# Dashing Youth (少年白马醉春风)
**Dashing Youth** (少年白马醉春风, *The Young Brewmaster's Adventure*) is a Chinese wuxia novel by Zhou Munan (周木楠) that has been adapted into a 2022 animated series and a 2024 live-action drama, both telling the story of Baili Dongjun, the Zhenxi Marquis's grandson who would rather brew wine than practice swordsmanship. The story is a prequel to Zhou's earlier series *[The Blood of Youth](https://www.edgepedia.org/the-blood-of-youth)* (少年歌行), set twenty years before that story's events.[1](https://www.chinawriter.com.cn/n1/2019/0826/c404024-31316724.html) • [2](https://www.mgtv.com/h/368802.html?vfrm=3&vfrmblk=pca_115_site_enlarge&vfrmrst=0)
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Original work | Novel by Zhou Munan, written after *The Blood of Youth* but set twenty years earlier in the same jianghu world[1](https://www.chinawriter.com.cn/n1/2019/0826/c404024-31316724.html) |
| Animated series | Directed by Wang Yipeng; premiered 27 July 2022 on Mango TV and Youku; 20 episodes of 20 minutes each[3](https://wapbaike.baidu.com/item/%E5%B0%91%E5%B9%B4%E7%99%BD%E9%A9%AC%E9%86%89%E6%98%A5%E9%A3%8E/56764347) |
| Animation season 2 | Premiered 17 July 2024 as a Youku exclusive; 26 episodes of 20 minutes, released Wednesdays at 10 a.m.[3](https://wapbaike.baidu.com/item/%E5%B0%91%E5%B9%B4%E7%99%BD%E9%A9%AC%E9%86%89%E6%98%A5%E9%A3%8E/56764347) |
| Live-action drama | 40 episodes of 45 minutes, directed by Chen Zhoufei, aired 19 July to 14 August 2024 on Youku[4](https://www.tvmao.com/kanju/XGJjaXIj) • [5](https://wiki.d-addicts.com/Dashing_Youth) |
| Main cast | Hou Minghao as Baili Dongjun, He Yu as Ye Dingzhi, Hu Lianxin as Yueyao, Xia Zhiguang as Sikong Changfeng[4](https://www.tvmao.com/kanju/XGJjaXIj) |
| Platform milestone | On 25 July 2024 the drama's Youku heat value passed 10,000, the first title to do so after Youku opened display of values above that threshold[6](https://news.youth.cn/yl/202407/t20240726_15406119.htm) |
| Critical reception | Douban scores of 6.2 and 5.9 were reported for the drama, well below the 8.3 of its predecessor *The Blood of Youth*[7](https://static.nfnews.com/content/202408/16/c9660409.html?enterColumnId=16) • [8](https://www.westca.com/pda/news/op%3Dview/sid%3D1150872/lang%3Denglish.html) |
## Spoilers
### Story
The protagonist is Baili Dongjun (百里东君), the young master of the Zhenxi Marquis's household. As a child he was mischievous and indifferent to poetry, military strategy, and martial arts, caring only for brewing wine, because of a pact with his childhood friend Ye Yun (叶云) to become the "Wine Immortal." His fate was not his to choose: he eventually became the disciple of Li Changsheng, the greatest martial artist under heaven, and began learning to fight. Along the way he met the confidante Yueyao (玥瑶) and reunited with Ye Yun, who now went by the name Ye Dingzhi (叶鼎之).[4](https://www.tvmao.com/kanju/XGJjaXIj)
The story's later arc turns on that friendship. Years on, Ye Dingzhi, exploited by others, launches a war against the Central Plains, and Baili Dongjun leads the heroes of the world in resistance. Facing his friend, he refuses to retreat, seeking both to save the people and to save Ye Dingzhi himself; in the finale Ye Dingzhi takes his own life to atone.[4](https://www.tvmao.com/kanju/XGJjaXIj)
In the animated version's framing, the story begins when Baili Dongjun, still the sole grandson of the Zhenxi Marquis, leaves home to roam the jianghu, is drawn into a family dispute, and befriends the wandering swordsman Sikong Changfeng (司空长风) and the "Ink Youth" Lei Mengsha (雷梦杀), whom he helps rescue the trapped Gu Jianmen (顾剑门).[2](https://www.mgtv.com/h/368802.html?vfrm=3&vfrmblk=pca_115_site_enlarge&vfrmrst=0)
