Trinity CineAsia has acquired all rights for the U.K., Ireland and France to Dear You, the Teochew-language family drama that has become the heroic underdog story of China’s 2026 box office. The U.K. distributor picked up the title from Hugoeast and Damai Entertainment and will open it in British and Irish cinemas June 26, with a French theatrical release to follow. The acquisition was announced on the first day of the Shanghai International Film Festival, running June 12-21.
Released in China on April 30 with little fanfare, Dear You was made for a reported 14 million RMB (about $2 million) and cast largely with non-professional actors from the Chaoshan region — its lead a 20-year-old finance student with no prior screen credits. Six weeks in, the film’s Chinese gross stands at RMB 1.69 billion (roughly $250 million), per ticketing platform Maoyan — some 120 times its production cost — with only Han Han’s Lunar New Year racing comedy Pegasus 3 having earned more in the country this year. The film has also brought a much-needed burst of energy to China’s box office, which is currently down about 40 percent, year-on-year, from 2025.
The film’s legs show no sign of buckling. On Friday, day 44 of its run, Dear You was more than doubling the opening-day takings of Steven Spielberg’s Disclosure Day, according to real-time Maoyan data — and the platform now forecasts a final domestic total of more than RMB 1.8 billion ($266 million) for the Chinese feature. Word of mouth has done the heavy lifting: the drama, directed and co-written by Chaoshan native Lan Hongchun, holds a 9.2 score on review platform Douban from more than 700,000 users, one of the highest ratings for a Chinese release in the past decade.
Dear You draws its language and setting from Chaoshan, the corner of eastern Guangdong province around the cities of Shantou, Chaozhou and Jieyang whose Teochew-speaking communities sent scores of migrants into Southeast Asia in the 19th and 20th centuries. The story follows a debt-ridden grandson who travels to Thailand in search of the “millionaire” grandfather who left during wartime and never returned — only to learn the man is long dead, and that the letters his grandmother received for decades were written by a stranger. Lan has said he spent three years interviewing more than 120 elderly Chaoshan residents, with most of the plot drawn from their accounts.
Thai actress Usha Seamkhum — the titular grandma of Thailand’s 2024 box office phenomenon How to Make Millions Before Grandma Dies, the country’s Oscar submission that year — makes a special appearance in the film, a nod to her own Teochew-Thai heritage.
Cedric Behrel, Trinity CineAsia’s managing director, called Dear You “one of the most remarkable box-office success stories to emerge from China in recent years,” saying the release would reach “the many Asian communities who have long awaited the opportunity to see their history and identity reflected on screen in such a meaningful way.”
For Trinity, the film joins a recent U.K. slate of Chinese titles that includes the global animation phenomenon Ne Zha 2, Zhang Yimou’s spy thriller Scare Out, Bi Gan’s Cannes prize winner Resurrection and the Jackie Chan actioner The Shadow’s Edge. The deal also extends the label’s relationship with Damai, the distributor formerly known as Alibaba Pictures, which begins the film’s wider international rollout on June 18 across Hong Kong, Macau, Singapore, Malaysia and Brunei, with North American and Australian dates expected to follow.
Original Article on Hollywood Reporter