General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20265 min read

Reborn at 18: The Great-Grandma Takes Charge (十八岁太奶奶驾到，重整家族荣耀)

Reborn at 18: The Great-Grandma Takes Charge (Shi Ba Sui Tai Nai Nai Jia Dao, Chong Zheng Jia Zu Rong Yao; 十八岁太奶奶驾到，重整家族荣耀) is a Chinese vertical-screen micro short-drama series about Professor Rong Yu (容遇), who dies in an accident in 1955 and wakes up seventy years later in the body of an 18-year-old high school girl with the same name, finding that her son is now a chairman in his seventies and that she has a set of unruly great-grandsons to discipline.¹ It is adapted from the Tomato Novel Xiao Zi Xian Sun Du Gui Xia, Wo Shi Ni Men Tai Nai Nai (孝子贤孙都跪下，我是你们的太奶奶) by Wu Yingxia (乌英夏), produced by the studio Tinghua Island (听花岛), and stars Li Keyi (李柯以) as Rong Yu.¹^•² The first season became a breakout hit in mid-2025, and the franchise grew into four live-action seasons plus spin-off adaptations.³^•⁴

Key fact	Detail
Original title	十八岁太奶奶驾到，重整家族荣耀 (pinyin: Shi Ba Sui Tai Nai Nai Jia Dao Chong Zheng Jia Zu Rong Yao)⁵
Source material	Tomato Novel 《孝子贤孙都跪下，我是你们的太奶奶》 by 乌英夏¹
Director / lead cast	Fan Boyang (范博洋); Li Keyi as Rong Yu, Wang Peiyan as Ji Zhouye, Zhao Tingyi, Qu Gang¹^•²
Run	First aired June 5, 2025; four seasons through February 18, 2026, 368 episodes total²
Season 1 performance	Cumulative plays passed 530 million by June 22, 2025; viewers aged 31–40 made up 45.79%, mostly women³
Season 4 performance	Premiered February 18, 2026 on Hongguo; 94 episodes of 2.5 minutes; Hongguo views passed 2 billion by February 28, 2026⁴
Studio	听花岛 (Tinghua Island)²

Spoilers

Premise

The story opens in 1955, when Professor Rong Yu dies unexpectedly and wakes up seventy years later in the body of an 18-year-old high school student who shares her name. Her son has become a chairman in his seventies, and she now has several handsome great-grandsons. As she adapts to the new era, Rong Yu uses her wisdom and ability to straighten out her unfilial descendants and rebuild the family's fortunes, while finding her own happiness in the new age.¹ The English-language synopsis adds that she whips the failing family dynamics back into shape and leads the Ji family back to its peak.⁶

The central hook is the collision of family hierarchy: a great-grandmother in a teenager's body outranks everyone in the household, and the tagline "Filial sons and virtuous grandsons, kneel down!" (孝子贤孙都跪下！) paired with a cold-faced 18-year-old spread widely on Douyin and Hongguo.³

Seasons and viewership

Moviefone records four seasons between June 5, 2025 and February 18, 2026, totaling 368 episodes, with seasons of 90, 100, 84, and 94 episodes respectively.² A Xinmin Weekly report says the first season's plays passed 1 billion in June 2025.⁸

Season 4. The fourth installment, produced by Zhejiang Dongyang Xiaotuantuan Culture Media, Shanghai Tinghua Island Culture Media, and Hangzhou Hongyuhong Culture Media, with Huang Jingtian (黄经天) as screenwriter, premiered on the Hongguo short-drama platform on February 18, 2026, with 94 episodes of 2 minutes 30 seconds each.⁴ Its plot centers on Rong Yu's cross-century love story: she meets Sheng Qingyan (盛清衍), heir of the Sheng family in Jing City, a withdrawn young man who instinctively clings to her; the Ji family mistakes him for a harasser and launches a comic "defense of the great-grandma," until Rong Yu recognizes by a keepsake that he is the reincarnation of her former husband Ji Sinian, who regains his memory and reunites with her.⁴

Season 4's numbers set franchise records. Pre-release reservations passed 10 million during the Spring Festival window, and the series was described as the short-drama industry's first successful case of long-line IP operation. On launch day, topic volume across the web passed 1 billion; the next day its Hongguo heat value reached 170 million, first place on the platform's hot-play, new-drama, and hot-search lists, and first-day collections passed 10 million. By February 28, 2026, Hongguo views had passed 2 billion.⁴ Jiemian News reported that Season 4 and the drama Zhou Yi Ji Ye (昼以继夜) both passed 2 billion views in the Spring Festival window.⁹ Filming of the season was briefly suspended in January 2026 after fan misconduct disrupted the shooting location and crew, according to a statement by Tinghua Island.¹⁰

Production and adaptation

The series is a family-comedy vertical-screen micro drama produced by Tinghua Island, with Fan Boyang directing and Li Keyi, Wang Peiyan, Zhao Tingyi, and Qu Gang among the leads; Hong Yi Xin plays Rong Ruoyao.¹^•⁵ The first season was listed on iQiyi with 47 episodes, while The Paper, the Duanjubaike database, and Moviefone list 90 episodes for the same season; the discrepancy is not resolved in the available listings.¹^•³^•⁷^•²

The novel was filmed in multiple versions. According to a review in The Paper, seven remakes of the same IP existed, and only the Li Keyi version broke out commercially.³ Other adaptations include Tai Nai Chong Qi 18 Sui: Jia Zu Zhen Xing Wo Shuo Le Suan (太奶重启18岁：家族振兴我说了算), a 65-episode version starring Zhang Zihan that launched on July 31, 2025.⁷

Reception and analysis

A review in The Paper's "micro-drama review" column read the series as a case of power compensation (权力代偿) in female narrative: at a time when middle-aged women are habitually framed as wives and mothers, the great-grandmother premise lets them briefly overstep the constraints of generation and age inside a fictional story. The reviewer also noted that the first season's de-romanticized main plotline was a distinctive feature, and that its audience skewed female, with the 31–40 age group at 45.79% of viewers.³ Jiemian News framed the character's dominance of short-drama charts as part of a broader question of whether the genre's next audience is older viewers.⁹

The franchise also moved into animation. AI-produced animated dramas (manhua ju) under the same title include Ben Shi Ba Sui Tai Nai Nai Jia Dao, Chong Zheng Jia Zu Rong Yao (114 episodes, launched July 24, 2026) and a post-apocalyptic installment Zhi Mo Shi Pian (50 episodes, launched August 6, 2026), alongside a wave of similarly titled live-action imitators such as Wo Zhen Shi Ni Tai Nai Nai and Hao Yi Ge Tai Nai Nai.⁷^•¹¹^•¹²

References

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