## The novel
Zhou Munan wrote *少年白马醉春风* after completing *少年歌行*, the first work in his youth-wuxia series on the web-fiction platform 不可能的世界 (Impossible World). Because he had grown attached to the older characters of *The Blood of Youth*, he wanted to write what happened to them in their youth, so he set the new book twenty years earlier in the same world.[1](https://www.chinawriter.com.cn/n1/2019/0826/c404024-31316724.html) The novel was completed by 2019, with a comic adaptation in development at that time, and it was later published in print by China Broadcast Film & Television Publishing House.[1](https://www.chinawriter.com.cn/n1/2019/0826/c404024-31316724.html) • [9](https://snbm.carrd.co/)
Zhou, a former film and television producer turned web novelist, describes his aim as a jianghu that feels real and worth longing for: "a white horse, a bottle of white liquor, a white spear," ridden through the martial world with hot blood and loud song. He has noted that his fan base is unusually female for a male-oriented youth wuxia series, even though the romance in his books is deliberately light.[1](https://www.chinawriter.com.cn/n1/2019/0826/c404024-31316724.html)
## The 2022 animated series
The animation was produced by 中影年年 (China Year) and presented by Mango TV, directed by Wang Yipeng with scripts by Wang Xuyang, Wang Yipeng, and Chen Shengyao. Its first season of 20 twenty-minute episodes began streaming on Mango TV and Youku on 27 July 2022, with the second half of the season moving to a joint Mango TV–Youku exclusive run on 14 December 2022.[3](https://wapbaike.baidu.com/item/%E5%B0%91%E5%B9%B4%E7%99%BD%E9%A9%AC%E9%86%89%E6%98%A5%E9%A3%8E/56764347) A second season of 26 episodes premiered on Youku on 17 July 2024, airing weekly on Wednesday mornings in Youku's guofeng animation theater.[3](https://wapbaike.baidu.com/item/%E5%B0%91%E5%B9%B4%E7%99%BD%E9%A9%AC%E9%86%89%E6%98%A5%E9%A3%8E/56764347)
Xinhua's coverage at launch described the series as the flagship of Youku's guofeng theater and part of the platform's "少歌宇宙" (Young Song universe) strategy, noting that its pre-broadcast promotion had already passed ten million topic reads on Weibo and 150 million plays on Douyin.[10](https://www3.xinhuanet.com/ent/20220728/8b44ed63f15d40948fc77ad29f4e71f5/c.html)
## The 2024 live-action drama
The live-action adaptation, titled *Dashing Youth* in English, ran 40 episodes of about 45 minutes on Youku from 19 July to 14 August 2024, directed by Chen Zhoufei with Gao Feng as assistant director and scripted by Zhou Munan and Lin Conghe. It was produced by Youku and Impossible World Film, filmed from 15 May to 12 September 2023, and stars Hou Minghao, He Yu, and Hu Lianxin, with [Xia Zhiguang](https://www.edgepedia.org/xia-zhiguang) and Jiang Zhenyu in featured roles.[5](https://wiki.d-addicts.com/Dashing_Youth) • [4](https://www.tvmao.com/kanju/XGJjaXIj) • [11](https://www.tvzn.com/16685/)
**Commercial performance.** On 25 July 2024 the drama's heat value on Youku reached 10,003, and by 11 a.m. the next day it stood at 10,023. Youku had just opened the display of heat values above 10,000, making *Dashing Youth* the first title shown above that ceiling, and the first to break 10,000 within the platform's new "少年幻" (Youth Fantasy) content banner launched on 8 July 2024.[6](https://news.youth.cn/yl/202407/t20240726_15406119.htm) The drama also drew attention among Chinese-speaking audiences in Taiwan, where the hashtag #看少白的风吹到中国台湾了# passed 4.18 million reads and reached 20th on the hot-search list.[12](https://taiwan.cri.cn/2024-08-02/c80915b9-46aa-bf1a-f32c-4c7c815e2505.html)
**Reception.