Who was Detective Dee? Unravelling the mystery of a Tang-dynasty hero

Who exactly is Judge Dee? The question does not require an answer so much as a history lesson spanning 15 centuries and at least two continents. And confusion surrounding the legendary Chinese individual’s identity has surfaced once again with the recent release of action-adventure movie Detective Dee: The Four Heavenly Kings .

As the big-budget film’s title spells out, the Tang-dynasty protagonist’s profession has been refashioned for the silver screen, and the “Judge” of Dutch writer Robert van Gulik’s popular novels from the 1940s, 50s and 60s is now, in fact, a “Detective”.

What’s more, while Hong Kong’s Andy Lau Tak-wah took star billing under director Tsui Hark in 2010’s Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame, in this and the 2013 film (Young Detective Dee: Rise of the Sea Dragon), Dee is played by Taiwanese-Canadian actor Mark Chao Yu-ting.

If all that is not confusing enough, our mutable hero’s story has been dramatically modified before, most notably by jumping from historical fact to fiction. Van Gulik may have popularised Dee with 18 literary outings, but he certainly did not create him.

The real-life Judge Dee was born in 630, in Taiyuan – then in the ancient province of Bingzhou and today the capital of Shanxi – and was called Di Renjie. His courtesy name, Huaiying, can be translated as “embracing what is outstanding”, and the more formal title Duke Wenhui of Liang would be granted to him posthumously by Emperor Ruizong, hinting at Di’s noble family – both his father and grandfather held elevated political office.

Di mixed navigating the choppy Tang political waters with earning his stripes in law. As a perceptive, just and coura­geous young aide to the chamberlain for law enforce­ment, he is said to have settled cases involving more than 17,000 people. It was events of this period of his life that would provide the inspiration for Judge Dee.