Judge Dee

Judge Dee, or Judge Di, is a semi-fictional character based on the historical figure Di Renjie, county magistrate and statesman of the Tang court. The character appeared in the 18th-century Chinese detective and gong'an crime novel Di Gong An. After Robert van Gulik came across it in an antiquarian book store in Tokyo, he translated the novel into English and then used the style and characters to write his own original Judge Dee historical mystery stories.

The series is set in Tang dynasty China and deals with criminal cases solved by the upright and shrewd Judge Dee, who as county magistrate in the Chinese imperial legal system was both the investigating magistrate and judge.

Dee Goong An

The Judge Dee character is based on the historical figure Di Renjie (c. 630 – c. 700), magistrate and statesman of the Tang court. During the Ming dynasty (1368–1644) in China, a "folk novel" was written set in former times, but filled with anachronisms.

Van Gulik found a copy of the 18th-century Di Gong An novel (Chinese: 狄公案; pinyin: Dí Gōng Àn; lit. "Cases of Judge Dee") in a Tokyo book store. It's an original tale dealing with three cases simultaneously. For the most part the overbearing supernatural plot elements, common among Chinese mystery tales of that period, were lacking in this case, making story more accessible to Western readers. He translated it into English and had it published in 1949 under the title Celebrated Cases of Judge Dee.

Van Gulik's stories

van Gulik began writing his own novels with the character, eventually authoring sixteen books. Van Gulik was careful in writing the main novels to deal with cases wherein Dee was newly appointed to a city, thereby isolating him from the existing lifestyle and enabling him to maintain an objective role in the books. Van Gulik's novels and stories are often referred to as the Shih Ti.

Initially Dee is assisted only by his faithful clerk, Sergeant Hoong Liang, an old family retainer. However, in The Chinese Gold Murders, which describes Dee's initial appointment and first criminal cases, the judge encounters two highwaymen, euphemistically called "men of the greenwood", Ma Joong and Chiao Tai, who attempt to rob him but are so impressed with his character that they give up their criminal careers and join his retinue on the spot. This encounter is recounted in a short flashback passage in the original Di Gong An, taking place when the two are already long-serving loyal members of his retinue. A little later, in The Chinese Lake Murders, a third criminal, Tao Gan, an itinerant confidence trickster and swindler, similarly joins. Judge Dee ends his career in Murder in Canton being promoted to the position of senior Metropolitan Judge in the capital, and his assistants obtain official ranks in the Army and civil service.

Van Gulik also wrote a series of newspaper comics about Judge Dee in 1964–1967, which totalled 19 adventures. The first four were regular balloon strips, but the later 15 had the more typically Dutch textblock under the pictures.

Judge Dee, naturally, is responsible for deciding sentences as well as assessing guilt or innocence, although van Gulik notes in the stories that all capital punishments must be referred to and decided by officials in the capital. One of the sentences he frequently has to deal with is slow slicing; if he is inclined to mercy, he orders the final, fatal, cut to be made first, thus rendering the ceremony anticlimactic.

Van Gulik's Judge Dee novels have been translated into Chinese.

Other authors

Several other authors have created stories based on Van Gulik's Judge Dee character:

• French author Frédéric Lenormand wrote 19 new Judge Dee mysteries from year 2004 at Editions Fayard, Paris (not yet translated into English). Some of them have been translated into Spanish (Ediciones Paidos Iberica), Portuguese (Europress), Bulgarian (Paradox), Czech (Garamond) and Polish.
• Sven Roussel, another French author, has written La dernière enquête du Juge Ti.
• The Chinese-American author Zhu Xiao Di wrote ten original short stories about Judge Dee collected in Tales of Judge Dee (2006), set when the Judge was the magistrate of Poo-yang (the same time period as The Chinese Bell Murders and several other novels). Zhu Xiao Di has no relation to Robert van Gulik but tried to stay faithful to the fictionalized history of van Gulik's Judge Dee.
• Judge Dee appears, along with a fictionalized Wu Zetian, in books one (Iron Empress: A Novel of Mystery and Madness in Ancient China) and two (Shore of Pearls: A Novel of Murder, Plague, and the Prison Island of Hainan) of Eleanor Cooney & Daniel Alteri's historical T'ang Trilogy.
• Qiu Xiaolong, best known for his Inspector Chen series, released a new Judge Dee novel The Shadow of the Empire in 2021.

Bibliography

By van Gulik

The following novels and short stories were published in English by van Gulik. The short story collection Judge Dee at Work (published in 1967) contains a "Judge Dee Chronology" detailing Dee's various posts in specific years and stories set in these times. Van Gulik's last two books, Poets and Murder and Necklace and Calabash, were not listed in the chronology, as they were written after Judge Dee at Work, but they are both set in the time when Judge Dee was the magistrate in Poo-yang.

