I dragged my feet to write it bc it's so well made I feel kind of bad about not praising it to the skies. And…
Yes indeed. I liked the original book that Van Gulik translated but his subsequent novels not so much. The dude was quite obsessed with the sex lives of ancient Chinese and that seeped very descriptively into his books. And yeah he was a huge sinophile but he didn't really have an innate understanding of Chinese culture and history so his books have a very strong Western flavor. And his mysteries are nowhere near as good as Christie's or Conan Doyle's so I never got around to reading all of them. I never liked any of the Disney Mulan stories either - they never felt Chinese.
Anyways it’s coming to Netflix. I suspect it will do a lot better with Western audience than it did with Chinese.
I dragged my feet to write it bc it's so well made I feel kind of bad about not praising it to the skies. And…
Here you go:
Robert van Gulik’s Tang-dynasty detective is being brought to the small screens of a very, very large audience. In 2013, following a full year of negotiations with the author’s son, Beijing-based producer Wang Donghui secured the rights to make a Chinese television series based on Dutch diplomat Robert van Gulik’s series of Judge Dee historical mystery novels.
He also had one of China’s biggest TV stars, Zhang Jiayi, on board as his producing partner and to play Judge Dee.
With the huge popularity of crime shows such as Sherlock and CSI on Chinese streaming sites, Wang believed he had the beginnings of a popular historical detective series that could raise Chinese-language television to the level of premium cable drama in the West. But who could write it? Nobody in China had that kind of experience.
“I looked at writers in both America and Britain – but while American writers are good at scale and structure, British writers excel in character development and that’s what I needed for this project,” explains Wang, who worked at Creative Artist Agency (CAA)’s Beijing office before launching production outfit Combo Drive Pictures.
He started firing off emails to writers he admired, including Jim Keeble and Dudi Appleton, whose credits include writing Thorne, for Sky1, and Silent Witness, for the BBC. But it took a long time before anybody took him seriously.
It wasn’t until British talent agent Tor Belfrage visited Beijing and met Wang in 2014 that the ball started rolling. She immediately contacted Keeble and Appleton’s agents, saying: “Will you answer this guy’s emails? He’s for real!”
Wang then sat down with the two writers and their partner in 87 Films, producer Patrick Irwin, in London, bringing along John Woo Yu-sen’s long-time producing partner Terence Chang Chia-chen for additional credibility and moral support. Wang had just come off producing critically acclaimed martial arts drama Brotherhood Of Blades with China Film Group, which was executive produced by Chang.
“At first we were thinking, ‘Why would we do this?’ But we were impressed by the ambition of it,” recalls Appleton, of their initial meeting. “He was saying he had the money to get this made, then sell to Chinese broadcasters later. That made no sense to us – there would have to be some ridiculous upside to do it that way. But then he told us that Zhang Jiayi’s last show had 120 million viewers and we were, like, OK we see the upside!”
Filming first and selling to broadcasters and online video platforms later is a fairly standard way of producing TV shows in the mainland, especially now that intense competition between streaming sites is driving up prices.
“Dee’s stories have always been popular in China and have already been featured in TV series, although none has been based on van Gulik’s books,” says Wang, explaining what gave him the confidence to finance the series. “And having Zhang Jiayi on board producing the show with me makes it an even easier sell.”
Written in English in the 1950s and 60s, the Judge Dee mysteries follow the exploits of a semi-fictional Tang dynasty (AD600-900) magistrate, who van Gulik first stumbled across in an 18th-century Chinese novel.
“They have a slight Raymond Chandler feel to them that gave them enough edge that we could see what we could bring to it,” says Appleton.
The challenge then was how to transform 36 books – often with three interweaving crime cases in each – into 40 episodes of television. The team decided to focus on just one story in each hour of television – often prising apart the interweaving stories from the books – but with a serial element running throughout.
“Donghui really wanted this to feel like a serial, so the audience could build their knowledge of the main character and his team,” explains Keeble. “We talked about what we could introduce and came up with the notion of a father who disappeared when Dee was 10. So there’s an overarching mystery in the sense of loss and abandonment that drives Dee.”
A team of about 14 writers are working on the show, with Keeble, Appleton and script editor Andrew Clifford also writing their own episodes. Early drafts are sent to Wang for his notes on cultural differences, standard queries on the characters’ motivations and potential censorship issues.
“What he doesn’t try to do is second guess you – he does his job as a producer,” says Appleton. “Often producers think their job is to be the stupidest member of the audience, whereas he gets that he’s trusting us to write this. If there’s something he thinks doesn’t work, he’ll just tell you it doesn’t work.”
When the English scripts are completed, Wang has them translated and brings in a Chinese scriptwriter to “polish them in terms of dialogue and cultural issues”. As the series is historical, and set during the Tang dynasty, which is especially revered in Chinese history, there are fewer potential censorship issues than with a contemporary drama.
