Judge Dee

Judge Dee
Judge Dee
First appearance	Celebrated Cases of Judge Dee
Last appearance	Poets and Murder
Created by	Anonymous author credited as "Buti zhuanren"/novel translated and subsequent novels continued by Robert van Gulik (character based on Di Renjie)
Portrayed by	Michael Goodliffe Khigh Dhiegh Yiwei Zhou
In-universe information
Gender	Male
Occupation	Magistrate
Nationality	Chinese

Judge Dee, or Judge Di, is a semi-fictional character^[1] 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.