It's cinema, not politics: Why Dear You deserves better

Editor's note: Wang Yan, a special commentator for CGTN, is an associate research fellow at the Beijing Foreign Studies University. The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect those of CGTN.

The most enduring bridges between nations are not built from steel and concrete, but from people's minds. The sleeper hit Dear You is such an example.

A modestly budgeted film with a mere 14 million yuan (about $2 billion) has become the biggest box office sensation of 2026 in China and has even claimed the Golden Seagull Award for Best Asian Art Film of the Year at the 2026 Asian Art Film Festival. Transcending its modest origins, the film offers a compelling case for cinema as a form of "bridge-building" – one that connects hearts across borders where political rhetoric often erects walls.

What makes this unassuming Chaoshan (Teochew)-dialect film so extraordinary is its essence. Directed by Lan Hongchun, a native of the Chaoshan (Teochew) region in southern China's Guangdong province, the film weaves its narrative around qiaopi letters – remittance letters exchanged between overseas Chinese in Southeast Asia and their families in China. The movie tells the story of a young boy who journeys to Southeast Asia to uncover the truth behind the letters his grandmother has been receiving for 18 years, eventually revealing that the letters were not written by her deceased husband, but by a woman he once helped. At its core, the movie is a story about honor, about promises kept across oceans, and about the quiet, unsung sacrifices that bind families together.  

The film's triumph lies not in spectacle but in sincerity – Lan spent three years researching and conducting interviews, visiting nearly 300 Chinese households across Southeast Asia, the Americas, and Europe to ground his story in truth. Over 90% of the plot is rooted in real-life accounts. There is no aggressive manipulation of emotion; only the quiet unfolding of lives lived with integrity. It makes a vessel for the human spirit, carrying the quiet dignity of ordinary people navigating extraordinary circumstances. In doing so, the film builds bridges that matter.

Yet not everyone welcomes such bridges. In an unfortunate departure from its usual balanced coverage, Singapore's Lianhe Zaobao newspaper recently published commentary that sought to politicize the film, attaching political labels and framing the film as a "united front work" – specifically, "the highest realm of united front work: reaching directly to the softest part of the heart, using emotion to complete the persuasion." The article also reminded Singaporean Chinese to maintain emotional distance from China, emphasizing a "hierarchy of identity": first Singaporean, then Singaporean Chinese, and finally, for example, native of southeast China's Fujian Province.

In other words, a story that has been rooted not in political maneuvering but in ordinary people's loyalty, compassion, and sacrifice has been dragged into the realm of political polemic.

What most audiences see as simple humanity, the Lianhe Zaobao commentary sees as a hidden political agenda. When cultural and artistic works are judged not on their human content but on political labels applied from the outside, something has gone wrong. And when a film that has moved millions of ordinary people across borders, generations, and dialects is dismissed as a tool of political strategy, this is not just a misunderstanding – it is a deliberate refusal to see cinema as a bridge rather than a battleground.

The irony deepens when one considers the subject matter. At the heart of the film is qiaopi, the letters and remittance documents sent by generations of overseas Chinese to their families back home. These records were inscribed on UNESCO's Memory of the World Register in 2013, recognizing them as part of humanity's shared documentary heritage – a testament to the courage and sacrifice of millions of Chinese laborers who crossed the seas to support their families. During World War II, these same letters carried messages calling for contributions to the War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression and donations to national salvation funds, as overseas Chinese gave whatever they could to support the resistance effort.

That history belongs to all of humanity. To call a film that honors that legacy a "united front work" is to impose a contemporary political label onto a heritage that transcends borders and generations.

Indeed, great cinema invites us to step into someone else's shoes, to feel what they feel, and to recognize the shared threads that run through all human lives. Dear You achieves precisely that.

For younger audiences, it offers a window into the sacrifices of their grandparents. For overseas Chinese communities, it offers a mirror. Malaysian Chinese students in China have said the film's dialects and customs echo the voices of their own grandmothers. Across Thailand, Malaysia, and Indonesia, the film has sparked spontaneous conversations about family history and cultural heritage. Far from threatening anyone's national identity, such reflections are a gift, deepening our understanding of who we are and where we come from.

The controversy surrounding this film reveals a deeper unease, one that has little to do with the film itself and everything to do with the anxieties that sometimes accompany cultural affinity. Rather than celebrate the fact that a small-budget film from China can move hearts across Southeast Asia, some have chosen to see it as something to fear. But fear is not a basis for cultural policy, and political labeling is not a substitute for honest criticism.

The film's director has often spoken about his inspiration: a desire to remember his grandmother who sailed from Chaoshan to Southeast Asia as a young woman and never returned home. Through its unfiltered depiction of familial bonds, the film naturally evokes a sense of cultural belonging – something no political maneuvering can erase.

Yet some observers, seemingly constrained by cultural ignorance and a lack of empathy, have chosen to view the film through a political lens, misreading a deeply human story as a political instrument.

Some might argue that cultural differences create barriers. But these examples demonstrate the opposite: the desire to understand one another, born from authentic human connection, is precisely what makes cross-cultural exchange both possible and fruitful. When a viewer cries over a grandmother waiting half a lifetime for letters that never came, she does not ask about the sender's nationality. She simply recognizes love, endurance, and sacrifice – human constants that require no translation.  

While political discourse operates through rational faculties – arguments, statistics, and strategic calculations – art speaks directly to the heart. It bypasses the defenses we erect around our preconceptions and touches something primal: our capacity for empathy, our recognition of shared vulnerability, our understanding that love, loss, and longing know no national boundaries.

This is why cinema matters. It matters not because of its box office numbers, though those are a useful indicator, but because of what those numbers represent: millions of individual acts of empathy. Each ticket purchased is a small vote for understanding over division. Each tear shed in a darkened theater is a reminder that beneath the surface of nationality and ideology lies something irreducible: the human heart.

Cultural works, at their best, do not drive people apart. They draw them together. Dear You is a shining testament to that truth. It is a film about ordinary people doing extraordinary things for love, and in that ordinariness, it finds the most extraordinary power of all: the power to make strangers recognize themselves in one another.

That recognition, that desire to know and be known, is the most precious foundation upon which relations between nations can be built. It is not the imposing diplomacy of treaties and trade agreements, but something far more enduring – the quiet, steady work of hearts learning to speak the same language. And as this humble film so beautifully demonstrates, cinema is one of the most eloquent translators we have.

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