General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20265 min read

The Eight (外八行)

The Eight (外八行; also known as Min Chu Qi Ren Zhuan and by the later title 民初奇人傳) is a 2020 Chinese web series broadcast on iQIYI, set in the early Republican era and centered on eight hidden trades of the jianghu, the world of martial artists and outlaws outside ordinary society.¹^•² It was the first web series supervised by the film director Chen Kaige.³

Key fact	Detail
Original and later titles	外八行 (Wai Ba Hang), retitled 民初奇人傳 / 民初奇人传 for release; also listed as 行者山河¹^•²
Platform and run	iQIYI web series, 2020; 34 episodes of about 45 minutes airing Friday, Saturday, and Sunday; final episodes July 10–11, 2020¹
Executive producer	Chen Kaige, his first credit supervising a web series³^•²
Lead cast	Ou Hao as Hua Min Chu, Tan Songyun as Xi Shui (Gua Dao Ren), Wang Zixuan as Zhong Yao, Qin Lan as Jin Xiu Niang, Chin Shih-chieh as Ba Xian¹^•⁴
Directors	Yang Shu and Liu Tan⁴
Setting	Republican-era China (and Paris, per pre-release descriptions), during a period of warlord-era strife³

Spoilers

Premise and the eight trades

The title refers to the "outer eight trades" (外八行), eight occupations that in the story's folklore sit outside the traditional "three hundred and sixty trades" of mainstream society because the public neither knows nor accepts them.² The series draws on folk legend to reconstruct this world, and the production described its theme as chivalry in service of the nation, 侠之大者，为国为民.⁵

The eight trades named in the series are:²

Yiyang trade (易阳行), skilled with insects and in preparing medicines
Di Ting trade (谛听行), secretive movers and gatherers of intelligence
Shang Nü trade (商女行), talented women of great beauty
Hei Sha trade (黑纱行), close-combat fighters of high martial ability
Qian Shou trade (千手行), masters of lightness skill who take objects from rooftops
Mo Ban trade (墨班行), experts in mechanisms and the operation of devices
Xian Liu trade (仙流行), schemers and strategists
Shen Tong trade (神通行), diviners skilled in tortoise-shell calculation and prediction

The trades have existed in the jianghu for centuries as an alliance bound by rules. Their supreme treasure is a scroll called the Ten Trades Painted Scroll (十行者绘卷), and its holder is the single leader of all eight trades. At the start of the Republic, the position had stood vacant for twenty years. With the country in crisis, most members of the trades wish to disband and return to ordinary life, while a small group of vested interests clings to the trades' power; the reformers need a new scroll holder.²

Plot

The protagonist is Hua Min Chu (华民初), a patriotic university student recently returned from studies in Japan. On the train home he encounters masters of the eight trades and is drawn by accident into their internal conflicts, becoming the scroll holder. The appointment is less random than it appears: his true identity is the son of the former head of the Xian Liu trade.² Pre-release summaries add that he held a childhood marriage contract with Zhong Yao, that he discovered his origins were tied to a painting, and that he took up the scroll holder's role after realizing the trades' people could contribute to saving the country.⁴

At first Hua Min Chu disdains the eight trades, but through misunderstandings and setbacks he comes to understand their purpose, and under his leadership the trades' members take on responsibility for the nation's fate, opposing evil forces in a chaotic era.² His principal antagonist is Fang Yuanji, played by Zhang Aoyue, who under pressure from his father (Cao Kefan) works to destroy the trades' unity and is described as the hidden player behind the jianghu's shadow war.⁶

Production

The series was produced by iQIYI and Shanghai Yunfeng Culture Media.⁵ Filming wrapped in Shanghai in September 2018 after about four months, during which a crew of nearly a thousand moved among Beijing, Shanghai, Anji, and Zhuji, built more than 100 sets, and worked through typhoons, heat, and rain. Director Yang Shu said the production used film-grade shooting and post-production standards to pursue the immersion of a theatrical feature.⁵ Chen Kaige's attachment as supervisor was noted in trade coverage as a distinguishing mark, since established film directors had begun entering the web series market around that time.³^•⁷

Reception and context

A review in The Paper judged the series "not bad to watch" but "not gripping." The critic credited it with a clear and credible growth arc for Hua Min Chu and noted that Chen Kaige's involvement showed in the production design, but argued that the plot moved too smoothly, that characters besides the lead were functional rather than rounded, and that the drama's overtly positive messaging left little narrative tension.² The same review placed the series in the wave of Republican-era dramas of the late 2010s and observed that while most such dramas wrapped mystery plots in a Republican setting, this one wrapped a wuxia structure in that setting, with the eight trades functioning much like the sects of martial-arts fiction and the scroll holder like a martial-art alliance's leader.²

The series should not be confused with The Eight Hundred (八佰), Guan Hu's 2020 war film about the defense of Sihang Warehouse, which appeared the same year and shares the actor Ou Hao with The Eight.⁸^•⁹

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 › Chinese wuxia and martial-arts serials

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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