General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20266 min read

In Between (半熟男女)

In Between (半熟男女) is a 2024 Chinese urban romance television series that follows young professionals in a big city whose love lives are driven as much by money, ambition, and self-interest as by affection. It premiered on September 19, 2024 on the streaming platform Youku, runs 27 episodes, and was adapted from the Douban Read novel There Are No Good Men and Women Here (《这里没有善男信女》) by the writer Liu Cuihu (柳翠虎), with Wu Nan as screenwriter and Zhang Xiaobo as director.¹^•²

Key fact	Detail
Original title / English title	半熟男女, released internationally as In Between³
Premiere	September 19, 2024, on Youku; 27 episodes¹^•⁴
Source	Liu Cuihu's Douban Read novel 《这里没有善男信女》, which she described as an anti-utopian love story²^•⁵
Production	Linmon Media (柠萌影视) with Youku; screenwriter Wu Nan, director Zhang Xiaobo¹
Main cast	Tian Xiwei, Xin Yunlai, Zhang Zhehua, Zeng Mengxue, Yuan Wenkang, with Zhou Yutong in a special role⁴^•⁶
Reception	Douban opening score of 6.5; TOP2 urban romance drama of 2024 in the Endata Viewership Index⁷^•⁸
International release	Simultaneous first-run streaming on Netflix, Viki, Viu, TrueID, LINE TV and other platforms across 185 countries and regions⁶

Spoilers

Premise and characters

The series centers on three women whose romantic choices intertwine with money and status. He Zhinan (何知南), played by Tian Xiwei, is an ordinary office secretary who, while carrying on with the talented Qu Yipeng (瞿一芃, Xin Yunlai), cannot give up the financial security of her wealthy boyfriend Gao Peng (高鹏, Zhang Zhehua). Qu Yipeng, a high-achieving graduate of Tsinghua University from a rural family, courts He Zhinan after learning about her income, hoping to change his fortunes, and switches targets quickly once he realizes he has misjudged her. Sun Hanhan (孙涵涵), played by Zeng Mengxue, hopes to gain through a mature, wealthy middle-aged man. Han Su (韩苏, Zhou Yutong) is the independent professional woman whose long relationship with Qu Yipeng is betrayed. The characters use love as a bargaining chip while struggling between emotional and financial temptation.¹^•⁹

The plot deliberately breaks the conventions of the idol-drama genre. It involves serial partner-swapping, two-way infidelity, and a mistress rising into a relationship, and the production team apologized to "pure love warriors" (viewers devoted to chaste romance) in the closing credits of the first episode.⁹ Each episode ends with a short staged segment, a "small theater," discussing real-world love questions raised by the plot.⁹^•⁷

From novel to screen

Liu Cuihu wrote the novel while working at a law firm in Beijing after graduating from law school, in anger at colleagues who cut corners and conducted tangled relationships yet prospered. She published it on Douban Read as her first novel.¹⁰ She has said the story's theme is human nature rather than love: the characters all speak of love, but love is for them a tool, a measure, or the most expendable thing in their lives.¹⁰

The adaptation softened the novel considerably. Producer Qi Shuai (齐帅), general producer at Linmon Media, said the script took more than two years, because television had to align with mainstream values while preserving the novel's character-driven appeal.¹¹ Liu Cuihu herself noted that several characters became more like "good men and women" on screen than in the book, and that one adaptation she found memorable renders He Zhinan's inner monologue about her feelings through an on-screen split self.¹⁰ Reviewers noted the same direction of travel: the drama rationalizes He Zhinan's infidelity to make her more sympathetic, and the finale is conventional, with Han Su leaving to study in New York, Sun Hanhan taking a job in Shanghai, He Zhinan starting a new chapter in Jiangzhou, Gao Peng returning to his botanical garden, and Qu Yipeng marrying into a rich family.¹²

Liu Cuihu's earlier novel was adapted as The Rational Life-adjacent workplace drama Pretend to Love (《装腔启示录》), which scored 8.2 on Douban, and many comparisons between the two adaptations shaped expectations for In Between.⁹^•¹²

Marketing and the "immoral" track

The series was marketed aggressively around its moral transgressions, with slogans such as "pure love warriors, watch with caution" and "one more viewer, one less naive person," and hashtags inviting viewers to judge the characters' flawed behavior. Xinhua-reported coverage described the campaign as inviting netizens to sit as "love judges" over the characters' self-interested choices, and plot-driven discussion topics such as "adults breaking up is like a chick breaking its shell" and "only not loving enough can defeat love" trended on hot-search lists.¹^•¹⁰

Commentary placed the show in a newly opened commercial lane for Chinese drama, sometimes called the "immoral" (背德) track, in which the leads violate conventional morality. The previous year's I Know I Love You, adapted from a Korean drama, had tested the lane on a small scale; In Between scaled it up with popular stars, the director of the hit Nothing But Thirty, and endorsements from public intellectuals. The sociologist Li Yinhe praised it on Weibo as "female-perspective creation," and Fudan University professor Liang Yong'an argued that "half-mature" captures the shared condition of today's young adults, a generation full of drama and without anything to lean on.⁵

Reception

Audience response split sharply. Some viewers welcomed the departure from romance formulas; others judged it far inferior to Pretend to Love, and on Douban the opening score was 6.5 out of 10.⁹^•⁷ Critics found the female lead's storyline hard to watch and the production overly deliberate, while praising Zhou Yutong's independent Han Su and the Hong Kong location work.¹³ A Guangming Daily-affiliated commentary defended the series as an urban fable that breaks the "double purity" convention of idol dramas and dissects human nature rather than promoting dark values, while conceding problems with dragging pacing after the mysteries resolve and a perfunctory happy ending.⁷ Another line of criticism held that the marketing used sensitive keywords without substantive exploration of the social issues behind them.¹⁴

Commercially, the series performed well for its producer. Linmon Media's 2024 annual results announcement described it as an avant-garde urban romantic fable that ranked TOP2 among urban romance dramas of 2024 in the Endata Viewership Index, first on the Weibo Drama Influence List and in hot-search totals for its period, with over 900 million exposures on Xiaohongshu.⁸ Its simultaneous release on Netflix, Viki, Viu, TrueID, K+, LINE TV, MOA, and EYE TV made it the most widely simulcast Chinese urban drama of the year to that point, covering 185 countries and regions.⁶

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 Cr to In

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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