Robert van Gulik (1910–1967) served as a diplomat, collected Chinese lutes and invented Judge Dee, yet his own country barely remembers him. Rob Rombout travels from the Netherlands to Indonesia, Japan, the United States and China, through diaries, archives and the people van Gulik still haunts. Somewhere between biography and detective story, the man and his hero merge.

Arthur Japin
as Himself

Huang Jianhu
as Himself

Wilt Idema
as Himself

Uda Kazumi
as Self

Yoshihiro Kida
as Self

Paul Lee
as Self

Frederic Lenormand
as Self

Li Ling
as Self

Yunbi Fu
as Self

Shi Ye
as Self