General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20265 min read

In The Storm (黑金风暴)

In The Storm (黑金风暴) is a 2022 Hong Kong anti-corruption crime suspense web drama in which a senior police inspector and a senior investigator of Hong Kong's Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) join forces to expose a corruption network reaching the top of Hong Kong society. It was jointly produced by the mainland platforms Youku (优酷), Ledao Huyu (乐道互娱), and Wuxian Zizai (无限自在), directed by Li Wenlong (李文龙), Lin Di'an (林迪安), and He Yaozong (何耀宗), and led by Raymond Lam (林峰), Chin Siu-ho castmate Wong Ho-yin (黄浩然), and Chrissie Chau (周秀娜). The 30-episode Cantonese series premiered on Youku's Hong Kong drama theater (港剧场) on 10 March 2022.¹^•²

Key fact	Detail
Original title / English title	黑金风暴 / In The Storm¹
Genre	Contemporary crime, anti-corruption, suspense detective¹
Lead cast	Raymond Lam as Wai King-sing; Wong Ho-yin as Ho Wai-lim; Chrissie Chau as Man Ching¹
Directors / chief screenwriter	Li Wenlong, Lin Di'an, He Yaozong; Wong Yuk-tak (黄育德) as chief screenwriter¹
Run	30 episodes of about 45 minutes, in Cantonese; premiered 10 March 2022 on Youku¹
Story structure	Nine interlocking case units, some adapted from real events³
Filming	Began 31 March 2021, wrapped 9 July 2021, shot in Hong Kong¹

Spoilers

Premise

The drama follows Wai King-sing (韦景声), a senior inspector of the crime squad in West Kowloon, and Ho Wai-lim (贺伟廉), a senior investigation director at the ICAC, who meet by chance while hunting a killer. Over the course of the story they are framed with dirty money, pursued by hitmen, and at one point turn against each other as partners, before working together to bring a corruption network that reaches nearly the whole of Hong Kong's top social circles to light.³

The two leads were close classmates in secondary school and practiced kendo together, but a misunderstanding during a kendo competition drove them apart. Years later they meet again while investigating the O-Sy-Wai (奥狮威) group, which is entangled in murder and corruption. Only after cooperating on cases including customs officers suspected of shielding a smuggled-cigarette bribery syndicate and a Legislative Council election fraud case do they resolve their old grievance and renew their brotherhood.²

The nine cases that run through the series include an early storyline in which a large company with triad characteristics prepares for a stock listing and has bribed senior figures in the stock exchange's listing department.⁴

Cast and characters

Raymond Lam plays Wai King-sing, the West Kowloon crime squad senior inspector; Wong Ho-yin plays Ho Wai-lim of the ICAC; Chrissie Chau plays the lawyer Man Ching (文静), who has a romantic thread with Wai. The supporting and featured cast includes Leung King-hin (梁竞徽) as sergeant Li Chi-kin, Shiga Lin (连诗雅) as officer Tang Wai-shan, Sam Lee (李灿森) as To Sai-ying, Ng Kai-ming castmate Ng Dai-fung (吴岱融) as Ko Siu-kong, Kwok Ching-hung (郭政鸿), Mak Cheung-ching (麦长青), and Ho Pui-yu (何珮瑜), with special appearances by Lynn Hung (熊黛林) and Lawrence Ng (吴启华) as Leung Kin-pong (梁建邦).¹

Lawrence Ng's character is the ICAC senior investigation director who once served as direct superior to both leads and ran undercover operations to collect evidence of crime; in the final confrontation he cuts a gas pipe and triggers an explosion, and his fate is left ambiguous, a reversal that the character's early disguise sets up.⁵

The casting drew on Hong Kong television familiarity. Lam and Leung had previously played partners in Line Walker (使徒行者), and their reunion was noted by reviewers, with Leung again supplying comic relief.⁶ Lam and Lawrence Ng had earlier played master and apprentice in TVB's The Awakening drama Taste of Love (美味情缘) and reunited here in the same relationship.⁷

Production

The series is a mainland-Hong Kong co-production in which the mainland partners financed the project while the creative work stayed in Hong Kong: the story is set in Hong Kong, it was shot there, and the cast and crew were mainly Hong Kong people, which reviewers credited for the show's strong "Hong Kong flavor" (港味).⁴^•² Filming ran from a 31 March 2021 start, marked by a concept poster showing burning paper and a hidden tiger, to a wrap on 9 July 2021.¹

The theme song, "幼稚未完", was composed by Teng Chi-wai, with lyrics by Tsang Wing-yan, and sung by Raymond Lam; the ending theme, "本应", was composed by Yuen Cheuk-kei and sung by Lam and Shiga Lin.⁷

Release and reception

Youku scheduled the premiere for 20:00 on 10 March 2022 in its Hong Kong drama theater, releasing six episodes to VIP members on the first day, two each Friday, and one each Saturday and Sunday, with a slower schedule for non-members.¹

By the time the finale aired, the main Douyin topic had accumulated more than 280 million video plays and Weibo topic reads exceeded 730 million; the show ranked first on both the Guduoduo and Maoyan Youku web drama charts, second in Weibo's drama influence ranking, and second across the web on Maoyan's March suspense drama heat list.²

Critical response was mixed. A Phoenix Entertainment review credited the series with the strengths of the Hong Kong detective tradition, including a tense two-lead setup, brisk pacing, and action scenes that were not perfunctory, but found that case-solving information was often handed directly to the viewer and that the drama lacked exploration of human complexity; it judged the show serviceable for detective-drama fans rather than a step forward for the genre.⁴ A Phoenix Net Entertainment comment cited in the Baidu Baike entry argued that, as a co-production, the drama gained correctness in characterization and theme but lost the ambiguity of human nature and genuine social observation.¹ An HK01 review of the early episodes found the fight scenes, shootouts, and pursuit sequences plentiful but the pacing insufficiently tight and the main storyline unclear at that stage, while singling out Wong Ho-yin's morally ambiguous Ho Wai-lim, who appears at first as a villain in contact with the killer before his true allegiance emerges, as the highlight of the two-lead relationship.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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