General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20266 min read

Oh No! Here Comes Trouble (不良执念清除师)

Oh No! Here Comes Trouble (不良執念清除師) is a 2023 Taiwanese fantasy comedy-drama series in which a teenage delinquent who survives a bus crash gains the ability to see monsters formed from human obsessions, and dissolves those obsessions with his calligraphy. It was produced as an iQIYI original, written and directed by Lin Kuan-hui (林冠慧), and stars Tseng Jing-hua (曾敬驅), Vivian Sung (宋芸樺), and Peng Chien-You (彭千祐)¹. The project's original title was 魑魅魍魎².

Key fact	Detail
Format	12 episodes of about 50 minutes each, told as five story units²^•³
Premiere	Global premiere April 15, 2023 on Taiwan's GTV; an iQIYI International original⁴^•¹
Lead cast	Tseng Jing-hua as Pu Yi-yong, Vivian Sung as officer Chen Chu-ying, Peng Chien-You as medical student Cao Guang-yan⁵
Central premise	Monsters born from human obsessions, regrets, grief, and desires seek liberation through Pu Yi-yong's calligraphy²
Reception	Douban score of 8.8 from more than 80,000 raters (some outlets cite 8.9); called a 2023 dark-horse hit⁶^•⁷
Awards	Nine nominations at the 59th Golden Bell Awards, including best drama series, directing, writing, and lead actor⁸
Second season	As of June 2026, no officially announced production or broadcast plan; progress is zero and depends on iQIYI's decision⁹

Spoilers

Premise and structure

The Pu family is a prestigious family of calligraphers. A plane crash onto a bus kills Pu Yi-yong's father on the spot and leaves his grandfather in a coma; more than a year later, the badly injured Pu Yi-yong wakes up and finds that the words he writes in calligraphy have strange but troublesome powers². Monsters are drawn to him. They are not ghosts in the usual sense but beings born from people's obsessions, regrets, grief, and desires, and they come to him asking for liberation².

After the accident, the 17-year-old wakes to find he has become an adult, and he decides he must choose a goal that can support his family; he tries to earn money with his brush, and the calligraphy keeps drawing trouble to his door⁵. He is joined by Chen Chu-ying, a hot-blooded but clumsy precinct officer nicknamed "one percent" because she is the one officer in a hundred who keeps failing the promotion exam, and by Cao Guang-yan, a top medical student from a single-parent family who was Pu's high-school rival and moves in next door⁵^•¹⁰. The three stumble into a monster-hunting partnership that resolves one obsession after another⁵.

The 12 episodes are organized into five units: the stone lion, the cadaver teacher, the sidewalk, the display doll, and the twins³. Each unit runs about two episodes¹¹. The monsters embody unusual subjects: a river guardian spirit that has taken the form of a stone lion and then a sidewalk crossing figure, a tattooed lady inked on a cadaver used for medical dissection, and a lifelike doll made by a grieving mother whose daughter was kidnapped⁵^•⁴. Reviewers noted that the series treats death, workplace bullying, dying alone, and child loss through a comic, manga-inflected register, with the resolution of each obsession delivered through dialogue and Pu's eulogy couplets rather than combat¹²^•¹³.

Cast and characters

Tseng Jing-hua plays Pu Yi-yong, a rough-mannered but kind teenager whose one skill is fine calligraphy⁵. Vivian Sung plays Chen Chu-ying, and Peng Chien-You plays Cao Guang-yan; both were praised in reviews, with Peng, about 30 at the time, playing a high schooler convincingly¹⁴. Yang Chin-hua plays Pu's mother Ye Bao-sheng, a former delinquent who raised her son alone after her husband's death, and supporting and guest roles include Yao Chun-yao as the zombie-like crash victim, Fan Shao-xun as the cadaver teacher, Chia Chia (黑嘉嘉) as the tattooed lady, Joseph Cheng (鄭元暢) as a bereaved father, Chung Hsin-ling as the doll maker, and the Thai actor Chanon Santinatornkul in a special appearance⁵^•⁴.

Production and inspiration

Director Lin Kuan-hui has said the idea came from a bronze statue of a boy she found by the Yuanshan riverside, created by humans and then forgotten; imagining the statue's feelings led her to write about obsessions¹⁵. She spent about a year and a half writing a script of six units, but the statue unit itself was cut for length¹⁵. Shooting took place in January 2022, and the production companies were Third Man Entertainment and Mai Jia Fen Film Production, with iQIYI holding the rights¹⁶. The Golden Horse Film Festival project database credits production to Liang Ren Xing Films and Mai Jia Fen Film Production².

Producer Li Yu-chien, general manager of iQIYI Taiwan, said the casting strategy paired first-time leads Tseng and Peng with the more experienced Sung, then surrounded the young actors with veteran performers⁸.

Reception and awards

The series became a word-of-mouth hit after its release. Sanlian Lifeweek reported a Douban score of 8.8 from more than 80,000 users and called it the dark horse of the first half of 2023⁶; Persona Media and other outlets cited a score of 8.9⁷. It was nominated for nine awards at the 59th Golden Bell Awards, including best drama series, best director, best screenwriter, best leading actor, supporting acting categories, most promising newcomer, visual effects, and program innovation⁸, and it was nominated for best drama and best actor at the 2023 Asian Television Awards⁷.

Criticism centered on structure rather than tone. The Paper's review called the series warm but structurally simple, noting that unit stories of roughly an hour and a half often resolved in a few minutes of dialogue, and that the moral of each story was stated directly in the lines¹². A reviewer for the same outlet's column praised the first unit's blend of mystery, supernatural, and family threads and the show's rapid shifts of style¹¹.

Second season status

As of June 2026, no second season had been officially announced for production or broadcast. Both Lin Kuan-hui and Tseng Jing-hua said in public responses that progress on a second season is at zero and that whether it is made depends on the investing platform, iQIYI⁹. In a 2024 interview, Lin said a second season could not simply repeat the one-story-per-episode format of the first, and Li Yu-chien said that units cut from the first season, including one covering the story's origin, had been retained and would support a second season once the material was ready, adding that she would not rush a script that was not good enough¹⁷. Audience demand for a continuation rose again after Tseng won a best-actor honor at the Busan Asian Contents Awards in June 2026⁹.

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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