General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20265 min read

Are You Safe (你安全吗？)

Are You Safe (你安全吗？) is a 2022 mainland Chinese web drama about cybersecurity, produced by Youhug Media (耀客传媒) and Penguin Pictures, and described by state media commentary as the first domestic Chinese drama series to take cybersecurity as its subject.¹ It was chief-directed by Cao Dun (曹盾) with Yang Biao (杨彪) as director, written by Huang Yanwei and Li Haishu, and stars Tan Jianci (檀健次) as the cybersecurity consultant Qin Huai and Rong Zishan (荣梓杉) as the young hacker Zhou You.²

Key fact	Detail
Format	31-episode Chinese-language web drama, genres suspense and crime²
Lead cast	Tan Jianci (Qin Huai), Rong Zishan (Zhou You), He Lei (Chen Mo)²
Ratings	7.7 on iQiyi; 6.8 on JustWatch²^•³

Spoilers

Premise and characters

The story follows three men who move through the online world, called the "Three Musketeers" in the series' own synopsis: Qin Huai, Zhou You, and Chen Mo. Although their personalities differ, all three hold to a principle of "technology for good" (科技向善), and they go from mutual suspicion to close alliance as they repeatedly confront an internet criminal syndicate.²

Qin Huai, played by Tan Jianci, runs a private cybersecurity services company called "Kai Gua Le" (开挂了), known for the motto "tight lips, strong skills, payment first," and operates on a strict rule of never breaking the law.⁴^•² Zhou You, played by Rong Zishan, is a hot-blooded teenage genius hacker who cross-dresses as a livestream host.⁵ Chen Mo, played by He Lei, is Qin Huai's college friend, a programmer who was once hurt by online fraud and goes abroad to infiltrate a fraud ring.²^•⁶

The series opens with a "cyber adultery investigation": Qin Huai is hired by a client to expose her husband's affair using big data, only to find that the supposed mistress is Zhou You in disguise, staging the scene to punish an executive who sexually harassed a colleague. This single case pulls in workplace sexual harassment, online violence and paid trolls, personal information security, and black public relations.⁵

Structure and subject matter

The drama uses a main storyline about telecom fraud with side cases branching off it, and it treats each case as a way to teach viewers how specific threats work. Cases covered include personal information security, the online gray industry, online violence, online fraud, betting-site scams, black public relations, and "wool-pulling" schemes in which a fraudster holding thousands of accounts exploits platform and vendor promotion loopholes for profit.¹^•⁵

Every episode ends with a short educational segment, a "mini-theater," that explains practical safety habits in plain language: do not use strangers' power banks, do not connect to unknown free Wi-Fi, do not share photos in original resolution, and do not show clear palm lines in selfies.⁴ The series also works risk warnings into the plot itself, for example showing that borrowing a power bank can leak personal data and that a deleted internet photo can still be recovered.⁵

A recurring theme is that fighting wrongdoing with illegal means is itself illegal. Chen Mo privately writes viruses and attacks websites to catch fraud suspects and is arrested when a virus leaks; Zhou You is once tempted to hack an account to post a clarification; Qin Huai, by contrast, sets the rule that online investigation must stay lawful, forbidding illegal surveillance apps and unauthorized account access.¹

Production and broadcast

Internationally it has been available on Rakuten Viki.³

Reception

Commentary carried by the National Radio and Television Administration, written by Xiao Jun, a professor at Southwest University of Political Science and Law and director of its crime-drama research center, credited the series with reaching audiences beyond its core genre through a light, comedic tone rather than lecturing, and with filling a gap in Chinese television's national-security-themed output.¹ The same commentary noted flaws: uneven pacing with abrupt case endings, plot points arranged for dramatic effect, and details that do not match how telecom fraud actually operates, such as an overseas "pig-butchering" romance scam running alongside in-person lending by the same group, which conflicts with the non-contact nature of such fraud.¹

The Beijing Daily review praised the light comedic tone, unusual for high-tech and fraud-themed dramas, and the chemistry between the two leads, but found that the dense security lessons constrained the narrative, with some plot points cut short before they developed.⁵ A Southern Weekly review observed that despite the loud theme, the show's heat was modest, trailing hits such as Hutong, Bottom Line, and Kunlun Temple, and characterized it as closer to a science-popularization drama than a thriller.⁴ An industry commentary in Sohu's Rhino Entertainment likewise judged the ratings lukewarm, attributing this partly to a title that gave audiences little to grasp and to a return to conventional suspense templates after the novel opening, while still calling the series a worthwhile pioneer of a new genre.⁶ On aggregators it scored 7.7 on iQiyi and 6.8 on JustWatch.²^•³

Context

Before this series, Chinese television had largely left cybersecurity and online fraud to hard-edged suspense thrillers, while overseas works such as Person of Interest, Black Mirror, The Capture, and Who Am I had treated similar material; Are You Safe was the first domestic series to make cybersecurity the central subject.⁴ Its broadcast coincided with public attention to online fraud in China, and the NRTA commentary linked the show's message to the then-current draft amendment of the Cybersecurity Law of the People's Republic of China, published for comment by the Cyberspace Administration of China in mid-September 2022 with a feedback deadline of September 29, 2022.¹

References

Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Series and fictional screen worlds › International serial drama and telenovelas › East Asian drama series › East Asian web and streaming serials › Titles symbols to Co

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026

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