General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20265 min read

The Weasel Grave (鬼吹灯之黄皮子坟)

The Weasel Grave (鬼吹灯之黄皮子坟) is a 2017 Chinese web series adapted from the novel Huangpizi Fen by Tianxia Bachang (天下霸唱), the fifth book in the Ghost Blows Out the Light (鬼吹灯) series and the first volume of Ghost Blows Out the Light II. Directed by Guan Hu (管虎) and Fei Zhenxiang (费振翔), it ran for 20 episodes on Tencent Video beginning 21 July 2017, with three new episodes each Friday and early access for members.¹ The English title used on Tencent's international platforms is Candle in the Tomb: The Weasel Grave.²

Key fact	Detail
Original title	鬼吹灯之黄皮子坟; English title Candle in the Tomb: The Weasel Grave¹^•²
Source novel	Fifth Ghost Blows Out the Light book, first volume of Ghost Blows Out the Light II, covering Hu Bayi's youth³
Broadcast	20 episodes, Tencent Video, premiered 21 July 2017¹
Directors	Guan Hu and Fei Zhenxiang; screenwriters Feng Ji and Xu Su¹
Lead cast	Ethan Juan (阮经天) as Hu Bayi, Liu Chao as Wang Kaixuan, Xu Lu as Huamei, Hao Hao as Ding Sitian⁴
Reception	Douban 5.8 against 8.1 for the predecessor The Ancient City of Jingjue⁵
2017 viewership	2.7 billion total views; single-day peak 156 million; 37th among 2017 web series⁶

Spoilers

Story

The frame story opens as Hu Bayi, preparing to move abroad, packs his belongings and finds an old photograph that pulls him into memory.¹ The main narrative is set in the 1960s, when Hu Bayi and his childhood friend Wang Kaixuan (Wang胖子, "Fatty Wang") were sent-down educated youth (Urban youth relocated to rural areas under Mao's rustication program) in the Greater Khingan Mountains of northeast China. While catching a bear to treat an illness, they stumble into a shrine to the huangpizi, the yellow weasel, where legend says a band of bandits once found a chest of gold before vanishing onto the grassland.¹

Driven by curiosity, the two young men, joined by the girls Huamei, Ding Sitian, and Yanzi, enter the Weasel Grave and then the cavern complex known as the Hundred-Eye Grottoes (百眼窟), nicknamed the "Yama Hall" (阎王殿), where they discover the remains of a Japanese "water supply unit" (给水部队).⁷ The iQiyi listing describes the series as the story prototype of the film Mojin: The Lost Legend (寻龙诀).⁴

Later episodes move underground: swarms of insects, a sacrificial ritual, the miraculous "golden well water bladder," a fight with the scaled boa (锦鳞蚺), an attack by corpse ginseng, and the final crisis in the "turtle-sleeping land," where Huamei is willing to sacrifice herself to open a bronze box and the old hunter Qiaoshan's scheme to revive the dead comes to light.⁸

Cast

Ethan Juan plays Hu Bayi, with Liu Chao as Wang Kaixuan, Xu Lu as Huamei, Hao Hao as Ding Sitian, Li Muchen as Yanzi, Shang Tielong as Qiaoshan Laohan (敲山老汉), and Hu Xiaoguang as Laoyangpi (老羊皮).⁴ Supporting village characters include the local troublemaker Xu Erhei (宋家腾), the grave-digger Baigou (张继南), and Huangniu (李思博).⁹

Production and place in the franchise

In 2015 Penguin Pictures acquired the web-drama adaptation rights to all eight Ghost Blows Out the Light books and released them through different production teams: The Ancient City of Jingjue (2016) was made by Noon Sunshine, while The Weasel Grave (2017) and Candle in the Tomb: The Wrath of Time (怒晴湘西, 2019) were handled by Guan Hu's team.¹⁰ Guan Hu's co-produced the series through Seven Impressions (七印象), the company he founded with his wife Liang Jing.¹¹ At the time, Guan Hu was also attached to three further Ghost Blows Out the Light projects, Nanhai Guixu, Nuqing Xiangxi, and Wuxia Guanshan.⁹

Guan Hu emphasized a cinematic look and insisted on location shooting in snow-covered forest land, the dark weasel grave, and the open grassland; reviewers noted the strong sense of realism in the sets, tomb decoration, and coffin carvings.¹² The series was pitched with a youth-drama flavor, stressing the era feel of the sent-down-youth period alongside the underground mystery and monster thrills of the source novel.⁸

Reception

The series premiered with high expectations, riding the popularity of The Ancient City of Jingjue and Guan Hu's reputation, but its reception was mixed. The People's Daily commentary recorded a Douban score of 5.8 against 8.1 for the predecessor, while crediting the show with film-grade cinematography, scene design, and visual effects, including a well-regarded device of showing scenes from the weasel's point of view.⁵ Viewer complaints focused on casting: Ethan Juan's Taiwanese-accented Mandarin for a northeastern character, and a Wang Kaixuan who did not look fat.⁵ A Paper review argued the adaptation's main weakness was insufficient motivation for the characters' adventure, whose stated stakes, catching a chicken-stealing weasel and trading weasel pelts for candy, were modest for a tomb-raiding story.⁹

Commercially the series performed solidly: Guduo data put its 2017 total playback at 2.7 billion views with a single-day peak of 156 million, ranking 68th among all series of 2017 and 37th among web series.⁶ Audience polling credited its special effects and costume design, with 69 percent of comments on effects rating them neutral or better and 75 percent on styling, but the review concluded that spectacle alone could not hold the series' reputation, which declined overall.⁶

A separate web film with the same Chinese title, directed by Chen Juli and released on 5 June 2021, is a distinct adaptation of the same novel.¹³

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 Sp to Z

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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