“There are limits on nudity and sex scenes in Chinese television, but I’ve been encouraging Jim and Dudi to explore issues such as homosexuality and drug use,” says Wang.
Another issue for both the London and Beijing teams was how to set up a payment structure that everybody was happy with. Irwin suggested setting up a British company, which Wang could then transfer money into to pay the writers.
“It means that we’re all above board as far as UK tax goes,” explains Irwin. “It’s a fairly front-loaded structure as it would be difficult to see any further money as far as [Chinese] exploitation goes. But if there’s any life for the series outside of China, Donghui is open to talking to us about that.”
With such a large potential audience in China, international exploitation has not been a key consideration for the series. The character of Judge Dee is not well known outside China, although Granada TV featured him in a 1969 TV series, with a heavily made-up British actor, Michael Goodliffe, playing Dee. But the team is also aware that a growing number of high-quality foreign-language TV shows are starting to cross borders and, as Keeble observes, “The audience is hungry for content and worlds they don’t know very well.”
Wang is aiming to start pre-production on the show before the end of the year and is eyeing Luoyang, in Henan province, the former capital of the Tang dynasty, as one of the main locations. Although he’s enjoyed the experience, he explains that Chinese broadcasters usually demand very long-running series – 60 to 80 episodes – so it’s extremely time-consuming to produce anything of superior quality at that length.
“I don’t think I’ll have time to do another TV series as it’s taken me four years up until now and will take another two years to finish production,” says Wang. “But I have several film projects in development and I think there’s huge potential for UK writers working on Chinese movies. I’m already talking with several UK writers to develop one of my film projects.”
I absolutely love the way you weave important details into your reviews to give them more historical context.…
Tyvm 😘. Lin Gengxin pulled comically obnoxious off charismatically in the movies but unfortunately here.... The drama is alright, it is like watching one of those many episodic American police procedurals to pass time.
Glad to read your views on the drama! I rated it way higher. I think Gu Tingye attitude was not necessarily modern…
Thank you for your insights - I think for the most part I enjoyed Minglan as well and I especially liked her dark side. As I couple, I guess they both had reason to be guarded and mistrustful and thus the courtship that extended well into marriage. That frustrated me a bit. It is a very long drama so the fact it pretty much held up to the end is hard to achieve.
Thanks for recommending this brilliant drama. The final reveal was a complete surprise for me. Haha...didnt see…
Glad you enjoyed it and thank you for your kind comments. I also initially thought Baozi stayed on at the brothel but then I realised that a pudgy boy that loves to eat does not grow up to be a lean man. This is one of the few dramas where a murderer gets away. The Magistrate's left hand man actually committed most, if not all, the crimes and rides off into the sunset. Sangeng is just not that smart of a cop! As for the shifu, I guess Sangeng and his daughter are in love so ignorance is bliss...
It really is a BAD script. This is literally a military focused drama and the scriptwriter must have some knowledge…
Tencent/China Literature owns a lot of IP. They frequently license their IP to other platforms. I think they invested only in this during post production when iQiyi ran out of budget bc of a lot of cuts.
It really is a BAD script. This is literally a military focused drama and the scriptwriter must have some knowledge…
I know I started reading the book and got sucked into rewatching it instead. On my 3rd watch which is nuts bc unless it is like NIF level, I hardly ever rewatch stuff. I think I have fallen for Xiang Liu.😱☠️☠️☠️
75 
327 
9 
1 
4 
12 
2 
3 
2 
1 
4 
10 
1 
1 
2 
2 
3 
2 
2 
2 
1 
1 
8 
Anyways it’s coming to Netflix. I suspect it will do a lot better with Western audience than it did with Chinese.
Robert van Gulik’s Tang-dynasty detective is being brought to the small screens of a very, very large audience.
In 2013, following a full year of negotiations with the author’s son, Beijing-based producer Wang Donghui secured the rights to make a Chinese television series based on Dutch diplomat Robert van Gulik’s series of Judge Dee historical mystery novels.
He also had one of China’s biggest TV stars, Zhang Jiayi, on board as his producing partner and to play Judge Dee.
With the huge popularity of crime shows such as Sherlock and CSI on Chinese streaming sites, Wang believed he had the beginnings of a popular historical detective series that could raise Chinese-language television to the level of premium cable drama in the West. But who could write it? Nobody in China had that kind of experience.
“I looked at writers in both America and Britain – but while American writers are good at scale and structure, British writers excel in character development and that’s what I needed for this project,” explains Wang, who worked at Creative Artist Agency (CAA)’s Beijing office before launching production outfit Combo Drive Pictures.
He started firing off emails to writers he admired, including Jim Keeble and Dudi Appleton, whose credits include writing Thorne, for Sky1, and Silent Witness, for the BBC. But it took a long time before anybody took him seriously.
