# Being A Hero (冰雨火)
**Being A Hero** (冰雨火) is a 2022 Chinese crime drama about anti-narcotics police work in a fictional border county, directed by Fu Dong育 (傅东育) and starring [Chen Xiao](https://www.edgepedia.org/chen-xiao) (陈晓) as Wu Zhenfeng and [Wang Yibo](https://www.edgepedia.org/wang-yibo) (王一博) as Chen Yu. It premiered on Youku on August 11, 2022, and ran for 32 episodes of about 45 minutes each.[1](https://baike.sogou.com/m/v185126803.htm) • [2](https://www.focus-pictures.com/?work=%E6%B0%B7%E9%9B%A8%E7%81%AB) Because it reused the director and much of the creative team of the hit anti-drug drama *Breaking the Ice* (破冰行动), viewers treated it as a companion piece.[3](https://xinwen.bjd.com.cn/content/s6308335de4b0f80526940c2d.html)
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Original title / English title | 冰雨火 / Being A Hero[2](https://www.focus-pictures.com/?work=%E6%B0%B7%E9%9B%A8%E7%81%AB) |
| First broadcast | August 11, 2022, Youku (exclusive streaming); final episode September 16, 2022[1](https://baike.sogou.com/m/v185126803.htm) • [4](https://www.thetvdb.com/series/404776-) |
| Format | 32 episodes, about 45 minutes each; crime, mystery, suspense[2](https://www.focus-pictures.com/?work=%E6%B0%B7%E9%9B%A8%E7%81%AB) |
| Main cast | Chen Xiao (Wu Zhenfeng), Wang Yibo (Chen Yu), Wang Jinsong, Liu Yijun, Zhao Zhaoyi, Zhang Zhijian, Guo Xiaoting[1](https://baike.sogou.com/m/v185126803.htm) |
| Creative team | Director and chief writer Fu Dong育; chief writers Mai Liyasi and Zhang Yuanang[1](https://baike.sogou.com/m/v185126803.htm) |
| Reception | Douban 7.3 from more than 140,000 raters; Weibo topic reads over 10.57 billion[5](https://m.thepaper.cn/newsDetail_forward_19952506) |
| Later broadcasts | WATCHA (South Korea) February 10, 2023; Japan April 16, 2023; Jiangsu TV November 4, 2023; Guangdong TV January 8, 2024[1](https://baike.sogou.com/m/v185126803.htm) • [6](https://www.weibo.com/u/6226244646?tabtype=home) |
## Spoilers
### Plot
The story is set in Yunhe County (云河县), a border town on the front line of China's drug interdiction efforts. It opens with the murder of a restaurant chef who was secretly cooking a new synthetic drug called "rhubarb capsule" (大黄胶囊). The investigating officer, Chen Yu, discovers that Wu Zhenfeng, his childhood friend who vanished three years earlier, is entangled with the case.[3](https://xinwen.bjd.com.cn/content/s6308335de4b0f80526940c2d.html)
The backstory: Wu Zhenfeng was a police academy star whose father [Wu Gang](https://www.edgepedia.org/wu-gang) was killed by drug traffickers and posthumously suspected of dealing; the taint got Wu Zhenfeng expelled from the academy. Setting out for the border, he was seized by traffickers while protecting Chen Yu during a robbery and disappeared. Three years later Chen Yu has become an anti-narcotics officer, while the surviving Wu Zhenfeng returns as a suspect in a murder case, working alone to clear his father's name.[7](https://tongye.cn/tv/bingyuhuo/) • [8](https://www.thepaper.cn/newsDetail_forward_19590934) Chen Yu's efforts to clear his friend draw him into a conspiracy; after acting without authorization he is removed from his post and goes undercover, and the two men end up infiltrating the trafficking network from different sides.[7](https://tongye.cn/tv/bingyuhuo/)
The finale brings down Yang Xingquan (杨兴权), the boss of the Mengka trafficking cartel, played by Liu Yijun. In the closing episodes Wu Zhenfeng returns to the fight out of concern for Chen Yu's safety and is shot, and the young officer Yang Yi dies at the gunpoint of his adoptive father Yang Xingquan; the cartel is destroyed and its leaders brought to justice.[5](https://m.thepaper.cn/newsDetail_forward_19952506)
## Writing and research
The script was an original work with no novel or single real case behind it. Mai Liyasi and Zhang Yuanang began writing in 2018 and finished nearly two years later, in time for the 2020 shoot; before the title was fixed the project carried the codename *Brothers* (《兄弟》). The two leads were first drafted as sworn brothers and later reworked as childhood neighbors, keeping the central tension of two close men on opposite sides of the law.[9](https://www.sohu.com/a/581142807_120646855)
