General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20266 min read

Lai! Jin Lai Hao!

Lai! Jin Lai Hao! (來！金來號！; English title Fired Up!) is a 2026 Taiwanese drama series adapted from the South Korean Kakao Webtoon Itaewon Class, released on HBO Max on July 31, 2026 in twelve weekly Friday episodes¹^•². It stars singer Eric Chou (周興哲) in his first television leading role as Chou Lu-yung (周路勇), who after his father's death runs the family Taiwanese stir-fry restaurant "Chin Lai Hao" (金來號) while investigating the truth behind the death, opposed by the large food corporation Changxin Group³^•⁴.

Key fact	Detail
Native title / English title	來！金來號！ / Fired Up!²
Source material	Kakao Webtoon manhwa Itaewon Class (previously adapted as the 2020 JTBC drama of the same name)¹
Run	July 31, 2026 premiere on HBO Max, 12 episodes, one per Friday; finale October 16, 2026¹^•⁵
Lead cast	Eric Chou as Chou Lu-yung; Yuen Lo-man (袁澧林) as Chao Yi-hsuan; Shao Yu-wei as Wu Hsiu-wen¹
Directors and writers	Kao Ping-chuan (高炳權) and Tseng Ying-ting (曾英庭), co-directors; Chien Li-ying (簡莉穎) story creator and head writer; Feng Po-ti (馮勃棣) writer¹
Production	DaMou Entertainment (大慕影藝); third HBO Asia original from DaMou with Warner Bros. Discovery¹^•⁶
Filming	Began December 2023; about four and a half months and more than 400 scenes⁶^•⁷
Theme song	Ending theme 〈殼〉 ("Shell") written and performed by Eric Chou³

Spoilers

Premise

The story follows Chou Lu-yung, who takes over his family restaurant after his father's death and, with a group of companions, fights to keep it running while seeking the truth of how his father died¹. The restaurant is named Chin Lai Hao after his father Chou Chin-lai (周金來, played by Yu An-shun), and many of its dishes come from the son's childhood memories of his father; the paper-wrapped fish dish grew out of his father's signature milkfish congee⁴. The family business stands against the food conglomerate Changxin Group (長鑫集團), a conflict framed as classic Taiwanese cooking versus creative Taiwanese cuisine as well as a personal feud⁴. As in the original webtoon, the protagonist is an ex-convict who builds a business after release, and the plot mixes revenge, business rivalry, and friendship⁸.

Cast and characters

Eric Chou as Chou Lu-yung, the restaurant's owner¹
Yuen Lo-man as Chao Yi-hsuan (趙以瑄), a sharp, marketing-savvy figure who becomes the restaurant's manager¹^•⁵
Shao Yu-wei as Wu Hsiu-wen (吳秀文), the restaurant's marketing manager¹^•⁹
Wang Shih-hsien as Chang Ta-chin (張大晉)¹
Huang Kuan-chih as Lin Chin-nan (林進南), a front-of-house server who knew Lu-yung in prison and joins the restaurant after release¹^•¹⁰
Lin Szu-yu as Ma Yu-li (馬祐莉), the restaurant's head chef¹^•¹¹
Lin Ching-lun as Chang Chien-yuan (張建源), elder son of the Changxin family¹
Wu Szu-hsien as Chang Chien-wu (張建吾), the Changxin group's younger son¹

Yuen Lo-man, a Hong Kong actress previously nominated for Best Actress at the 59th Golden Horse Awards for The Narrow Road¹², worked with a Mandarin coach to sound natural in Taiwanese speech; on set, fellow actors, especially Huang Kuan-chih, corrected her pronunciation¹³. Eric Chou prepared for the chef role by studying cooking and shaved his hair very short for the part, a look he said he had never worn before⁶.

Adaptation and localization

The series keeps the core of Itaewon Class, the 2020 JTBC drama based on Kwang Jin's webtoon, whose finale reached a rating of 18.328% in South Korea and whose lead Kim Da-mi won the Baeksang Arts Award for Best New Actress¹⁴. The Taiwanese version replaces the Seoul bar-district setting with Taiwanese food culture: the Korean bar becomes a Taiwanese stir-fry restaurant (熱炒), and the title uses the "surname plus hao" naming common to old Tainan shops rather than copying the original's place-name formula¹⁵. The name "Chin-lai" also puns on the Taiwanese (Hokkien) phrase "緊來," meaning "come quickly," a wish for brisk business⁶.

Food as drama. The production treated the dishes as central to the localization. Directors wanted Chin Lai Hao's food to look homely and warm in contrast to the conglomerate's refined cuisine, and the menu drew on the protagonist's memories; a labor-intensive "bagged chicken" (布袋雞) written into the early script was replaced with "five-color egg-yolk shrimp" after discussion with food stylist Hsiao Wei-cheng, because the brown, soupy original was hard to film attractively and the fried shrimp suited the story's younger clientele⁴. Kao Ping-chuan recalled that filming in late 2023 predated widespread AI-assisted production, so every food shot had to be captured for real, with two or three dishes completed per day⁴.

Production

DaMou Entertainment announced the project in November 2023 as its first international collaboration with South Korea's Kakao Webtoon and its third HBO Asia original co-produced with Warner Bros. Discovery; filming began in December 2023⁶. Chien Li-ying, head writer of Wave Makers, led the story team, with Feng Po-ti as writer and the directing pair Kao Ping-chuan and Tseng Ying-ting, who had previously worked together on Yong-jiu Grocery Store¹^•⁴. The shoot ran about four and a half months with more than 400 scenes; Eric Chou described the experience as pushing him to his limits⁷.

The release was originally planned for 2025, but the date remained unset as of April 2026 because of the platform's scheduling; it premiered on July 31, 2026⁷^•¹. Episodes 1 through 5 ran 43, 49, 55, 49, and 50 minutes respectively¹⁶.

Music

Eric Chou wrote and performed the ending theme 〈殼〉 ("Shell"); the soundtrack also includes 〈After Everything〉 by Pets Tseng (曾沛慈) and 〈Dream Light〉 by Li Yu-ting (李友廷)¹. Chou said the ending song went through about three rounds of discussion without a result until he wrote it in Tokyo on an electronic keyboard¹⁷.

Reception

The series drew attention as a high-profile remake before broadcast and generated discussion after its July 31 debut¹⁸. In a DailyView word-of-mouth ranking of Taiwanese dramas for September 23 to October 22, 2026, it placed 22nd, with 754 recorded mentions, 55% positive sentiment, and Eric Chou the most frequent keyword¹⁹.

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 › Hong Kong and Taiwanese serial drama

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

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