By other authors

By the author Frédéric Lenormand (not yet translated into English):

• Le Château du lac Tchou-an (2004) - The Zhou-an lake castle
• La Nuit des juges (2004) - The Night of the judges
• Petits meurtres entre moines (2004) - Little murders among monks
• Le Palais des courtisanes (2004) - The courtesans' palace
• Madame Ti mène l'enquête (2005) - Mrs. Dee investigates
• Mort d'un cuisinier chinois (2005) - Death of a Chinese cook
• L'Art délicat du deuil (2006) - The Delicate art of mourning
• Mort d'un maître de go (2006) - Death of a Go master
• Dix petits démons chinois (2007) - Ten little Chinese devils
• Médecine chinoise à l'usage des assassins (2007) - Chinese Medicine for murderers
• Guide de survie d'un juge en Chine (2008) - Survival guide for the Chinese judge
• Panique sur la Grande Muraille (2008) - Panic on the Great Wall
• Le Mystère du jardin chinois (2009) - The Chinese Garden Mystery
• Diplomatie en kimono (2009) - Diplomacy in a Kimono
• Thé vert et arsenic (2010) - Arsenic and green tea
• Un Chinois ne ment jamais (2010) - A Chinese never lies
• Divorce à la chinoise (2011) - Chinese-style Divorce
• Meurtres sur le fleuve Jaune (2011) - The Yellow River Murders

By the author Zhu Xiao Di:

• Tales of Judge Dee (2006), ten short stories set in the time when Judge Dee is magistrate of Poo-yang (AD 669–670), ISBN 0-595-38438-2

By the author Sven Roussel:

• La Dernière Enquète du Juge Ti (2008) set at the end Judge Dee's term of service in Lan Fang (AD 675)

By authors Eleanor Cooney & Daniel Alteri:

• Iron Empress: A Novel of Mystery and Madness in Ancient China (formerly titled Deception: A Novel of Mystery and Madness in Ancient China, ISBN 0-380-70872-8), Book One of the T'ang Trilogy, ISBN 9781475604450
• Shore of Pearls: A Novel of Murder, Plague, and the Prison Island of Hainan, Book Two of the T'ang Trilogy, ISBN 9781475604474

By Lin Qianyu (林千羽):

• 狄仁杰 通天帝国 (2010), tie-in novel of Tsui Hark 2010 film: Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame, ISBN 978-7-5385-4859-4

By the author Hock G. Tjoa:

• The Ingenious Judge Dee (2013), a theatrical play based on Dee Goong An, ISBN 1-493-57691-7

By Qiu Xiaolong:

• In the Shadow of the Empire (2021), ISBN 978-07-2785-081-2

Adaptations

Comics

The stories have been adapted into comic strips by Dutch artists Fritz Kloezeman between 1964 and 1969 and Dick Matena in 2000.

TV

Judge Dee has been adapted for television twice in English:

• In 1969, Howard Baker produced six Judge Dee stories for Granada Television. These episodes were in black and white and were not a ratings success. White English actor Michael Goodliffe portrayed the Judge in yellowface.
• In 1974, Gerald Isenberg adapted the novel The Haunted Monastery into a television movie for ABC, titled Judge Dee and the Monastery Murders. It starred Khigh Dhiegh as Judge Dee. With the exception of the star (who generally played East Asian roles but was of English and North African descent), the movie had an all-Asian cast, including Mako, Soon-Tek Oh, Keye Luke, and James Hong. The writing was credited to Nicholas Meyer and Robert van Gulik. It was nominated for an Edgar Award, for Best Television Feature or Miniseries in 1975.

Some of Robert van Gulik's Judge Dee stories have been adapted for Chinese TV by CCTV, under the title of Detective Di Renjie, most of which star Liang Guanhua as Detective Di. As of 2012, four different DVD series are available with one series so far with English subtitles. CCTV produced series in 2004, 2006, 2008 and 2010. The series from 2010, entitled "Detective Di Renjie" has been produced on DVD by Tai Seng entertainment with English subtitles.

The list of series:

• Amazing Detective Di Renjie (2004)
• Amazing Detective Di Renjie 2 (2006)
• Amazing Detective Di Renjie 3 (2008)
• Mad Detective Di Renjie (2010)

In 2024, Youku released a series called Judge Dee's Mystery, which was also sold to Netflix.

Film

Tsui Hark has made a trilogy of films based on the character. Andy Lau portrayed the character in the first film with Mark Chao continuing in the next two.

• Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame (2010)
• Young Detective Dee: Rise of the Sea Dragon (2013)
• Detective Dee: The Four Heavenly Kings (2018)

See also

• Early Chinese detective fiction

References

Sources

• Accardo, Pasquale J. (2011). China's Sherlock Holmes: The Life and Times of Robert van Gulik's Judge Dee. Eugenia, ON: The Battered Silicon Dispatch Box. ISBN 978-1-55246-960-6. The esteemed member of the Baker Street Irregulars and commentator on both Sherlock Holmes and Father Brown summarizes the career of Robert van Gulik's presentation of Judge Dee, with detailed plot outlines, character biographies, chronologies, and a discussion of the phenomenon of "doubling" throughout the series.
• Benedetti, Lavinia (2013). “The use of Chinese Supernatural Elements in Van Gulik’s Series Judge Dee Mysteries”, «Zhongguo Bijiao Wenxue» 《中国比较文学》(Comparative Literature in China), Vol. 92, no. 3, 119-133.
• Benedetti, Lavinia (2014). “Killing Di Gong: Rethinking van Gulik’s Translation of Late Qing Dynasty Novel Wu Zetian Si Da Qi’an”, in Paolo Santangelo (ed.), Ming Qing Studies 2014, 11-42.
• Benedetti, Lavinia (2017).“Further Definition of Di Renjie’s identity(ies) in Chinese History, Literature and Media”, Frontiers of History in China 2017, 12(4), 599–620.
• Van Dover, J. Kenneth (2015). The Judge Dee Novels of R. H. Van Gulik: The Case of the Chinese Detective and the American Reader. Jefferson, NC: McFarland. ISBN 9780786496211. A scholar of American detective fiction explores the historical Chinese figures, the tradition of the Chinese detective story, China and Chinese in American literature, and van Gulik's adaptations.

External links

• Judge Dee: Character chronology and information about the author (in English)
• The Judge Dee website by Sven Roussel
• Fansite containing detailed publishing history in various languages (in English and Dutch)