenwriters wrote this plot device, and Qin Tianyu made use of it.
The role of Xihe is an invaluable encyclopedia of a certain part of Qin Tianyu's acting abilities. We can see both his baseline, so to speak, in neutral mode, as well as his numerous other personas: the fatal, ruggedly handsome man of dramas, the arrogant CEO, the haughty prince, the enlightened figure from some fantasy wielding a sword, the flippant rapper, as well as hand-to-hand combat and weapon fights, and much more.
It was a mistake on the screenwriters' part to write not only a comedic but also a romantic storyline for this pair, because Qin Tianyu always grabs the audience's attention, and paired with He Xuanlin, it turns out particularly lively. Since the script of the drama was quite weak in the main romantic storyline, we see a situation where following the second couple's relationship is more interesting than following the first couple's.
This is a 40-episode fantasy drama about political catastrophes in four realms: the enlightened inhabitants of the heavens, demons, humans, and beasts. The main roles are played by Chen Xingxu, Li Landi, He Xuanlin, and Chen Muchi.
The princesses of the human realm were supposed to marry - one to the son of the Heavenly Emperor, the other to the heir of the demon realm. But they were mixed up "at the handing over". A mischievous girl ended up in the heavenly realm of light, while a timid maiden arrived among the demons. Complete chaos and disorder began along the entire axis of the world.
Qin Tianyu plays the amusing and endlessly charming Prince of Beasts. He is a classic trickster character - spoiled, talkative, a joker, a master of making magical amulets, a loyal friend and protector, a helper to the main characters, and a shapeshifter. Since his character is the Prince of Beasts, he had to act not only in human language but also in "dog language". Up until about episode 15, he had little independent storyline; sometimes he was replaced on screen by a little white dog in an adorable pink diaper. But later, the prince embarks on active adventures with a princess from the heavenly realm. Qin Tianyu's partner in this role was Dai Yaqi, with whom he later starred in Genius Comes First.
With this drama, the era of Qin Tianyu's trickster, light-footed, sunny characters who dance through the plot twists seems to have ended, and the next drama will mark the first turn toward new dramatic roles. Still, we do not give up hope of seeing again, at least in part, this spirited boyish image peeking out once more within the complex psychological settings of future new characters.
Story of Kunning Palace
(宁安如梦, Kunning)
2023, 38 episodes, starring Bai Lu, Zhang Linghe, Wang Xingyue, Zhou Junwei
This is a quasi-historical drama about palace and romantic intrigues and reincarnation. It became very beloved by the domestic audience; the main characters (Princess Xue Ning, the fatal handsome man, the general and conspirator Xie Wei, the scholar Zhang Zhe, and the sweet friend Yan Lin) attracted widespread attention. However, since the main characters often, at the screenwriters' whim, plunged into dizzying logical spirals to the point of losing all reason, viewers sought an anchor for reality in other characters. Or rather, in another character (guess whose).
Qin Tianyu played Liu Xian, an associate of General Xie Wei. He appeared in the drama around episode 6. He is the only character in the series, aside from the main trio, actively discussed in the comments by Russian-speaking netizens.
Because, according to the plot, Liu Xian engages in trade as a cover for intelligence activities, he was immediately dubbed by viewers as the "chief accountant" (glavbukh). After he holds mind-clarifying conversations with the main characters and brings them back to reality, he earned the nickname "psychotherapist".
He does not have much of a storyline, but it is very much in the spirit of Chernyshevsky's "What Is To Be Done?": Liu Xian, like Dmitry Lopukhov, enters into a fictitious marriage with Vera Pavlovna (Fan Yin, the main heroine's friend) for the purpose of emancipating an enslaved Eastern woman from her malicious family. Moreover, netizens reached a unanimous verdict that his marriage proposal is the best thing a woman could hear among all the options offered by Chinese and Korean drama production: "I will help you in everything, give you entrepreneurial freedom, and if you want a divorce, here is a pre-signed consent to divorce".
In discussions about which male character from this drama would best suit female viewers - the passionate abuser Xie Wei, the clever Zhang Zhe, or the friend Yan Lin - the "chief accountant" Liu Xian wins. And yet here the actor did not hijack the viewers' attention; he honestly worked as a helper to the main protagonist, barely showing any romantic presence. But because his character was absolutely normal amidst the chaos of melodramatic sublimity (he didn't stab himself, didn't grab anyone by the throat, didn't fervently roll his eyes, spoke sensibly), he stood out again, whether the actor wanted it or not. Of course, the story of Liu Xian's fictitious marriage was lacking - and what a promising start it was. It's a pity that for some reason they decided to neglect it. But most likely, the romance of this secondary couple would have drawn too much attention to itself, disrupting the drama's plot.
Serendipity
(榜上佳婿)
This 40-episode costume drama was released in spring 2025. The main cast includes Wang Ziqi, Lu Yuxiao, Wang Hongyi, Kong Xue'er, Yang Shize, He Qiu.
Despite such a gathering of very strong actors, the drama itself turned out to be, unfortunately, unsuccessful.
Jian Mingshu, the heiress of a wealthy family, desperately wants to marry Lu Chang, the top student in the imperial examinations, and even kidnaps him, but he has no desire to marry her. Meanwhile, Mingshu's family falls from grace, and all its members are wiped out except for Mingshu, who falls off a cliff and loses her memory. She is saved by Lu Chang, who pretends to be her brother. They go to the capital together and try to investigate the destruction of the Jian family.
All of this is overloaded with numerous side stories and plots, varying degrees of logic, and rather forced humor. Logic is not the strongest point of costume dramas to begin with, but even without it, one would at least hope for engaging action from the screenwriters and director. However, here the action is often told rather than shown; several secondary characters exist for this purpose, with whom the protagonists converse to verbally articulate their intentions and actions. In 18th-century European theater, such characters were called confidants.
