A low-budget Teochew dialect film just became China’s biggest box office dark horse of 2026

A low-budget Teochew dialect film just pulled off one of the wildest box office comebacks of the year.

Dear You, known in Chinese as Gei Ama De Qingshu or A Love Letter to Grandma, was made for around 14 million RMB and released on April 30 with only 1.6% of cinema screenings on its first day. Two weeks later, it had crossed 600 million RMB at the box office, scored 9.1 on Douban, and became the emotional black horse of China’s May Day movie season.

The film follows an 88-year-old grandma who has spent her life waiting for her husband, who left for Thailand in the 1940s to make a living. Her grandson later travels to Thailand and discovers the truth: her husband died decades ago, and the letters and money sent back home were actually from another woman who quietly kept his promise alive for 18 years.

At the heart of the story is qiaopi, a unique part of overseas Chinese history. These were letters sent by Chinese migrants back to their families, often together with money, making them both emotional lifelines and financial records. In 2013, qiaopi was added to UNESCO’s Memory of the World Register.

That cultural weight is a big reason the film broke out. It turns the history of Chinese migration to Southeast Asia and Teochew family memory into something deeply personal. With almost no flashy marketing, audiences became its promoters, sharing how the film reminded them of their own grandmothers, old family letters, and the kind of promises people used to carry for a lifetime. 🥲