The writers built the suspense around moral ambiguity. Mai Liyasi said the show deliberately avoids characters who are 100 percent good or bad, and Zhang Yuanang compared the shifting suspicions among the many characters to the party game Werewolf, in which players cannot tell ally from wolf until the decisive moment.[9](https://www.sohu.com/a/581142807_120646855)
Director Fu Dong育, who had earlier directed the anti-drug dramas *Life-and-Death Undercover* (生死卧底, 2002) and *Breaking the Ice* (2019), said friends advised him not to touch the genre again so soon, but he wanted to apply the specific lessons, including criticism of *Breaking the Ice*'s ending, to a new project.[10](https://m.bjnews.com.cn/detail/1660883925169537.html) He stated that more than 90 percent of the story has a basis in reality: apart from minor street-thug roles, most characters' relationships, identities, and occupations come from real cases, and the rhubarb capsule drug in the opening case reflects a new synthetic drug type the team learned about during field visits.[11](https://ent.sina.cn/tv/tv/2022-08-19/detail-imizmscv6887815.d.html) As early as August 2019 the crew visited public-security units across Yunnan, including narcotics bureaus, detox centers, police stations, and detention centers, collecting real officers' stories and case material.[12](https://www.xinhuanet.com/ent/20220812/5c6a3730c5634eafa5924bdeeae53315/c.html) The writers spent more than a month along the Yunnan border interviewing officers and arrested traffickers and riding along with police on calls.[13](https://www.1905.com/news/20220827/1593147.shtml)
## Production and broadcast
Filming began on May 18, 2020, in Xishuangbanna, Yunnan.[14](https://www.boyamedia.com/category/detail/16677/) The A and B units together shot for more than 200 days. The drama contains over 300 scenes; all but four built sets were converted real locations, a workload Fu Dong育 compared to two or three ordinary dramas.[13](https://www.1905.com/news/20220827/1593147.shtml) Chen Xiao and Wang Yibo spent two weeks before shooting in training and observation with real police, including firearms practice, and neither took outside work during the four-and-a-half-month Yunnan shoot.[15](https://www.whb.cn/zhuzhan/xinwen/20220817/481381.html)
The finished drama wrapped in 2021 but was held back for about a year before dropping without advance promotion on Youku on the evening of August 11, 2022.[12](https://www.xinhuanet.com/ent/20220812/5c6a3730c5634eafa5924bdeeae53315/c.html) • [16](https://ent.ifeng.com/c/8IRbDy0E4ub) After the streaming run it circulated widely: South Korea's WATCHA carried it from February 10, 2023, Japan from April 16, 2023, and it reached Jiangsu TV on November 4, 2023 and Guangdong TV's evening slot from January 8, 2024.[1](https://baike.sogou.com/m/v185126803.htm) • [6](https://www.weibo.com/u/6226244646?tabtype=home) In Japan it is distributed as 冰雨火～BEING A HERO～ on Amazon Prime Video, FOD, and related channels.[17](https://www.justwatch.com/jp/%E3%83%86%E3%83%AC%E3%83%93%E7%95%AA%E7%B5%84/being-a-hero)
## Reception
**Ratings and heat.** The Guo Du data service recorded a heat score above 70 on the first day, above 80 the next day, and a place in the top three of its web-drama heat chart for over a month; Youku's internal heat index broke the 10,000 mark for more than ten consecutive days.[5](https://m.thepaper.cn/newsDetail_forward_19952506) By the finale, more than 140,000 Douban users had rated it 7.3, and the Weibo topic had surpassed 10.57 billion reads with 15.655 million discussions.[5](https://m.thepaper.cn/newsDetail_forward_19952506)
**Audience profile.** Guo Du's data put 65.87 percent of the audience female and 34.13 percent male, an unusually high female share for the anti-drug genre; viewers aged 20 to 39 made up nearly 70 percent, with 11.3 percent under 20 and nearly 20 percent aged 40 or above.