Qin Tianyu plays the role of a low-ranking officer, Ying Xiong, who is precisely such a confidant. His character's task is to appear at the right moment, listen, nod, or provide information necessary for the plot. It is hard to imagine a more doomed endeavor for an actor than such a project. An actor or group of actors cannot exist in cinema separately from the script, direction, and framing. They are far more dependent on the work of others here. And it is precisely when the work of the crew behind the camera fails that the degree of an actor's responsibility in front of the camera becomes clear. The drama Serendipity shows us not only Qin Tianyu but also the other actors, who fought to the last for quality and tried to do their job well, in the classical sense - with the character's internal monologue, playing within the given circumstances, with psychomotor skills, etc. The viewer occasionally gets the feeling that nails are being hammered with atomic microscopes, because there is a great mismatch between the demonstrated abilities of the actors and the final result. Everyone deserves a medal for acting courage.
Perfect Match
(五福临门, 五福臨門)
2025
A costume historical fusion drama featuring many wonderful actors: Lu Yuxiao, Liu Xiening, Wang Xingyue, Chen Heyi, and so on, and so on.
A very successful drama, somewhat reminiscent of Jane Austen's novels and the series Bridgerton at the same time - that is, it is based on the foundation of a classic European romance novel. A widowed mother from an impoverished official family has five daughters who need to be married off, preferably to wealthy suitors, but without a dowry from the bride's side. The series shows the marriage stories of all five daughters, which, of course, are accompanied by various incidents, misunderstandings, and comical situations.
Qin Tianyu has a tiny role here, literally about 5 minutes of screen time. He appears near the end of episode 28 and the beginning of episode 29. His character is the first fiancé of the fifth daughter, Master He, chosen for her by her elder brothers-in-law. Qin Tianyu plays a completely non-brutal, timid man who is somewhat afraid of the bride who has suddenly fallen into his lap, her family, and especially the brothers-in-law. A Chekhovian bumbler, in contrast to the brutal, high-IQ main characters. But fortunately for him, his bride's palanquin is swapped with that of the man who ends up marrying her, while he himself mistakenly goes through the wedding ceremony with a completely different girl. When the mistake is discovered the next day and they propose resetting the situation - that is, swapping the brides back - Master He refuses to do so, because he has already performed all the necessary rites and, indeed, the wedding night itself.
Based on the text and the situation, his character betrays the heroine, who is not at all eager to marry her abductor and, it must be said, managed to fend off performing the rites with him. But the fiancé, it turns out, even after seeing that she was not his intended bride, went through with the ceremony to the end. By any measure, this is a rather reprehensible act, characterizing him in a poor light. Others describe him as "a timid and shameless man". In principle, it would have been easy to give in to temptation and simply play a pathetic and despicable person without much thought - after all, it's just a small episode. But Qin Tianyu played the episode in such a way that he managed to at least partially justify his character - a man who has the courage not to shift responsibility for his actions onto others, who is capable of feeling guilt, and who accepts the anger of those around him with dignity. If he could definitely be characterized as weak in the first part of this micro-role, in the second part he rather appears strong, even though everyone is angry with him. And he accomplished all of this with almost no lines.
Wild Bloom
(Crazy Flower, Maelstrom)
This drama has not yet aired. Filming began on December 16, 2025, and wrapped on February 2, 2026. Qin Tianyu is part of the main cast alongside Victoria Song, Wang Luodan, and Wang Ziwen.
It is a detective drama centered on female crime and revenge.
Qin Tianyu plays Chu Hao, a police officer in the criminal investigation unit, a rising star in crime detection and a top performer in both academic and combat training. His superior or partner will be played by Victoria Song. Reports describe Chu Hao as a talkative and attractive young man who brings lightness and comedic relief to the story.
Filming for this drama began on January 11, 2026. The lead roles are played by Yu Shuxin and Zhang Yunlong. It is possible that Qin Tianyu is playing the antagonist, Prince Chu Rui. No official information has been released yet, but Twitter and Weibo are actively posting photos and videos from the set.
This drama was filmed a long time ago (2021) but has not yet been released. Most recently, it was announced for the fourth quarter of 2025, but so far there are not even approximate dates, and everything is hanging by a thread. According to rumors, the problem lies with the BL storyline, and until this issue is resolved, the series will not air. But for now, these are still just rumors.
The cast is stellar: Chen Xingxu, Chen Muchi, Li Landi, He Xuanlin, Qin Tianyu, Cao Bo, Xia Minghao - as we can see, this is the cast of The Starry Love, and with some inaccuracies, also GO Into Your Heart.
Plot: While pursuing a group of drug traffickers, a former secret service agent ends up in a small mountain town. There, he finds an entrance to a mysterious world filled with shadows. Together with the leader of the mountain guardians, he embarks on an amazing adventure in a new world.
Qin Tianyu plays a supporting role as Yuan Pin.
Zhang Jian
(张謇)
This large-scale 40-episode historical project about the fall of the Qing dynasty and China at the turn of the 19th–20th centuries is also still sitting on the shelf (filmed in 2024).
The lead roles are played by senior actors He Bing, Yang Lixin, and Hao Ping.
Qin Tianyu plays a supporting role as the Guangxu Emperor, the last emperor of the Qing dynasty who attempted to modernize China through the Hundred Days' Reform, but was defeated by his aunt, Empress Dowager Cixi, and placed under house arrest. He was presumably poisoned with arsenic and died in 1908. His successor was the famous child emperor Puyi, who ascended the throne at the age of two and lived such a turbulent and unhappy life.
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