For the Chinese film market, this year seems to be a great year for low-budget films.
Unlike the recent low-budget box-office hit and "global sensation" Niu Lai, which has been compared to the Chinese version of The Room, Dear You is a strong low-budget film that wins over audiences through sincere storytelling.
Released in China in April this year, Dear You is a dialect film spoken mainly in Teochew. It was initially released only in the Guangdong region, where Teoswa people live, but its strong word of mouth quickly attracted audiences from across the country. It is now the second highest-grossing film in the Chinese market in 2026, and has also made its way overseas, with its official North American release on September 4.
Dear You is director Lan Hongchun's third film. As a Teoswa native, Lan's films have consistently focused on stories about Teoswa families and use the Teochew dialect. Dear You tells a story spanning three generations and connecting mainland China with the overseas Chinese diaspora in Southeast Asia.
At the centre of the story are the letters exchanged between Teoswa grandma Ye Shurou and her husband, Zheng Musheng, whom she has been separated from for over seven decades. To escape the Chinese Civil War in the 1940s, Zheng, like many Teoswa people at the time, left his hometown and his family to travel to Southeast Asia to work and make money.
After settling in Thailand, Zheng could only stay in touch with Shurou through letters, known as Qiaopi. One day, after receiving a family photo of Zheng with another woman and their children, Shurou assumed that he had remarried and stopped writing to him. Years later, when their grandson Xiaowei travels to Thailand to find Zheng, he discovers a shocking truth: Zheng had already passed away, he had never remarried, and the person who had been writing to Shurou all those years was someone else.
The film follows a traditional and seemingly foolproof narrative structure. It opens with a gentle touch of humour, using witty contemporary scenes to ease the audience into the story. Before we even realise it, the film takes us back 70 years through a beautiful letter, gradually unfolding a story of love, separation and longing through the correspondence between its characters. Although the tragedy awaiting the characters in the second half is relatively easy to anticipate, the sincerity of their emotions still makes it difficult to hold back tears.
In preparation for the film, Lan spent nine months searching for the right non-professional actors to play the three main characters, and the time spent searching proved to be well worth it. Although the three leads are somewhat inexperienced, their performances feel remarkably natural. Their personalities fit their characters so well that they immediately win the audience's affection, while the chemistry between them flows effortlessly.
This sense of authenticity extends beyond the performances. The cast's extensive research into the historical context, characters and story gives the film a natural rhythm, with both the dialogue and the letters feeling sincere and authentic.
Nothing feels overly constructed or deliberately sentimental, which is something many commercial Chinese films often overlook. Despite not having a huge budget to spend on elaborate sets or polished production design, Dear You proves that a sincere story can be more powerful than polished aesthetics.
What makes the film particularly intriguing, however, is its decision to tell a story about women against the backdrop of Teoswa. The region is known for its deeply rooted patriarchal traditions and conservative attitudes towards women, which the film explores through the character of Xie Nanzhi.
Fiercely independent, Xie resents being called a "Zou Zai"("runaway kid" as the direct translation), a local term used to describe a daughter who is expected to eventually marry out of the family. She repeatedly turns down marriage proposals and takes charge of almost everything in her household, refusing to conform to the expectations placed on women around her.
The director clearly wants to draw attention to the resilience and independence of Teoswa women, whether it is Ye Shurou, who remains at home raising her kids alone, or Xie Nanzhi, whose rebellious spirit leads her to reject marriage altogether. This focus is certainly meaningful, particularly in a region where women have historically been expected to fulfil traditional roles.
Yet I cannot help wondering whether the film's celebration of female resilience comes at the expense of a more complex portrayal of their historical reality. Have the hardships experienced by the Teoswa people, particularly the struggles and suffering of Teoswa women, been softened or even overshadowed by the film's positive emphasis on themselves instead of the issue of the society?
Dear You is undoubtedly warm and deeply moving, and its sincerity offers the audience a deeply emotional experience. Yet once the tears have dried, I found myself wondering whether the film could have looked more deeply into the history of the Teoswa people migrating to Southeast Asia.
Its portrayal of this history feels somewhat romanticised, leaving little room for the hardships, contradictions and struggles that shaped the lives of those who left home.
The film is now playing in North American movie theaters, via Well Go USA. Visit their official site for locations and showtimes.