General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20266 min read

The Victims' Game (谁是被害者)

The Victims' Game (誰是被害者) is a Taiwanese Mandarin-language crime thriller series produced by Greener Grass Production (GrX Studio) for Netflix, adapted from the novel The Fourth Victim (第四名被害者) by the Taiwanese mystery writer Endless Universe (天地無限). It follows Fang Yi-jen, a forensic investigator with Asperger's syndrome, who discovers that evidence from a bizarre murder is linked to his estranged daughter. The first season premiered on April 30, 2020, and a second season followed on June 21, 2024, making the show the first Chinese-language series Netflix renewed as an original.¹^•²

Key fact	Detail
Original title	誰是被害者; adapted from Endless Universe's novel The Fourth Victim (第四名被害者)¹
Season 1	8 episodes of about 60 minutes, premiered on Netflix April 30, 2020¹
Lead cast	Joseph Chang as forensic investigator Fang Yi-jen; Tiffany Hsu as journalist Hsu Hai-yin; Jason Wang as Detective Chao Cheng-kuan; Moon Lee as Fang's daughter Hsiao-meng³
Renewal	Announced 21 September 2020; Netflix's first renewal of an original Chinese-language production²
Season 2	8 episodes of 50 minutes, premiered June 21, 2024, with Tarcy Su, Dean Fujioka, and Terrance Lau joining the cast⁴
Awards	Eight nominations at the 55th Golden Bell Awards, including Best Television Series and Best Leading Actor for Joseph Chang²
Audience reach	Number 1 on Netflix Taiwan within 48 hours of the season 1 debut; top 10 in Hong Kong, Vietnam, and Singapore⁵

Spoilers

Premise and season 1

The story centers on Fang Yi-jen (Joseph Chang), a police forensic officer with Asperger's syndrome who is highly competent but alienates colleagues by pursuing the truth regardless of political considerations. When police find a body dissolved in acid, Fang identifies a fingerprint at the scene belonging to his estranged teenage daughter. To keep the discovery from his colleagues while he searches for the truth, he uses his forensic knowledge to mislead his hot-tempered partner, Detective Chao Cheng-kuan (Jason Wang), and trades information with the aggressive crime reporter Hsu Hai-yin (Tiffany Hsu), who holds crucial clues.¹^•⁶

The production aimed to reflect real social conditions. Executive producer Hank Tseng (曾瀚賢) said the goal was to put real social realities on screen, and the season's cases include a body dissolved in acid modeled on the National Tsing Hua University aqua regia case that once shocked Taiwan.⁷^•⁸ Reviewers noted that the supporting characters, played by Ding Ning, River Huang, Cheng Jen-shuo, and Hsia Ching-ting among others, represent marginalized voices at the bottom of society, and that Ruby Lin appears in a special role as a character tied to the season's final act.⁹

Season 2

Netflix announced the renewal on September 21, 2020, with the original production team of producers Hank Tseng and Phil Tang of Greener Grass Production and directors David Chuang and Chen Kuan-chung returning.² After a four-year wait, the eight-episode second season premiered on June 21, 2024.⁴

The new season moves the story forward: Fang Yi-jen, now a former investigator, starts a new life with his daughter Chiang Hsiao-meng (Moon Lee) after she leaves a correctional institution, while Hsu Hai-yin has left journalism to work in public relations for a children's foundation. Fang is then embroiled in a series of deaths and becomes the prime suspect. The incidents connect to a murder case he handled 15 years earlier, and the reputation of his mentor Lin Ching-jui also comes under question. Fang works with Detective Chao Cheng-kuan and the forensic examiner Hsueh Hsin-ning (Tarcy Su) to prove his innocence or risk losing his relationship with his daughter again.¹²^•⁴ The season's central case is a serial murder plot in which each victim has an organ violently removed, with the killer targeting a group of teenagers who had run away from home.¹³

New cast members include Tarcy Su, Dean Fujioka as prosecutor Chang Keng-hao, and Terrance Lau Chun-him; singer Karencici, who sang the first season's ending theme, appears as a singer character who becomes a victim.⁴^•¹³ Moon Lee won Best Supporting Actor (Female) and Chin Hua Tseng won Best Newcomer (Male) at the 2024 Asia Contents Awards & Global OTT Awards for the season.⁴

Reception of season 1

The series reached number 1 on Netflix Taiwan within 48 hours of its April 30, 2020 debut, breaking a stretch in which Korean dramas had dominated the platform's Taiwanese chart, and climbed into the top 10 in Hong Kong, Vietnam, and Singapore.⁵ It stayed at the top of the Taiwan chart for most of May 2020 and featured in the top 10 for 57 days in total.¹⁰ At the 55th Golden Bell Awards it received eight nominations, including Best Television Series, Best Leading Actor for Joseph Chang, and Best Newcomer for Moon Lee.² Critics praised the production values; a Central News Agency feature credited the show's technical crew, including its crime-scene and corpse effects work, with showing that Taiwanese drama could reach international standards.¹¹ The Cinema Escapist review found the plot thrilling but judged that the show played it safe, relying on crime-genre tropes while avoiding the social consciousness of other recent Taiwanese series.⁶

Reception of season 2 and aftermath

Critical response was mixed. The South China Morning Post gave the season 2 of 5 stars, calling it a slick, polished-looking season let down by convoluted storytelling that sacrifices narrative in favor of production values.³ A Taiwanese review likewise criticized the portrayal of forensic and prosecutorial procedure and the late-episode twist involving the killer.¹⁴

Commercially, the return drew the 2020 first season back into Netflix's country top 10 rankings in the show's four strongest markets, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Vietnam, though Netflix's published data showed the second season did not expand the footprint beyond those markets.¹⁵ The series ended after two seasons and 16 episodes, with the final episode airing on June 21, 2024; it holds an IMDb rating of 7.3/10.¹⁶

Significance for Taiwanese drama

The series marked a milestone for Taiwan's streaming industry. Its producers described the renewal as the local entertainment industry setting foot on the global stage with an entirely original Taiwanese IP.² Industry reporting credits The Victims' Game and GrX Studio's follow-up Copycat Killer with drawing international attention to Taiwan's production community and paving the way for the studio's regional expansion plans.¹⁵ A Taiwan Creative Content Agency report described it as among the most viewed and best reviewed Taiwanese dramas on Netflix overseas at the time of its renewal.¹⁷

References

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