Judge Dee's Mystery

 

2024-
Directed by Yunliang Li
Starring Yiwel Zhou, Elane Zhong, Wang Li kun , Jia-yi Zhang, Ruoyun Zhang, Ling Zi, Li Chen

IMDB Entry

I've been spending a lot of time watching detective shows on Netflix and elsewhere and just discovered a very different take on it. Judge Dee's Mystery is now on Netflix, and shows a Chinese detective who lives in 7th Century China.

Di Renjie (Yiwel Zhou) is appointed by the empress to be a magistrate in a border area of China. Di is a Sherlock Holmes figure, able to put together clues to solve murders and other elaborate crimes. He also develops a relationship with the singer Cao An (Wang Li Kun). He is assisted by his assistant Hou Yu (Li Chen) and a pair of semi-reformed con artists Qiao Tai (Ji Ta) and Ma Rong (Ling Zi).

The mysteries are complex and Di has to put his talents to the utmost to solve them. Yiwel Zhou is quite good as the enigmatic Magistrate. I also liked Ling Zi, who is willful and able to help Di in unusual ways, though he disapproves of her penchant for petty theft.

The mysteries take several episodes to solve, allowing for a more complex story, In one early case, they solve one three-quarters of the way through the episode and start to embark on another.

A big feature of the film are the locations. This was a Chinese production and the made use of sumptuous Chinese locations and costumes.* 

The show is an excellent mystery, with the Chinese milieu adding much to make it visually impressive.

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*Though not everything looked good. There is a shot of a ship that's traveling directly into the wind, something no sailboat could ever do, even now, and given how the ship was rigged, could not even come close (also, the sales were limp). Similarly, when Cao An plays, her fingering doesn't even try to come close to matching the notes.