General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20265 min read

Let's Talk About CHU (爱爱内含光)

Let's Talk About CHU (爱爱内含光) is a 2024 Taiwanese romantic comedy series that streams on Netflix, following a family whose members at different ages confront problems of sex, love, and intimacy. It was produced by 麻吉砥加电影有限公司 and 幸运火花创意有限公司, directed by Remii Huang (黄婕妤), and released globally on Netflix on February 2, 2024.¹

Key fact	Detail
Format	8-episode Taiwanese family and romance comedy, each episode about 60 minutes, released on Netflix February 2, 2024²^•¹
Director	Remii Huang (黄婕妤), winner of a best female director award at a United States independent producer film festival¹
Main cast	詹子萱, 柯震东, 林哲熹, 巫建和, 夏于乔, 马志翔, 苗可丽, and 洪都拉斯¹
Title origin	Adapted from the ancient poem "座右铭" line 暧暧内含光, with 暧 changed to 爱 to signal the series' two subjects, love and sex³
Intimate scenes	More than 30 intimate scenes, described as pushing the boundaries of Taiwanese drama, with the production stating that actors' willingness came first³
Viewership	Reached No. 1 on Netflix's Taiwan ranking within 48 hours of release and entered the top 10 in five overseas territories⁴
Awards	Nine nominations at the 59th Golden Bell Awards; 詹子萱 won Most Potential Newcomer and 苗可丽 won Best Supporting Actress⁵^•⁶

Spoilers

Premise

The story centers on 邱暧 (Qiu Ai), played by 詹子萱, a waxing hair-removal therapist who runs a sex-education social media channel in her spare time. Her motto is "做爱不恋爱" (sex without love), and she habitually uses sex to manage anxiety. She and 周平克 (Ping Ke), played by 柯震东, maintain a friends-with-benefits arrangement. The story begins on the night of the Lunar New Year's Eve dinner and follows the Qiu family members as each confronts dissatisfaction in sex and love.²^•⁷

The parents, 邱叶美枝 and 邱正男, have been together for 33 years, and their marriage strains when 美枝 suspects her husband of infidelity.⁸ Other storylines include a same-sex couple played by 林哲熹 and 巫建和, and a married couple played by 马志翔 and 夏于乔, so that the series covers unmarried, married, heterosexual, and homosexual characters across three generations.⁹^•¹⁰

Title and themes

The title comes from the line 暧暧内含光 in the ancient poem "座右铭" ("Inscription on My Seat"), with the character 暧 deliberately changed to 爱. The two 爱 characters refer respectively to romantic love and to making love; director Huang explained that the series wants to convey that sex with love is where the light lies, and that understanding and forgiving oneself is a precondition for balance between sex and love.³^•¹

Huang has said that sex is a topic Asians tend to avoid discussing, and that after the teaser trailer was released she received many responses showing curiosity about the subject, which she connected to that reluctance to talk.¹¹ The series also dramatizes traditional expectations that Taiwanese parents pass to children, such as "girls should marry into a good family," "children are a necessary part of marriage," and "boys should establish a family and career."¹²

Production

Senior screenwriter 吴美枝 entered the original story outline for the series in the Ministry of Culture's television program screenwriting award more than five years before release; the outline described the emotional and family problems of a stable couple. Huang, drawn to this rare Taiwanese family drama packaged around sex, invited Wu to co-write the eight-episode script, aiming to reflect character personality through sexual behavior and to explore how the family of origin shapes attitudes toward sex and love.¹³

Huang was born in Taiwan and raised in Indonesia. She worked as an assistant to the assistant director on the Taiwan unit of Ang Lee's Life of Pi, won a female director award at a United States independent production festival in 2015 with her graduation short film Summer in the water, and was nominated for Best Music Video at the Golden Melody Awards in 2017 for Guo Ding's MV 〈水星记〉, before Charlie Chen (陈查理), founder of 幸运火花, invited her back to Taiwan to work.¹³

The production took four years with producers Charlie Chen and 卢维君.¹³ With more than 30 intimate scenes, the team used an intimacy coordinator for advance training and explicit communication of details, and stated that no work was worth leaving an actor with trauma.³^•¹³ The theme song 〈相濡以沫〉 was written for the series by the new-generation singer JUD 陈泳希.¹

Reception

Two days after release the series reached No. 2 on Netflix's Taiwan ranking, and within 48 hours it was No. 1 in Taiwan while entering the top 10 in five overseas territories.³^•⁴ A Taiwanese review site scored it 8.0 out of 10 overall and listed an IMDb rating of 8.2/10.²

At the 59th Golden Bell Awards the series received nine nominations, including miniseries, directing, supporting actor and actress, most potential newcomer, and original drama song.⁵ 詹子萱 won the Most Potential Newcomer award for a miniseries or television film, thanking the director for giving her the role, and said she intended to use the prize money to help disadvantaged children.⁶^•¹⁴ 苗可丽 won Best Supporting Actress in a miniseries.¹⁵

Critical response was not uniformly positive. A review at the @movies site gave the series 70 points and argued that despite its explicit surface, covering hookup culture and influencer culture as a portrait of contemporary Taiwanese life, the content still carried a large residue of traditional attitudes, calling Taiwan's apparent openness superficially bold but actually conservative.⁹ Another reviewer described the series as a family drama wearing the skin of a sex comedy, noting details written to let female viewers feel understood, such as a partner who wipes only himself afterward.¹⁶

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 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 21, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026

Notice something wrong?