Dear You Review: Identity and Integration in a Hidden Family History

Chinese historical drama Dear You’s original title translates more accurately to Love Letters to Grandma. Yet it’s been a long time since Iap Sogriu (Wu Shaoqing) has received that kind of mail. Instead, Lamgi – or Ama, as her grandson, Hiou-ui (Zheng Runqi), calls her – has quietly raised her family and tended olive trees in Shantou province of China’s southern coast. Those letters, all stored up in her attic, were actually remittance letters, or qiaopi, from her husband, Den Bhagseng, who was working in Thailand and sending cash back regularly to his family. The last mail she received was a baixin, a letter without money, in 1978. Normally sent as a notification of death, it’s received as an act of extraordinary cruelty: a photograph of a smiling Den with his new family in Thailand.

The setup implies this will be a tragicomic story with Hiou-ui searching for the now-wealthy grandfather who he has never met to help him pay off some debts. But it quickly shifts tone, with the idiotic and brash young man uncovering a reality that was far more complicated and touching than he or his family could possibly have known. It’s also a glimpse into the history of the region, told through another letter sent but never received. The contemporary opening becomes interwoven with what really happened to that missing husband (played as a young man by Wang Yantong) and the Thai-Chinese woman in the picture, Zia Lamgi (Li Sitong).

The resulting period piece is a surprisingly charming insight into the lives of men like Den caught in the Xia Nanyang, the great midcentury diaspora sparked by political turmoil, and especially the Teochew, the native people of the Chaoshan region whose language becomes a central thread to the story. Stuck in Bangkok in the 1950s after he fled conscription, Den must use the services of professional qiaopi writers to send his feelings and cash back to Iap, and this is what finally connects him to the abrasive and defensive Zia, who manages the run-down boarding house in which he rents a room.

When qiaopi scribe Di Gong (Chen Qinqin) talks about the Teochew word for longing, it’s almost a misdirection. This is not a story of romance but of a yearning for identity, of Den’s connection to his distant home and its culture. It’s also a story of racism and migration, with the Teochew pushed to the fringes of Thai social and political life for daring to keep a sense of self.

Co-written by director Lan Hongchun with Zheng Xuanxuan, Yang Leng, and Zhu Liyun, the script deals with the complexities of identity and migrant integration in subtle fashion. It’s in details like Den calling Thailand Siam – the “outsider’s” name for the nation – as much as it is in the governmental indifference towards and outright acts of violence against the Teochew community. It’s this theme that underlies and informs the real connection between Den, Zia, and, ultimately, Iap, but it’s definitely not restricted to the Teochew community. In the middle of the comedic notes and occasional bursts of mawkishness, Dear You will make you misty-eyed about the plight of economic migrants and political dissidents separated from hearth and home. The scenes in the qiaopi scribe’s office have been played out in America countless times, as laborers wire their wages back to their family with the briefest of notes attached. In these moments, Zia becomes the audience’s viewpoint into these little tragedies and moments of grace, and a tale of Teochew history becomes the story of us all. Best of all, it’s a reminder that these stories represent lives that bind us all closer together.

Dear You

2026, PG-13, 119 min. Directed by Lan Hongchun. Starring Li Sitong, Wang Yantong, Wu Shaoqing, Zheng Runqi, Wang Xiaohui.

⭐⭐⭐

Rating: 3 out of 5.

Find movie times.

The post Dear You Review: Identity and Integration in a Hidden Family History appeared first on The Austin Chronicle.