General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20265 min read

My Roommate is a Detective (民国奇探)

My Roommate is a Detective (民国奇探, Min Guo Qi Tan) is a 36-episode Chinese suspense-comedy detective drama set in Republican-era Shanghai, in which a brilliant but idle Cambridge graduate, a police detective, and a newspaper reporter solve murder cases together. Produced by iQIYI and directed by Zhang Weike, it premiered on March 24, 2020 and concluded on April 23, 2020.¹^•²

Key fact	Detail
Original title	民国奇探 (Min Guo Qi Tan)³
Broadcast	iQIYI, March 24 to April 23, 2020, 36 episodes of about 45 minutes each¹^•⁴
Main cast	Hu Yitian as Lu Yao, Zhang Yunlong as Qiao Chusheng, Xiao Yan as Bai Youning¹
Case structure	23 cases across 36 episodes, about 1.57 episodes per case⁵
Reception	iQIYI heat above 7800; Douban 7.1 from over 30,000 raters; IMDb 7.5/10 (175 votes); Viki 9.4 (10,421 ratings)²^•⁶^•⁷
Follow-up	Checkmate (民国大侦探, 2022) reteamed Hu Yitian, Zhang Yunlong, and director Zhang Weike⁸

Spoilers

Premise and characters

The story is set after the fourteenth year of the Republic of China, in a Shanghai of gang rivalries and strange murders. Lu Yao (Hu Yitian), a playboy recently returned from studying in England, is recruited as a detective consultant by Qiao Chusheng (Zhang Yunlong), a skilled police detective, on the strength of his exceptional intelligence and reasoning ability. The two are joined by Bai Youning (Xiao Yan), a reporter for the Xinyue Daily, and the three form a detective squad that solves a series of seemingly bizarre murder cases while upholding justice in a chaotic era.⁹

The character profiles give the trio complementary backgrounds. Lu Yao is a University of Cambridge graduate with double degrees; DramaWiki lists medicine and mathematics, while TVmao lists chemistry and biology, and describes him as a former financial analyst who becomes the police station's crime consultant.³^•¹⁰ Qiao Chusheng, known as "Fourth Master," is the chief police detective of the Central Station of the Shanghai International Settlement; TVmao describes him as the fourth blade of the Green Dragon Gang, a gangster-turned-detective skilled at dealing with all kinds of people.³^•¹⁰ Bai Youning is the only daughter of Bai Qili, head of Shanghai's Green Dragon Gang, a Western-educated reporter with progressive views who aims to be a free and independent modern woman.¹⁰ Supporting roles include Lu Miao (Zeng Yongti) and the landlady Meng Xiaoyun (Gan Lu); the cast list totals 42 named characters.⁹^•¹⁰

Production

Filming began with an opening ceremony in Shanghai on March 31, 2019. The drama was produced by iQIYI with HiJoy Film & TV as co-producer, with Dai Ying and Jia Zhiqi as chief producers and Zhang Weike directing.¹¹ At the ceremony, Jia Zhiqi described a script that compressed nearly 30 stories into 36 episodes, with more than 180 named characters and over 400 sets, which she called rare for a detective drama.¹¹

Director's approach. Zhang Weike said that when he first encountered the project it consisted only of the cases; his contribution was to add Republican-era texture, including the concession setting, blended Chinese and Western fashion, and comedy.¹² Chief producer Dai Ying, general manager of iQIYI's self-produced drama development center, admitted initial doubts, saying some felt detective dramas had reached a bottleneck, but the script's character chemistry and brisk pacing with comedy mixed into the mystery won her over.¹²

Structure and style

The 36 episodes contain 23 cases, averaging about 1.57 episodes per case, a fast rhythm that reviewers singled out as the show's distinguishing feature.⁵ Chinese media noted the light-comedy tone: instead of the tense, dark, and violent style common in suspense dramas, the investigation scenes are relaxed and playful, and the show was nicknamed a Republican-era Detective Conan.⁵^•¹³ Although the cases are period pieces, the motives behind them reflect modern concerns. iQIYI's episode summaries cite a killer who exploits a film's fictional death method to boost box office, and cases touching on medical ethics, journalistic responsibility, and family indifference.⁹^•²

The broadcast ran on a Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday schedule with two new episodes per evening, VIP members could watch six episodes a week ahead, the final ten episodes were available early to VIP members from April 14, and the series became free to watch on April 30.¹⁴

Reception

The finale aired on April 23, 2020, and the drama finished first on iQIYI's television heat chart; on Aiman data's in-air drama actor heat ranking, it helped lead actor Hu Yitian take the top spot.¹⁵ iQIYI's internal heat score exceeded 7800, Douban rated it 7.1 from more than 30,000 users, and Maoyan placed it first among March web dramas by heat.² On international platforms it holds 7.5/10 on IMDb (175 votes) and 9.4 on Viki (10,421 ratings).⁶^•⁷ It remains available on iQIYI and Viki with subtitles in English and more than a dozen other languages.¹⁶^•⁷

Legacy

In August 2022, iQIYI released Checkmate (民国大侦探), a Republican-era detective drama adapted from Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot stories, again directed by Zhang Weike and starring Hu Yitian and Zhang Yunlong; Chinese coverage billed it as the original cast and crew of My Roommate is a Detective reuniting.⁸ The two dramas tell separate stories with different characters: Checkmate follows the lawyer Situ Yan, who becomes a detective in Harbin, and the police detective Luo Shaochuan.⁸

References

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026