Chen Jialin
BIOGRAPHY
Chan Ka-Lam (Chinese: 陳家霖, simplified 陈家霖; also romanised Chen Jialin; born 26 October 1974 in Hong Kong) is a Hong Kong television director working almost entirely in mainland Chinese costume drama. He directed all fifty episodes of The Untamed (陈情令, 2019) and the twenty-episode Special Edition recut of it.
His earliest credit is an on-screen appearance in the Hong Kong film To Get Away With Murder (1991). As a director he emerges in 2006 with the forty-nine episode Heroic Legend of the Chin Dynasty, followed by Sweet Summer Love (2013) and the twenty-eight episode fantasy Novoland: The Castle in the Sky (2016).
In 2019 he is credited as director on five productions: The Plough Department of Song Dynasty (36 episodes), The Untamed (50 episodes), The Legend of Yong Le Emperor (58 episodes), The Untamed: Special Edition (20 episodes) and Please Love Me (24 episodes), 188 episodes in all.
He has continued since with Dance of the Phoenix (2020, 30 episodes), Fall in Love with a Scientist (2021), three series in 2023, Beauty of Resilience (36 episodes), Castle in the Time (38 episodes) and The Last Immortal (40 episodes), and Serendipity (2025, 40 episodes).
The Untamed is adapted from a danmei novel. On screen, the central relationship between its two leads is presented as sworn brotherhood.
The Untamed in closer view
The series is based on the novel The Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation by Mo Xiang Tong Xiu, and it premiered on Tencent Video on 27 June 2019. Its story opens with Wei Wuxian, a cultivator who practised forbidden demonic arts and is brought back to life sixteen years after his death. He meets Lan Wangji again, the reserved second young master of the Lan sect, and together they look into the events of Wei Wuxian’s past, including how he turned to demonic cultivation and how he died. Xiao Zhan plays Wei Wuxian and Wang Yibo plays Lan Wangji. The supporting cast includes Liu Haikuan as Lan Xichen, leader of the Lan sect, Yu Bin as the Ghost General Wen Ning, Wang Zhuocheng as Jiang Cheng, leader of the Jiang sect, and Zhu Zanjin as Jin Guangyao. A twenty-episode Special Edition was shown later on WeTV.
A Hong Kong director whose career has been built on imperial-era costume drama for the mainland Chinese market.
Besides The Untamed, his directing credits include a Song dynasty court series, The Plough Department of Song Dynasty, and The Legend of Yong Le Emperor, a period series built around a Ming ruler. The Untamed is the one danmei adaptation among them.
His directing work began in 2006, fifteen years after his only on-screen credit.
The scale of the later credits is what stands out. Three series in 2023 add up to 114 episodes, with Beauty of Resilience at thirty-six, Castle in the Time at thirty-eight and The Last Immortal at forty, and Serendipity in 2025 is another forty. From Dance of the Phoenix in 2020 onward, every stated length sits between thirty and forty episodes. The first director credit in 2006 and the five titles of 2019 are thirteen years apart, with Sweet Summer Love in 2013 and Novoland: The Castle in the Sky in 2016 between them. The Untamed itself exists in two forms under his name, fifty episodes and a twenty episode Special Edition, so a single story accounts for seventy of the episodes on his list.
In my view the surest way into his work is to watch the first few episodes of The Untamed and then compare it with The Plough Department of Song Dynasty. The contrast between a fantasy built on a novel and a court drama set in a real dynasty shows how wide his range is inside one market, and it makes the later forty episode series easier to place.
PROFILE DETAILS
- Native Name
- 陳家霖
- Real Name
- Chen Jialin
- Nickname
- Chan Ka-Lam (Cantonese romanisation of the same name)
- Born
- (Age 51)
- Birthplace
- Hong Kong
- Western Zodiac
- Scorpio ♏
- Chinese Zodiac
- Tiger 🐅
- Profession
- Debut
- 2006 · Heroic Legend of the Chin Dynasty (2006), first work as director
- Years Active
- 2006-present
- Skills
- Series directing, costume drama, wuxia and xianxia production, long-form television
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