General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20265 min read

The Thunder

The Thunder (破冰行动, Po Bing Xing Dong, literally "Ice-Breaking Operation") is a 2019 Chinese crime drama about anti-narcotics police dismantling a village-based methamphetamine production and trafficking network in the fictional city of Dongshan, Guangdong. It ran 48 episodes of about 45 minutes each, premiered on iQIYI on May 7, 2019, and began broadcasting on CCTV-8 on May 10, 2019, concluding on May 30, 2019.¹^•²^•³ The series was produced by iQIYI with China Media Group and co-produced with the Ministry of Public Security's press and publicity bureau, the Ministry's Narcotics Control Bureau, and the Guangdong Provincial Public Security Department.²^•⁴

Key fact	Detail
Original title	破冰行动 (Po Bing Xing Dong, "Ice-Breaking Operation")¹
Format	48 episodes × 45 minutes; crime, action, suspense; Mandarin¹
Broadcast	iQIYI from May 7, 2019; CCTV-8 from May 10, 2019; finale May 30, 2019¹^•³
Creative team	Directors Fu Dongyu and Liu Zhangmu; screenwriters Chen Yuxin, Qin Yue, and Li Li²
Lead cast	Huang Jingyu (Li Fei), Wu Gang (Li Weimin), Wang Jingsong (Lin Yaodong), Simon Yam (Zhao Jialiang)²^•⁵
Real-case basis	The 2013 Guangdong "Thunder drug sweep" (雷霆扫毒) 12.29 special operation against Boshe village, Lufeng⁴
Major awards	Magnolia Award for Best Chinese TV Series (26th Shanghai TV Festival, 2020); Golden Eagle Award for Outstanding TV Series (30th, 2020)⁶

Spoilers

Premise

The story follows Li Fei (Huang Jingyu), an anti-narcotics officer in the Dongshan Public Security Bureau, and his partner Song Yang, whose arrest of a suspect in Tazhai village draws them into a much larger conspiracy. A transnational trafficking group led by the Hong Kong drug baron Liu Haoyu colludes with Lin Yaodong (Wang Jingsong), the village head of Tazhai, to run a large-scale underground methamphetamine operation, protected by officials inside the local government and police. Li Fei's father figure Li Weimin (Wu Gang), deputy director of the provincial anti-drug bureau, leads a parallel investigation, and the two generations of officers work to expose the network and its "protective umbrellas" so that the special operation codenamed "The Thunder" can proceed.¹^•²^•⁷

The drama's structure centers on two intertwined questions: who inside the police and government is protecting the drug ring, and whether Li Fei can survive long enough to prove it. Reviewers described the shifting loyalties among police, traffickers, and informants as a live-action game of werewolf, in which nearly every major character's allegiance is in doubt for much of the run.⁷

The real case

The series is adapted from the "Thunder drug sweep" (雷霆扫毒) series of operations carried out by Guangdong police in 2013 under Ministry of Public Security supervision, whose landmark action was the elimination of Boshe village in Lufeng, known as "Asia's No. 1 drug-producing village" and "China's No. 1 drug-producing village." According to reporting at the time of the drama's broadcast, 20 percent of Boshe families were involved in drugs and police seized nearly 3 tons of methamphetamine in the operation.⁴^•⁸

The real village's drug crime had what official accounts summarized as "family-style operation, industrialized management, and local protection": villagers collectively resisted law enforcement, destroyed evidence, and warned each other off. The drama's opening, in which Li Fei enters Tazhai village to make an arrest and is surrounded by villagers who destroy the seized evidence in front of the police, mirrors documented episodes from the real case.⁷^•⁸ Screenwriter Chen Yuxin also drew on the experience of Shanghai narcotics officers who in 2012 became the first outside police to take a drug suspect out of Boshe village, adapting their account into the show's opening storyline.⁸

Production

Research and script. Chen Yuxin, whose earlier credits include Mekong River Case and other crime-themed works, developed the script over a long research period; People's Daily reports four years of refinement, while a later interview with the creative team describes five years of writing, in both cases involving repeated trips to Guangdong and face-to-face interviews with dozens of anti-drug officers who had worked the real case.⁴^•⁹ The script won screenplay awards from the television drama division of the National Radio and Television Administration and the Beijing municipal press, publication, radio, film and television bureau before production.⁴

Police cooperation and scale. The production received support from public security organs at several levels. Large-scale set pieces, including a thousand-person raid and coordinated land, sea, and air deployments, were filmed under the on-site guidance of Guangdong anti-narcotics experts, with real officers appearing as extras, and the crew built a full set reproducing the polluted, disorderly village.⁴

Two cuts. The series was released in two edited versions. Director Fu Dongyu explained that the television version prioritizes clearer narrative logic for a traditional audience, while the web version is cut to be more puzzle-like for online viewers.¹⁰

Reception

The series was described by iQIYI's chief content officer Wang Xiaohui as a phenomenon-level hit of the first half of 2019. Per the China Television Drama Production Industry Association's profile, cumulative CCTV viewership exceeded 300 million, the iQIYI heat index peaked at 9490, and the show's average per-episode click volume ranked third in iQIYI's history at that point.² On Douban, the rating declined from 8.5 at launch to 8.0 by the finale, with critics faulting the handling of the protagonist Li Fei in the later episodes while praising the ensemble of veteran actors.¹⁰

Commentators also credited the drama with expanding what main-melody, officially aligned productions could do. The China Television Artists Association research director Zhao Tong argued that, after more than two decades of Chinese anti-drug television built on fixed character types and plots, The Thunder's angle of collective village-level drug production and its social observation of why local drug economies take root gave the genre new depth.¹¹

Awards

In 2020 the series won the Magnolia Award for Best Chinese Television Series at the 26th Shanghai TV Festival, becoming the first web-premiered drama to receive that award, and in October 2020 it won Outstanding Television Series at the 30th Golden Eagle Awards. It also received a Flying Apsaras Award nomination for outstanding television series (2017–2019) and was named an annual outstanding web drama by the National Radio and Television Administration for 2019.⁶ Earlier honors included the Huading Award for best producer and best supporting actor (Wang Jingsong) in December 2019.¹²

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 › East Asian web and streaming serials › Titles symbols to Co

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026

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