** Critical response was cooler than the show's heat. A Southern Plus review gave the drama a Douban score of 6.2, calling the result short of expectations for a prequel to *The Blood of Youth*, which holds 8.3 on Douban; a comparative industry piece cited a 5.9 score and noted that despite a reported 240 million yuan of effects spending and a series-peak single-day heat of 3,857 on its platform index, the drama's hot run was cut to 46 days with an average per-episode heat of 2,187.[7](https://static.nfnews.com/content/202408/16/c9660409.html?enterColumnId=16) • [8](https://www.westca.com/pda/news/op%3Dview/sid%3D1150872/lang%3Denglish.html) A Beijing Daily commentary attributed the strong opening heat largely to the cast's looks, praising Hou Minghao's fit with the novel's Baili Dongjun while criticizing the fight choreography.[13](https://xinwen.bjd.com.cn/content/s66ab85d1e4b0e75a1b8fad10.html) Chief producer Zhou Zhaozhong (周照中) explained the production's intent as subtraction rather than addition: a simple story of a young man roaming the jianghu, in which the young heroes, even when raised in comfort, choose family and country at the decisive moments, and in which anyone who wants to protect those around them can be a great hero.[14](https://www.weibo.com/2796533765/Ot8pH6lsz?type=repost)
## Place in the series
*Dashing Youth* is the second screen adaptation in Zhou Munan's "youth jianghu" series after *The Blood of Youth*, and it functions as that story's prequel, following the parents' generation of the earlier work's main cast.[3](https://wapbaike.baidu.com/item/%E5%B0%91%E5%B9%B4%E7%99%BD%E9%A9%AC%E9%86%89%E6%98%A5%E9%A3%8E/56764347) • [7](https://static.nfnews.com/content/202408/16/c9660409.html?enterColumnId=16) The drama shares its universe with the sequels *The Blood of Youth* and *Blood River*, and like the earlier series it reused character designs and storyboards from the animation.[5](https://wiki.d-addicts.com/Dashing_Youth) • [9](https://snbm.carrd.co/) Youku has positioned the franchise within a broader slate of manhua-adapted and guoman titles, including *A Record of a Mortal's Journey to Immortality* and *[Blades of the Guardians](https://www.edgepedia.org/blades-of-the-guardians)*, as a Chinese answer to Western superhero franchises.[6](https://news.youth.cn/yl/202407/t20240726_15406119.htm)
## References
1. [《少年白马醉春风》作者周木楠："Z时代"的新光芒, 中国作家网 (2019)](https://www.chinawriter.com.cn/n1/2019/0826/c404024-31316724.html)
2. [少年白马醉春风, 芒果TV](https://www.mgtv.com/h/368802.html?vfrm=3&vfrmblk=pca_115_site_enlarge&vfrmrst=0)
3. [少年白马醉春风（中国2022年播出的王毅鹏执导的网络动画）, 百度百科](https://wapbaike.baidu.com/item/%E5%B0%91%E5%B9%B4%E7%99%BD%E9%A9%AC%E9%86%89%E6%98%A5%E9%A3%8E/56764347)
4. [少年白马醉春风剧情介绍（1-40全集）大结局, 电视猫](https://www.tvmao.com/kanju/XGJjaXIj)
5. [Dashing Youth, DramaWiki](https://wiki.d-addicts.com/Dashing_Youth)
6. [优酷新武侠剧《少年白马醉春风》热度破万，成"少年幻"内容主题单元首部破万剧集, 中国青年网 (2024)](https://news.youth.cn/yl/202407/t20240726_15406119.htm)
7. [这落差，真不是一星半点！, 南方+ (2024)](https://static.nfnews.com/content/202408/16/c9660409.html?enterColumnId=16)
8. [《暗河传》相较于《少年歌行》《少年白马醉春风》, westca.com](https://www.westca.com/pda/news/op%3Dview/sid%3D1150872/lang%3Denglish.html)
9. [Shao Nian Bai Ma Zui Chun Feng fan resource](https://snbm.carrd.co/)
10. [《少年白马醉春风》在优酷国风剧场开播, 新华网 (2022)](https://www3.xinhuanet.com/ent/20220728/8b44ed63f15d40948fc77ad29f4e71f5/c.html)
11. [少年白马醉春风剧情介绍(1-40集 全集), 电视指南](https://www.tvzn.com/16685/)
12. [国风新武侠热播剧《少年白马醉春风》获台湾青年追捧, 中国台湾网 (2024)](https://taiwan.cri.cn/2024-08-02/c80915b9-46aa-bf1a-f32c-4c7c815e2505.html)
13. [麻辣影视｜《少年白马醉春风》颜值真能打，打戏真摆烂, 北京日报客户端 (2024)](https://xinwen.bjd.com.cn/content/s66ab85d1e4b0e75a1b8fad10.html)
14. [少年白马醉春风总制片人周照中访谈, 微博](https://www.weibo.com/2796533765/Ot8pH6lsz?type=repost)
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*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 wuxia and martial-arts serials*
*Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 21, 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