After years in the criminal underworld, Dao Tongda faces death with nothing to show for his life except a handful of coins. But the heavens grant him an impossible miracle when he wakes up in the body of his 18-year-old self. Reuniting with old friends at the Guanghua Road Fixer Agency, he sets out to claim the power and wealth that once escaped him. But in a world ruled by blood and betrayal, can Tongda rewrite his fate and claim the throne of the night? Or is history doomed to repeat itself?

Fortune's Chosen One has a story by RYUJIN, art by Cho Ahjin and Minsigi, and adapted by Myoggum. English localization by Kakao Ent. Published by Tapas Entertainment. (April 9, 2026) Rated M.

Erica Friedman
Rating:

Fortune's Chosen One is a fantastic story of redemption, revenge, and cunning, with a strong eaux d'martial arts underworld, Chinese flavor. I loved it. It had the same energy as the martial arts movies I loved as a kid. Brought back in his youth, a man who remembered all the wrong choices that led him to the bottom, gets a chance to redo everything and get to the top. In the process, he weeds out all of the useless and corrupt people who inhabit his underworld.

Like a true civic leader, Tongda changes the way the group handles the locals so that they see the Red Tiger Association as their protectors, not their tormentors. And through the knowledge Tongda has of events, he can gain the trust of powerful people by doing them favors in the moment of their need.

This was so much fun, I read all of the existing chapters and plan on continuing to read. In much the same way as martial arts series like Mito Kōmon, you know the truly corrupt and evil people will be punished, and the good people will be safe, even though Tongda is a bad guy, not a good guy. There's also a fair amount of pleasure in watching Tongda getting revenge on the people who hurt him in his previous life.

The comic has a good balance of brain and brawn, leaving you wanting more after every chapter. Characters are more complex than just good and bad— and, above all, the author assumes that the readers are at least as smart as the characters. I appreciate that. I'm probably going to continue reading this comic; it's really got everything I want in a martial arts revenge story.

Bolts
Rating:

This trope of people living a long life and getting reincarnated to a younger point in their life so they can now make their lives better with the power of foresight is starting to feel played out. In a lot of ways, reading these stories feels like watching someone play New Game Plus, where you're going through the same story beats, except everything is just inherently easier because now you know everything that is about to happen before it does. There are not really a lot of instances of drama during these stories unless you are explicitly creating a scenario that is now going to play out differently as a result of that foresight. However, now you've lost the hook of what started your story in the first place, so you need to ride this very fine line of creating an interesting scenario to keep things engaging. Unfortunately, Fortune's Chosen One doesn't do that.

It plays the trope completely straight with an old man reincarnated into his eighteen-year-old body, and now he is doing his best to make sure that the masters he used to serve can properly reap the rewards that they missed out on due to their poor actions and bad luck. The problem with this story is that it very much needs to explain to me why everything is important with massive exposition in order to make sure I have the proper context for why the protagonist is going about things the way that he is. Most of these chapters read in a very boring way because I'm not really made to care about any of the major players that are involved in a scenario, but I'm also supposed to be impressed that the protagonist comes out on top because he has all of this prior knowledge.

The pacing feels incredibly uneven, speed running to the significant moments that need to be changed, but also dumping everything on me in just a few pages before I'm supposed to feel relief. It also doesn't help that, despite a lot of flavor text about the businesses being relatively shady, I don't feel attached to anybody or feel the moral ramifications of all of these black market dealings. Maybe I would better understand this story if I had historical context for why certain things were important. There are a lot of artifacts and titles that are brought up that maybe mean a bit more to someone who's more familiar with Korean history than someone like me, who only really has a passing interest in it. If you are somebody who has that context or understanding, then definitely go check this out, but otherwise, I feel like this is one of those stories that you can skip, or at the very least, go find one that utilizes this trope a little bit better than what I read here.