It wasn’t until British talent agent Tor Belfrage visited Beijing and met Wang in 2014 that the ball started rolling. She immediately contacted Keeble and Appleton’s agents, saying: “Will you answer this guy’s emails? He’s for real!”
Wang then sat down with the two writers and their partner in 87 Films, producer Patrick Irwin, in London, bringing along John Woo Yu-sen’s long-time producing partner Terence Chang Chia-chen for additional credibility and moral support. Wang had just come off producing critically acclaimed martial arts drama Brotherhood Of Blades with China Film Group, which was executive produced by Chang.
“At first we were thinking, ‘Why would we do this?’ But we were impressed by the ambition of it,” recalls Appleton, of their initial meeting. “He was saying he had the money to get this made, then sell to Chinese broadcasters later. That made no sense to us – there would have to be some ridiculous upside to do it that way. But then he told us that Zhang Jiayi’s last show had 120 million viewers and we were, like, OK we see the upside!”
Filming first and selling to broadcasters and online video platforms later is a fairly standard way of producing TV shows in the mainland, especially now that intense competition between streaming sites is driving up prices.
“Dee’s stories have always been popular in China and have already been featured in TV series, although none has been based on van Gulik’s books,” says Wang, explaining what gave him the confidence to finance the series. “And having Zhang Jiayi on board producing the show with me makes it an even easier sell.”
Written in English in the 1950s and 60s, the Judge Dee mysteries follow the exploits of a semi-fictional Tang dynasty (AD600-900) magistrate, who van Gulik first stumbled across in an 18th-century Chinese novel.
“They have a slight Raymond Chandler feel to them that gave them enough edge that we could see what we could bring to it,” says Appleton.
The challenge then was how to transform 36 books – often with three interweaving crime cases in each – into 40 episodes of television. The team decided to focus on just one story in each hour of television – often prising apart the interweaving stories from the books – but with a serial element running throughout.
“Donghui really wanted this to feel like a serial, so the audience could build their knowledge of the main character and his team,” explains Keeble. “We talked about what we could introduce and came up with the notion of a father who disappeared when Dee was 10. So there’s an overarching mystery in the sense of loss and abandonment that drives Dee.”
A team of about 14 writers are working on the show, with Keeble, Appleton and script editor Andrew Clifford also writing their own episodes. Early drafts are sent to Wang for his notes on cultural differences, standard queries on the characters’ motivations and potential censorship issues.
“What he doesn’t try to do is second guess you – he does his job as a producer,” says Appleton. “Often producers think their job is to be the stupidest member of the audience, whereas he gets that he’s trusting us to write this. If there’s something he thinks doesn’t work, he’ll just tell you it doesn’t work.”
When the English scripts are completed, Wang has them translated and brings in a Chinese scriptwriter to “polish them in terms of dialogue and cultural issues”. As the series is historical, and set during the Tang dynasty, which is especially revered in Chinese history, there are fewer potential censorship issues than with a contemporary drama.
“There are limits on nudity and sex scenes in Chinese television, but I’ve been encouraging Jim and Dudi to explore issues such as homosexuality and drug use,” says Wang.
Another issue for both the London and Beijing teams was how to set up a payment structure that everybody was happy with. Irwin suggested setting up a British company, which Wang could then transfer money into to pay the writers.
“It means that we’re all above board as far as UK tax goes,” explains Irwin. “It’s a fairly front-loaded structure as it would be difficult to see any further money as far as [Chinese] exploitation goes. But if there’s any life for the series outside of China, Donghui is open to talking to us about that.”
With such a large potential audience in China, international exploitation has not been a key consideration for the series. The character of Judge Dee is not well known outside China, although Granada TV featured him in a 1969 TV series, with a heavily made-up British actor, Michael Goodliffe, playing Dee. But the team is also aware that a growing number of high-quality foreign-language TV shows are starting to cross borders and, as Keeble observes, “The audience is hungry for content and worlds they don’t know very well.”
Wang is aiming to start pre-production on the show before the end of the year and is eyeing Luoyang, in Henan province, the former capital of the Tang dynasty, as one of the main locations. Although he’s enjoyed the experience, he explains that Chinese broadcasters usually demand very long-running series – 60 to 80 episodes – so it’s extremely time-consuming to produce anything of superior quality at that length.
“I don’t think I’ll have time to do another TV series as it’s taken me four years up until now and will take another two years to finish production,” says Wang. “But I have several film projects in development and I think there’s huge potential for UK writers working on Chinese movies. I’m already talking with several UK writers to develop one of my film projects.”
https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/2007951/british-screenwriters-adapting-china-based-judge?module=hard_link&pgtype=article
The drama is alright, it is like watching one of those many episodic American police procedurals to pass time.
30-36.