The show's overwhelming popularity has also sparked a frenzy in various related fields, ranging from boosting tourism in Guangdong province's Jiangmen, its filming location, to a surge in sales of sixth-century strategist Sun Tzu's treatise The Art of War, the favorite book of the drama's top villain Gao Qiqiang.

A video showing Thai rickshaw drivers streaming The Knockout to attract Chinese tourists has also gone viral online and been reported by some domestic media.

"We are so happy that the drama has also gained attention overseas. Its success has exceeded all our expectations," Zhu tells China Daily during a telephone interview.

Graduating with an arts management major from the Central Academy of Drama in Beijing, Zhu shifted his interest to script writing after earning an opportunity to pen the novel adaptation of director Xu Jizhou's acclaimed military-themed TV series Designation Forever in the early 2010s.

For the first several years, Zhu recalls that he resided in a small bungalow nestled in a hutong in downtown Beijing's Dongsishitiao area, where it was easy to observe people from different walks of life.

Consisting of 39 episodes, the drama stars actors Zhang Songwen and Zhang Yi, who respectively play a fishmonger-turned-gang boss and a devoted police officer, recounting how they turn from friends to foes over a period of two decades.