A wronged wife uncovers the truth of her husband’s life in Thailand, in Lan Hongchun’s gentle dialect-based drama.
I did briefly live in a world without instant messaging and email, but for the life of me I can’t really remember just how long communication used to take. It was even worse without telephones, in the time period that the film Dear You largely takes place, where months could go by without a letter or news from a loved one – and you would just have to keep on trucking.
The film’s framing narrative deals with a modern day family in Swatow. Hiou-ui (Zheng Runqi), deep in debt, has heard rumours that his estranged granddad Bhagseng (Wang Yantong) is wealthy in Thailand, having moved there to avoid the Chinese Civil War. Stuck there, he stayed, sending what money he had back home through qiaopi. In 1978, after over 20 years of this, the family receives a single photo of him with a young woman and several children. This caused his wife Sogriu (Wu Shaoqing) to disown him and move away from home.
With this knowledge, Hiou-ui goes to Thailand to find him. He discovers, however, that Bhagseng died in 1960, and that his friend – not mistress – Lamgi (Li Sitong) had been sending money all those years in his place. The story unfolds, flashing back to Siam in the fifties, where the bulk of the movie takes place.
Dear You has a lot of things going for it, from its easy pace to its gorgeously warm colour palette. but a slight I have against it is how it really does take a minute to get going. It starts off feeling a bit like a wacky road trip movie, featuring someone who could easily be the point of view character in another film, only for the real movie to begin once Hiou-ui reaches Lamgi’s son and starts to learn the truth. Once it is off and running, though, it becomes a damn sweet story of community, togetherness and doing what you can for your family.
The movie positions itself as a celebration of qiaopi, whose use throughout Chinese history was instrumental to several military victories and rebuilding of society after conflicts. And, yes, while that is a running theme throughout, and is the only connective tissue between Bhagseng and his family, there’s a lot more to it than that. The qiaopi serve as a vessel through which the film’s real themes can shine. Connection, forgiveness and familial bonds, as well as simply doing the best you can for the people in your life.
Bhagseng is a shining example of this – a flawed but fundamentally good man who goes out of his way, and into the path of harm, to help people he doesn’t even know. To him, helping your fellow countrymen is important, and the Teochew people are his own. Deuteragonist Lamgi is also an example of this, finding a family – alongside her father – with the people to whom she rents rooms. All of this, punctuated by the misunderstanding established in the first act, emphasises just how much Dear You is going for tearjerker moments.
I’m a sap. Those moments aren’t big, overdone scenes. They’re quiet moments of truth: a character realising they’ve held grudges for decades for no reason; they’re scenes of forgiveness and characters struggling to do good amid a sea of uncertainties. When Lamgi attempts to send money to Sogriu after the latter’s left town, she can’t understand why the letters keep getting sent back, and the lack of closure stays with her for a while. Dear You knows when to use subtlety and bigger moments to bring tears to the eyes: it’s a film that uses not only the rift and 40 years of misunderstandings to drive its emotional nail home, but the closeness that the Chinese – specifically the Teochew people – have when they’re trying to all survive in a foreign country. And that is perhaps worth writing home about.
Verdict: Equal parts history lesson and touching drama, Dear You celebrates people, cultures and the necessity of keeping in touch.
Dear You (2026)
Also known as: 給阿嬤的情書; lit. Love Letters to Grandma
Teochew, Thai, Mandarin
Director: Lan Hongchun
Writers: Lan Hongchun, Zheng Xuanxuan, Yang Leng, Zhu Liyun
CAST
Li Sitong – Zia Lamgi
Usha Seamkhum – older Lamgi
Wang Yantong – Den Bhagseng
Wu Shaoqing – Sogriu
Wang Xiaohui – young Sogriu
Zheng Runqi – Hiou-ui
Fang Peisong – Laisung
Zhao Shugang – Zeghua
Li Deru – Aunt Ru
Chen Qinqin – Di Gong
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