[5](https://m.thepaper.cn/newsDetail_forward_19952506)
**Critical assessment.** Reviewers praised the realistic texture and the ensemble of veteran actors. The Beijing Daily critic Qiu Wei wrote that the drama's distinctive choice was to frame the anti-drug fight around trust, showing officers as ordinary people caught in tangled relationships rather than presenting a simple good-versus-evil opposition, while finding that the plot was not "brain-burning" enough and that its most gripping stretch arrived only at episode 15, when a tea-factory drug deal exposed the feud between two trafficking cartels.[3](https://xinwen.bjd.com.cn/content/s6308335de4b0f80526940c2d.html) A review in *The Paper* similarly judged that early streaming and third-party playback data were flat despite high expectations.[8](https://www.thepaper.cn/newsDetail_forward_19590934) Xinhua coverage highlighted the opening's realism and the resonance of lines such as "frontline police are so brave," and noted the drama's stated aim of raising anti-drug awareness.[12](https://www.xinhuanet.com/ent/20220812/5c6a3730c5634eafa5924bdeeae53315/c.html) • [18](https://www.xinhuanet.com/ent/20220817/edf682648b0d4035922257581bb39866/c.html) Early viewer criticism also targeted Wang Yibo's line delivery and acting, while some commenters noted Chen Xiao lost more than 10 kilograms (over 20 jin) for the role of Wu Zhenfeng.[16](https://ent.ifeng.com/c/8IRbDy0E4ub)
## Place in the genre
A scholarly commentary in *Variety Report* placed *Being A Hero* in the line of Chinese anti-drug dramas that runs from *Chinese Anti-Drug Police* (1987) through *Never Close Your Eyes*, *Mekong Action*, and *Breaking the Ice*, and argued that the drama extended the genre by combining drug enforcement with a puzzle-solving revenge narrative and by building parallel physical and psychological spaces for its characters.[19](https://m.fx361.com/news/2022/0530/22060168.html) Fu Dong育 himself framed the title's meaning as the officer's condition: walking through ice-cold rain on thin ice, with an inextinguishable fire of justice carrying them forward.[11](https://ent.sina.cn/tv/tv/2022-08-19/detail-imizmscv6887815.d.html)
## References
1. [冰雨火, Sogou Baike](https://baike.sogou.com/m/v185126803.htm)
2. [冰雨火～BEING A HERO～, FOCUS PICTURES](https://www.focus-pictures.com/?work=%E6%B0%B7%E9%9B%A8%E7%81%AB)
3. [《冰雨火》立意独特，剧情不够"烧脑", 北京日报客户端](https://xinwen.bjd.com.cn/content/s6308335de4b0f80526940c2d.html)
4. [Being A Hero, TheTVDB](https://www.thetvdb.com/series/404776-)
5. [《冰雨火》高热收官，现实题材佳作致敬禁毒英雄, 澎湃新闻](https://m.thepaper.cn/newsDetail_forward_19952506)
6. [冰雨火官微, Weibo](https://www.weibo.com/u/6226244646?tabtype=home)
7. [冰雨火剧情解说, 同业剧情网](https://tongye.cn/tv/bingyuhuo/)
8. [《冰雨火》火了吗？, 澎湃新闻](https://www.thepaper.cn/newsDetail_forward_19590934)
9. [《冰雨火》编剧专访, 半岛网/搜狐](https://www.sohu.com/a/581142807_120646855)
10. [傅东育：《破冰行动》火了后，大家都劝我拍新剧不要再碰禁毒题材, 新京报](https://m.bjnews.com.cn/detail/1660883925169537.html)
11. [《冰雨火》傅东育：悬疑题材要和观众"斗心眼", 羊城晚报/新浪](https://ent.sina.cn/tv/tv/2022-08-19/detail-imizmscv6887815.d.html)
12. [刻画新时代缉毒英雄《冰雨火》引共鸣, 新华网](https://www.xinhuanet.com/ent/20220812/5c6a3730c5634eafa5924bdeeae53315/c.html)
13. [《破冰行动》后再禁毒！《冰雨火》够硬核吗？, 1905电影网](https://www.1905.com/news/20220827/1593147.shtml)
14. [傅东育：现实主义的力量, 博亚传媒](https://www.boyamedia.com/category/detail/16677/)
15. [傅东育《冰雨火》创作谈, 文汇报](https://www.whb.cn/zhuzhan/xinwen/20220817/481381.html)
16. [《冰雨火》首播热度尚可，王一博演技遭质疑, 凤凰网](https://ent.ifeng.com/c/8IRbDy0E4ub)
17. [冰雨火～BEING A HERO～ 配信情報, JustWatch Japan](https://www.justwatch.com/jp/%E3%83%86%E3%83%AC%E3%83%93%E7%95%AA%E7%B5%84/being-a-hero)
18. [《冰雨火》真实与热血共存, 新华网](https://www.xinhuanet.com/ent/20220817/edf682648b0d4035922257581bb39866/c.html)
19. [《冰雨火》：禁毒剧叙事边界的扩展与类型重塑, 综艺报](https://m.fx361.com/news/2022/0530/22060168.html)
---
*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 › Chinese modern and contemporary drama*
*Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026*
*Copyright 2026 EdgeChat AI, a subsidiary of Biostate AI.*
License: Edgepedia Community License 1.0, https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license